Generational Use of Technology
Ok. So you know your teenagers are on the internet more than you are. But do you realize the fundamental ways in which their generation thinks about and relies on technology? It isn’t just a matter of hours logged on the net.
Check out this Barna Update.
Here are some conclusions at the end of the update. Note especially #3.
1. Even though young people are sometimes called the “Net Generation,” every age segment is becoming dependent on the Internet. In fact, because Boomers and Busters represent about two-thirds of the adult population, they are far more numerous users of technology than are adults under the age of 25. For instance, the majority of online purchases are made by those between the age of 30 and 55. And many of the bloggers, music downloaders and users of social networking websites are from the Boomer and Buster cohorts.
2. Still, despite the preponderance of middle-age technology users, the nation’s youngest adults (Mosaics) are light-years ahead in their personal integration of these technologies, even blazing beyond the comfort of Busters. While Busters differ dramatically from their predecessors, Mosaics are even further down the path of integrating technologies into their lifestyles. On effect of this is that younger adults do not think of themselves as consumers of content; for better and for worse, they consider themselves to be content creators.
3. All Americans are increasingly dependent on new digital technologies to acquire entertainment, products, content, information and stimulation. However, older adults tend to use technology for information and convenience. Younger adults rely on technology to facilitate their search for meaning and connection. These technologies have begun to rewire the ways in which people – especially the young – meet, express themselves, use content and stay connected.
4. For church leaders, it is notable that a minority of churchgoing Mosaics and Busters are accessing their congregation’s podcasts and website. While technology keeps progressing and penetrating every aspect of life, churches have to work hard to keep pace with the way people access and use content, while also instructing churchgoers on the potency of electronic tools and techniques.
5. Since technology is pervasive, many of the age-old questions about human development and human flourishing are taking on new dimension. How does technology help or hinder communication, or for that matter, relationships between the generations? Are social skills better or worse? Are reading and writing skills improving or not? And what does adequate preparation for tomorrow’s workforce look like? Educators, parents, youthworkers and other leaders must continually fine-tune their responses to these issues.
We have noticed that most of our visitors come after seeing our website. These are all ages, both churched and unchurched. The startling thing is that they say ours is the only up-to-date page in our town. Churches need to catch on!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – 90% of kids ages 12-20 carry on text conversations as they interact through the day – and I think that has impact on how a kid’s brain works and reacts. It’s not uncommon for a kid to send 500 text messages through a given week – including church, sleep, school, etc. Many kids literally cannot go 10 seconds without glancing at their phone. IMO – the number 1 reason why kids don’t want to go to camp is not because of other committments – it’s because they might have to leave their cell phone at the door. Draw your own conclusions from this.
“… younger adults do not think of themselves as consumers of content; for better and for worse, they consider themselves to be content creators.”
Content creators = culture makers. They’re not simply consuming culture – they’re creating it themselves.
Interesting concept, eh?
I see a lot of church leaders who are doing a good job of this as well – this blog here is a good example of that.
Most church websites are woefully lacking. I think you are almost better off without a website than to have a poor one.
If we (the chruch) do not take advantage of the techie stuff available to us we will wish we had eventually.
Royce
The questions in Conclusion #5 have been largely answered already, if not formally, at least anecdotally.
Neil Postman has urged us – convincingly, I think – to beware of reframing our cultural institutions by adopting the Weberan assumptions of technology. But we simply won’t listen to a prophetic voice. Technology is too seductive.
qb
qb, you Luddite, you. (Actually, thanks for the reference to Postman. I was first introduced to him in Amusing Ourselves to Death — still an important work, I think.)
I am technically savvy but not planning to buy or allow my kids to carry cellphones. If I do it will probably be the kind that can only call me in an emergency. Do you think that is wrong? Will this prevent my kids from developing with their peers in healthy ways?
My opinion – after the age of say, 12 or 13, keeping them from cellphones can do more harm than good, in the sense of relationships (not just friends, but with you as a parent). Like anything else, have certain rules to abide by, but overall, teach them the manners needed for proper use.
I have an in-law nephew of sorts who can text without looking. He looks at his screen and then drops his hand and texts a reply while he’s looking at something else. He claims that his messages are near perfect and I think he’s right. Is this common?
I don’t understand how teenagers without cellphones could be a bad thing.
Re. the quality of written communication: I’ve had students respond to a short-answer question as though they were IMing me.
