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Hey Kids -- Remember When There Was No Net? The Youth Of America's Answer: No

Back when I was a kid, there was no Internet. My fourth grade classroom had one spinach-green Apple computer, and it was primarily used to play The Oregon Trail (remember -- you had to survive as family and adjust your pioneering strategy when Keion broke her arm or Craig came down with Cholera). Even during my high school years, the Internet was just barely coming into its own as the ubiquitous, omnipresent, everyday life-tool that it is today.

For kids growing up today, the Net is an afterthought. It's like television or automobiles -- the Internet just doesn't seem all that innovative cuz it's everywhere. Kids who grew up with the Net as infants have formed drastically different methods of socializing, learning and having fun.

The Biggest Generation Gap Of All Time

The Frontline documentary made the point that the advent of the Internet has created the biggest generation gap of all time. With the development of online gaming, social networking sites and answers to every question available at the click of a button, today's young'uns have developed attention spans that are way shorter than Matty.

So what does all this mean? We all know that things change, people change, hairstyles change and interest rates fluctuate. Why is it so important to take note of the fact that the youth of America is developing in a brave new world?

Look, technology will continue to advance -- this is no secret. But it's essential that those of us who remember the days before the Net keep pace with the new values, identities and methods of interactivity that are being carved out of the 21st Century virtual landscape. We have to follow the development of this new generation of Internet users, because they are actively shaping the future of the web.

So make every effort to bridge the generation gap. Try to understand that the kids of today have already developed in a world that's radically different from the one inhabited by the kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s.

If you want to understand how web consumers of the future will act, you have to appreciate just how unique this latest generation of kids really is.

--Chris Stout