The Youthful Advantage
Wikipedia, the everyman’s and woman’s encyclopedia, apparently fell victim to a 24 year old who claimed to be a tenured professor in Catholic law.
Commenting on the public reaction to the imposter, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was quoted in the New York Times that it was best for people not to think that the site was “written by a bunch of 12-year-olds.”
For a site that prides itself on its egalitarian approach to knowledge, I was surprised by the comment. Lying about your credentials is wrong; but given our culture's obsession with youth, he may be dissing the wrong age group.
From entertainment to advertising, it’s a young person’s game – literally. At 18, LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavalier basketball phenom created quite a stir bypassing college for the NBA. Quite impressive, until you consider Freddy Adu who was just 14 when he joined Major League Soccer’s DC United or Michelle Wie who made her first appearance in an LPGA major -- at the age of 13.
More proof. Fox Television recently debuted Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? -- where adults attempt to answer questions that any 10 year old should know. Care to bet on whom the producers are routing for?
It seems the race doesn’t go to the swiftest. It goes to the youngest – especially when it comes to technology. College students form companies in their dorm rooms, and our teenagers are our IT experts. We turn to them for help with our computers and cell phones. And it's teens and twenty-somethings that seem to have the most time and the inclination to embrace social media. Given how quickly we replace the latest gadgets and software packages, it is no wonder that longevity is not prized.
Where does that leave adults? I struggle for an answer. I ask my friends; they are stumped. In a society that values information and novelty, adults may be on the short end of the stick. Now if wisdom should ever make a comeback, we may have a chance.
At least in the short run, I can provide encouragement, offer direction and remain mildly amused at the younger generation’s desire to rush headlong into adulthood.
Let me get back to you.
Technorati Tags: Wikipedia; Jimmy Wales; Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader; Technology;
Commenting on the public reaction to the imposter, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was quoted in the New York Times that it was best for people not to think that the site was “written by a bunch of 12-year-olds.”
For a site that prides itself on its egalitarian approach to knowledge, I was surprised by the comment. Lying about your credentials is wrong; but given our culture's obsession with youth, he may be dissing the wrong age group.
From entertainment to advertising, it’s a young person’s game – literally. At 18, LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavalier basketball phenom created quite a stir bypassing college for the NBA. Quite impressive, until you consider Freddy Adu who was just 14 when he joined Major League Soccer’s DC United or Michelle Wie who made her first appearance in an LPGA major -- at the age of 13.
More proof. Fox Television recently debuted Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? -- where adults attempt to answer questions that any 10 year old should know. Care to bet on whom the producers are routing for?
It seems the race doesn’t go to the swiftest. It goes to the youngest – especially when it comes to technology. College students form companies in their dorm rooms, and our teenagers are our IT experts. We turn to them for help with our computers and cell phones. And it's teens and twenty-somethings that seem to have the most time and the inclination to embrace social media. Given how quickly we replace the latest gadgets and software packages, it is no wonder that longevity is not prized.
Where does that leave adults? I struggle for an answer. I ask my friends; they are stumped. In a society that values information and novelty, adults may be on the short end of the stick. Now if wisdom should ever make a comeback, we may have a chance.
At least in the short run, I can provide encouragement, offer direction and remain mildly amused at the younger generation’s desire to rush headlong into adulthood.
Let me get back to you.
Technorati Tags: Wikipedia; Jimmy Wales; Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader; Technology;
On one level, youth aren't hung up by established mental models as adults are. This combined with the fact that youth are socialized to be at a learning stage in their life (not to mention the neural basis for this), the fact that the internet enables them to connect and serve as their predominant social space leads to their attention and therefore learning to occur around that space.
Adults are slower to pick up on the rules of these social spaces due to their lack of attention economy. This leads to a demand for knowledgeable workers, which leads to money and tech jobs going increasingly towards the youth. Another example of money following the attention economy.
In response to your question, I see this leaving adults on the short end of the stick as well unless there's an institutional response. There needs to be a movement towards more learning processes within organizations where individual growth is encouraged. Otherwise, the industrial revolution mentality of work being strictly defined as a core set of activities that doesn't change will continue to hold people back. (Comment this)
But, to answer your question about where this leaves adults: It's an adult's responsibility to use one's wisdom, knowledge and experience to maintain a sense of stability through any type of revolution or transition -- business or otherwise.
The economic reality is that Generation X (now age 30-42) is the least populated generation right now. There are exponentially more Boomers and Yers, and because of their spending power, that's who's being targeted in the consumer world. I don't know about you, but I enjoy not being targeted because I believe it makes buying decisions and media/entertainment consumption a hell of a lot easier and more genuine.
But to think that adults on the whole are being left out of the equation is a mistake. What we have is power, stability, strength, experience, confidence and security. We vote in greater numbers. We are elected in greater numbers. We call the shots organizationally, and we are the ones manipulating the young, not the other way around. To think that the young have all the power and glory is misleading.
As any of us moves forward in life, we may get a tinge of jealousy that the young get to revel in all these choices that past generations never had. However, talk to any therapist who works with people below the age of 25 and he or she will tell you that there are big problems on the horizon. And, expert research shows that this prevelance of myriad choices has already begun to backfire because when presented with too many options about anything in life, most people become paralyzed. And it's worse the younger you are. Compound that with our current generation of helicopter parents whose children can't make a decision on anything because they don't know how to process the information in order to make a decision because they aren't being taught or nurtured in a way that allows them to try something, make a mistake, learn from it and try something else.
Some may say the race goes to the swift, but who wants to be the first one crossing the finish line with nothing to show for it but rampant anxiety and the inability to function beyond the emotional maturity of a 14-year old?
I'll just sit back and watch, thanks. Life is good on the other side of 30. Pass the sauvignon blanc. (Comment this)