Technology feeds

... I stumbled upon a fascinating story tonight in The New York Times -- thanks to a student's Twitter feed -- about the ways our ever-changing technology is creating mini-generation gaps ...

It blows my mind to think what Phoebe's world will look like in 5, 10, 25 years ... She's 21 months old now and already she know all about "Daddy's 'puter." She knows how to turn on the iPod and the DVD player. She begs to see the picture on the digital camera after we take a snapshot. And she scampers to answer our cell phones every time one of them rings -- all things that seemed nearly uninmaginable when Kates and I were her age ...

Remember how we used to to write letters? We dialed a few numbers on a rotary telephone or we actually walked across the street to our friends' houses. Now, even e-mail is getting dated as more of us communicate through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and text messaging ...

The world is moving faster. And if you don't adapt, you're going to be lost; you won't survive. That whole adaption thing is coming up a lot in my life lately.

In a conversation with my mother over the weekend, even she raised the notion of booking her own Facebook account -- something I thought I would never sway her to do, and while most children would blush to hear their parents say such a thing, I was secretly thrilled. ... In another example, my colleague Tim, who's in his mid-50s told us a story today about confronting a student he passed on a computer. When he saw the girl using Facebook, he boldy told her, "Hey, I'm on Facebook, too!" When the girl laughed and said, "No, you're not!" Tim said "I am, too!" He then proved it, and made the girl be his Facebook friend ...

I'm getting away from the point of the Times story ...

Writes the author ...

Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea.

My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.

Read on ...