The Web is no longer about idly surfing and passively reading, listening or watching. It’s about peering: sharing, socializing, collaborating, and creating within loosely connected communities. For instance from Facebook to MySpace.
All generations in developed countries use the Web. For example, have time to spend and new motives for going online – communicating with their children/grandchildren abroad. However, a new generation of youngsters has grown up online, and they are bringing a new ethic of openness, participation, and interactivity to workplaces, communities and markets. For this reason, they merit special investigation. They represent the new breed of workers, learners, consumers and citizens. It’s the first generation of youngsters to be socialized in an age of digital technologies and becoming leaders that rule the twenty first century. Preferably named this group Net Generation, it’s the first generation to grow up in the digital age and makes them a force for collaboration.
The vast majority of North American adolescents know how to use a computer, and almost 90 percent of teenagers in America say they use the Net. The same is true in a growing number of countries around the world. Indeed, there are more youngsters who use the Net in China than there are in the United States. This is the collaboration generation for one main reason: unlike their parents who watched 24hours of television per week, these youngsters are growing up interacting.
Rather than being passive recipients of mass consumer culture, the Net Gen spend time searching, reading, scrutinizing, authenticating, collaborating and organizing. The Internet makes life an ongoing, massive collaboration and this generation loves it.
They typically can’t imagine a life where there is no tools that can constantly think critically, exchange views, challenge, authenticate, verify or debunk. While their parents were passive consumers of media, youth today are active creators of media content and hungry for interaction.
Today young people are authorities on the digital revolution that is changing every institution in society.
There is another good reference that I spotted today while I read through New York Times Online.
MTV has been bringing together eclectic groups of young adults to live together in loftlike spaces on the series “The Real World.” Now, with the backing of a major technology marketer, the network has gathered 16 youthful creative types in a loft in Brooklyn for a contest that can be watched on TV or online.
MTV and its mtvU channel, which is aimed at college and university students, will join forces with Hewlett-Packard to present “Engine Room,” an original series that will follow the 16 contestants, divided into four teams, as they produce digital art using PCs, work stations, monitors and other products sold by H.P.
Episodes of “Engine Room” run from five to seven minutes each, and the series is scheduled to last seven weeks. At the end, one team will win prizes that include $400,000 in cash and a chance to program the giant MTV screen in Times Square for a night.
“Engine Room” follows a previous video series that H.P. sponsored with MTV, called “Meet or Delete.” It also comes after a video series for the back-to-school season, “Dorm Storm,” presented by Hewlett-Packard in partnership with Broadband Enterprises, an online video producer and distributor.
Those series are indicative of the increasing interest in video campaigns among large marketers, particularly to reach younger consumers who have demonstrated a willingness to watch clips on their computers, cellphones and other mobile devices.
Almost 2,000 people from 122 countries submitted more than 20,000 original artworks to earn a chance to take part in the contest.
The teams of contestants are divided by the regions they come from: Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. They are visited during the competition by guests like the musician Moby; Kevin Smith, the movie director; and the British pop band the Ting Tings.
