I finally have time to write down my thoughts about this lecture I attended at the ARL Institute, on January 17-21 in Seattle, Washington. The talk was given by Joan K. Lippincott, Coalition for Networked Information; it was entitled Net Gen Students: Learning, Technology and Libraries.
The focus was on educating librarians working in academic/research libraries on the population called Net Gen Students. According to Lippincott they will the next upcoming demographic population that will be encountered by librarians, especially those who work with students in the future.
According to the handout I got from the lecture, Net Gen Students have the following characteristics:
-Born 1982-1991.
-Grew up with computers and other media at home and in school form earliest ages.
-Never were tether to communications in a place.
Other names for Net Gens: Millennials, Digital Native, Gen Y, DotNets (Pew Internet and American Life).
Characteristics of Net Gen Students:
-Always connected, multi-tasking.
-Oriented to working in groups.
-Experiential learners.
-Visual.
-Producers as well as consumers.
-Students are disproportionately likely to be (Internet) content creators (Content Creation Online, 2004, Pew Internet and American Life).
As I thought about how did Net Gen Students come to have all those features that, I realized that the lecture didn’t go into depth about the origins of the Net Gens. Therefore I decided to look further the subject.
I started with Joan’s link at: http://www.educause.edu/NetGenerationStudentsandLibraries/6067.
Which lead to the ebook Educating the Net Generation, available at:
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666&ID=pub7101. I found this to be a neat resource on Net Gen Students. I skimmed Joan’s article, and found that it added details of the lecture she did ARL Institute.
If you want to look at Joan’s Power Point Lecture then try the following address:
http://www.cni.org/staff/joan-pres/2006/umd0603.Lippincott.pdf
However, this Power point was from a different lecture she gave at January ARL 2007. The information is essentially the same.
One thing that stuck out for me was how different and similar the Net Gen profile was from a person like me. I use computers everyday in my life some of the technology like Net Gen do.
However, I don’t use the greater amount and variety that they do. I don’t IM, my MySpace account has been unused for years, and I have been considering what WEB 2.0 tool I would like to try.
It seems that a Net Gen type person has a different view on internet and tech life. Both aspects seem pervasive and are naturally integrated into everyday life. For myself it is not as pervasive or as naturally integrated.
There is a good article by Diana Oblinger (EDUCAUSE) and James Oblinger (North Carolina State University) entitled Is It Age or IT: First Steps Toward Understanding the Net Generation, available at-
http://www.educause.edu/IsItAgeorIT%3AFirstStepsTowardUnderstandingtheNetGeneration/6058
I highly recommend it for an overview on topic!
In the article they have a chart of the different generations. I myself am a Gen X person.
"Generation X
Born 1965–1982
Description-Latchkey generation
Likes-Independent, Skeptical, Freedom, Multitasking, Work-life balance
Dislikes-Red tape, Hype.
Net Generation
Born 1982–1991
Description-Millennials Hopeful, Determined
Likes-Public activism, Latest technology, Parents
Dislikes-Anything slow, Negativity.
Few generalizations are entirely correct. However, generalizations—such as those about generations—highlight trends. Today's generations can be described as follows.39
Other attributes show generational trends as well (for example, attitude toward changing jobs or locus of community). One of the most striking attributes is the attitude toward the Internet. For the Net Gen, the Internet is like oxygen; they can't imagine being able to live without it.40"
I can see why there would be a difference. If Net Gen supposedly views the Internet as can’t image being without it, I can go days without the Internet and not feel deprived.
I am sure there are more comparisons. What do you think?
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4 comments:
Thanks, for all the information and links to various articles on Net Gen Students. I am also in "Generation X" but deal with Net Gen students. I agree that this generation "live on" and "with" the Internet. This is exactly the reason I need to understand and know what is out there and being used.
I keep thinking about one of my favorite YA books, Feed, by M.T, Anderson. It's set in the not-too-distant future, when most people are linked directly to the internet through a microchip in their heads, and are constantly provided with feeds.
Your comment about the internet being like oxygen to today's teens reminded me of this passage.
When the feed is disrupted, the main character muses, "I don't know when they first had feeds. Like mayber, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe."
I enjoyed your Next Gen post and links. Millenials in my library are net obsessed and content creators. They are plugged into laptops all the time and their IPODs. Students want instruction once on the databases and then they want to be able to explore them on their own. Their expertise may surpass librarians. We must be careful not to let it and to always keep up with the tech trends.
Good content and comments! This is avery useful posts for discussions about what future libraries and librarians should offer.
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