This Luddite posted his qbian Polemic Lite [TM] from a Mac Pro with twin 24″ers while recharging his iPhone 3G!
qb
Ha! Just wanted to give you a chance to respond. Luddite charge removed.
We must embrace technology in order to keep our young people and draw in their friends. Most young people can respond to text messages without looking at the phone, its like when you get really good at typing and you don’t have to look at the keyboard.
Many people fear a watering down of content by embracing technology but that does not have to be true. Without trying to get into a political debate, look at the campaign success of Obama. His people used technology like never before, email, text messages, facebook, etc. The result was a new wave of engaged voters who had previously checked out of the system. Many of the young people I talked to had a fairly good grasp on the issues, or at least what they were hearing from that side. The record fundraising numbers were greatly attributed to the use of technology. McCain was viewed as old and out of date because of his campaign’s lack of technological innovation.
Again, I am not trying to argue politics, but use this as an example to show that our younger generations are programmed differently, (0-40 years old), and that in this example they clearly respond when engaged at a level they are comfortable with.
When I get up and speak sunday mornings within 10 minutes its natural for most to be tuning out. They are in class all week, listen to parents, but they get home and they have tv, internet, their cell phones, communicating in many different ways all at the same time.
However, when I play a video, all their heads look up and they become engaged, because that is how they have been programmed by society. They remember best the messages from the videos. Often times something will spark in them from a video and they will come to me with a question, then we open the bible, and their appetite is whetted for more of God’s word.
Truth and God’s word remain the same, all that changes is the medium. Just as schools have gone from slate chalk boards, to Big Chief tablets, to ruled paper, to computers, so we as church must change our medium to communicate effectively God’s love to the younger generation.
Oh and no you kid will not be socially awkward if you don’t let them have a cell phone til your 18. In fact, they would probably be better off, and so would your wallet.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (Will Shakespeare)
Surely 98% of texting is words without (much) thought.
Technology is very good and has helped us in so many ways. My concern is in losing the ablity to listen . Someone made the comment in a recent class that adults need a break every 15 minutes. If that is true then where are we headed. Will we eventually have to shorten sermons to just 15 minutes and during that time use power point, show movie clips, tell many stories , several jokes and maybe a scripture or two ? Just wondering.
Ray B., we already do those things.
The idea that technology is neutral is a destructive myth. For an extended exposition of the piont, see Neil Postman’s _Technopoly_, and ponder it deeply.
Technopoly easily and naturally metastasizes into a marketing-based, business-oriented pursuit of hegemony. Further, our churches have decided that even if it’s a cancer, it’s inoperable, so we might as well make the most of it. The results are already in: cults of personality around CEOs, who are all too eager to express their conferred authority in hierarchical forms appropriate to the hegemonic drive.
Philip Kenneson should have commanded much more attention than he did upon publishing _Selling Out the Church_. It’s too bad that he didn’t.
But qb’s not bitter about it.
qb
In the most basic sense the role of parents and the church is to raise kids. As Christians we are called to bring up our kids knowing and fearing God. The trick in this is we can no raise them up in a clean room. Nor can we force our kids to always live inside our protected walls. We have to understand technology/world so that we can model a life that shows appropriate boundaries with all elements. Ranging from texting, movies, cars, books, even microwaves. We cant sheild them, we have to model it.
Meaning church should be the place where technology is fully understood…not merrily copied.
So the method becomes more important than the message. The method becomes hegemonic. Or , no , but you cannot get anyone today to give you any attention without the use of several forms of technology. A suggested alternative : a man who stands and preaches a text and disciples , real learners , hungry for the living and abiding word ( relevant ) . “Through the foolishness of what was preached.”
the method is the message
Back to the original theme. The internet has been destructive against formal traditional organized religion. Example is the Internet provides immediate fairly accurate info which is sometimes contradictory to what is presented in fundamentalist church. So if one hears that the churches of Christ were started on Pentecost AD 33 and then goes to Wikipedia and finds that without Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone there would be no church buildings in the United States with church of Christ on the sign outside then there is doubt and mistrust created in the mind. Emerging generations verify everything that is taught every claim to truth. It is just innate to our sociology. The internet is simply one thing that has assisted the emerging generations in their search for truth. Many people have come to faith through the internet. It is neither inherently bad nor good, but has the capacity for both, it simply a part of our society. The more we (churches) resist technology out of fear and ignorance the greater negative image we will have of hypocrisy. Just think of the Amish they won’t own a car but they will hitch a ride with anybody because cars are technology and therefore bad.
Joe, have any of your kids’ friends ever done their term papers using the internet (e. g., Wikipedia) as their primary reference?
So much for this generation’s “verify[ing] everything that is taught [sic] every claim to truth.”
Those of you who still maintain that technology is a morally neutral force really need to spend some quality time with Neil Postman and give him a chance to persuade you otherwise. qb used to think technology was “just a tool,” too. But ’tain’t so. And ’tain’t never been so, since the beginning of time.
qb
I guess the wheel, the plow, the water pump, the x-ray machine, the printing press, the light bulb, all of these “tools” are not morally neutral and therefore must be put away? That sounds a little head in the sandish to me, that if we just ignore it, it will all go away.
qb has Kyle curious. qb’s position seems head-in-the-sandish but this doesn’t jive with most of qb’s well thought out positions. Kyle may give Techopoly a read.
Caleb: with all due respect, who is talking about ignoring it? qb – and Postman, long before – is asking the church to quit pretending that it’s morally neutral and embracing it with little more than passing reflection. (It is no accident of evolution that our children’s attention spans, averaged societally, are decreasing.)
Dallas Willard once pionted out something well worth pondering: the proportion of major technological advances that originated in military R&D. (Consider the origin of the internet, for example. Unintended consequences: al Qaeda now uses it aggressively to recruit nameless, faceless young people to blow us up.)
Some years back, qb was elected chairman of our Sunday morning Bible class, which consisted of about 90 people. Keeping up with the lives of so many people was a real “chore” (qb shudders to admit). A buddy and I knew of a crack database programmer in the class, whom we asked to develop a custom-designed DB to help us “manage” our “membership” more “effectively.” Sounded like a great idea at the time. It became clear over a period of weeks that a database/e-mail/web application was just a cheap substitute for face-to-face, pastoral attention. None of us is old enough to be elders, but we fancied ourselves “shepherds-in-training.” Perhaps it’s anachronistic to superpose this modern idea on Jesus, but in John 10, Jesus tells us that a good shepherd knows his sheep individually and is known and recognized by them. It was a marvelous epiphany despite the shame that it engendered in me: there is no substitute, technological or otherwise, for the touch Jesus extends to the leper or the weeping prostitute.
Nearly all technology is intended to help us live more efficiently, accomplish things without interacting too much with people, etc. Of course, nobody is saying that technology is an unmitigated disaster; [it is insufferably banal to observe that] many good things have emerged from technological R&D. But the modern assumption – in operational, cultural terms, if not everyone’s individual conviction – is that if the culture evolves to accommodate and then embrace a certain technology, our institutions must follow suit in order to be “relevant.” That necessarily leaves us without a prophetic stance. And anyone in our churches who dares to question the Weberan assumptions and technology-driven self-conception of the church is immediately shouted down as an ostrich who wishes to drag the church by the hair back into the “good ol’ days.”
Used to be we complained about being identified as a number. Now we gladly embrace it, except instead of being Social Security numbers, we’re IP addresses. Is it any wonder we misunderstand each other so easily?
It is instructive to consider this question whenever we’re tempted to adopt a new way of doing things: “What must I believe in order to accept this as a `better way?’” If we are honest with ourselves, and if we are ruthlessly critical of our own thinking, qb thinks we’ll often find that we often have to accept some rather dubious propositions, papering over the inconvenient truths buried in them.
qb
Here’s a closely related proposition for our collective reflection and evaluation:
“Personal merit is best established by competition.”
qb
qb,
Well spoken thoughts there. While I am technologically capable and generally inclined to use more technology as a solution to communication/shepherding, I do relish the idea of a reversion in technology. I wince at the thought of how my kids may end up “communicating”. I wish that my church family had time to spend together. I wish that the small minority who does come on Wednesday nights wasn’t so exhausted that we could have more meaningful fellowship. But in reality, the weekly impersonal emails to our bible class/life group/social network seem to be better than nothing. And to many folks, the mere mention of resisting technology means that you are stuck in your ways and just not willing to change. I find it very difficult to break through that perception.
Thanks for the thoughts. I will be chewing on these for a while.
Kyle, a most generous response. And it’s tempting to despair. qb simply hopes that a critical mass of us, though not having many serviceable solutions, would be willing to raise the questions audibly and persistently enough that eventually we get around to a conversation about them when technological changes come up in our churches. If we never entertain the possibility that we’re assuming some dubitable things, we’re not likely ever to come up with solutions.
Contra Caleb, qb is tempted to suggest that those who have sold their souls for technology may be more ostrichian than the Luddite-appearing, cantankerous class. We reap where we sow!
Cheerfully,
qb
qb
Your more fully explained thoughts help me understand your position. Your first statement seemed to eschew all technology as evil. I clearly see your point about how technology has caused us troubles, especially when we thoughtlessly assimilate it into the church. So much of it CAN be used for good. This blog for example sparks an exchange of ideas, prayer requests, and encouragement across the nation and world that might not other wise happen.
I too bemoan the fact that our kids have a shorter attention span. But what can we as the church do to combat it? Of course I believe we can help teach them to take time to pray, to meditate, to be alone with God. But I also believe that disciplines like that come after one has grasped the gospel message. Because our kids, and many of the younger generations are tuned into technology, why not meet them there? We don’t have to remain there with them, but like Paul, we need to meet them in the marketplace. Videos, podcasts, blogs are becoming a daily part of peoples lives; just like Paul Harvey, Walter Cronkite, and the Dallas Herald were daily parts of the lives of my father. We can and must preach the same message, we are just changing the medium.
Caleb, I don’t think I’ve used the word “evil.” In fact, the good/evil dualism is not terribly helpful for categorizing the phenomena we’re considering. It’s too charged; it lumps us into unwieldy groups; and it polarizes us
The main piont is that “just changing the medium” must not be understood to be morally neutral. It imposes a moral trajectory, or perhaps better, it steers the trajectory in a morally consequential direction and superposes a distinct set of boundaries on the moral choices we will have available to us.
(Note well: we cannot now conceive, easily anyway, of a church family that is not constrained by the technology choices it/we made 5-10 years ago. Some things are now part of the furniture, although at the time we didn’t give them much thought in that way. Those choices started out appearing to us as purely pragmatic options, and now they help to define how we think of ourselves… tacitly, perhaps, but no less truly.)
Let’s back up and use a different example. Many people today decry the incredible scale of our government’s planned outlays. Still, there are meritorious arguments to be made on the individual items such as earmarks and tax changes. But what the current appropriations bills are doing in terms of debt and politics and all of that pales in contrast to the structural changes being wrought in our citizens’ understanding of the federal government and its role in our daily lives. And precisely because some have succeeded in casting our plight as an emergency, we did not “waste” a lot of time thinking about and debating what long-term, structural and institutional results might obtain.
The best example I can come up with to illustrate this in the Sunday morning assembly is the now-ubiquitous (and equally banal) feature known as the countdown clock, which many churches now use in their pre-assembly PowerPoint loop to herd the sheep into the corral for their hour of religious programming. It is a paradigmatic symptom of a culture ruled by the clock, by the computer, by the visual, by the stylish, by the clever…in fact, there are too many subtexts to list. Sure, it looks innocent enough, and by itself, perhaps we could be excused for ignoring it. But these things insinuate themselves into our self-conception (a) because they’re “cool” and (b) because they’re useful in some superficial, Weberan sense. We seem incapable of inquiring as to what destructive trends they mirror, reinforce, and (perhaps most tragically) simply assume.
qb
qb ,
Thank you so much. You are so correct. As to our youth having a problem with the ability with attention , we do not have to give in to the cultural excuse that , oh , well , that is the way it is. I think of what is happening at Grace Community Church in LA , one of the entertainment centers of the world. Their preacher preaches meaty , in depth, doctrianlly centered sermons every Sunday , am and pm. There are 10,000 who attend. His sermons are never less that 45 minutes and he does not use Powerpoint , uses few illustrations and speaks about bringing the 21st century into the culture of the 1st century. And their greatest growth, boomimg growth , is in the 20- 40 year old age group. But that is just one example . There is a great number of people who are really hungry for the systematic expositon of the scripture. The power is still in the word and the way we do it is in teaching and preaching. A teacher , a preacher who communicates the scriptures to those who want to listen. Not all the youth and young adults of the world are into the hip hop way of worship and learning. Some are exhausted by all the shallow noise and dumbing down. They are ready for some serious honest searching of the scriptures. We should be making disciples.