the Wikinomic Generation

Don Tapscott is a bit of a "paradigm evangelist", which puts him in the business of perpetually declaring that everything is undergoing revolutionary change.

He does have some interesting ideas sometimes.  But to some extent I get a bit weary of this "old people try to figure out young people" stuff.  The young people can type too you know.  Why not have them report on themselves?

There's an article in the Post today, Net Generation 'wired' differently.

They value freedom This includes freedom of choice and of scheduling. For instance, some 42% do not watch television live but pre-tape to watch shows when it suits them.

"Primetime is now MyTime or AnyTime," he said. They also value the freedom to customize, mixing video, music and other content for their own use or to send to others.

They are scrutinizers "They have developed online and media BS detectors about everything. If they are on a social site they must determine whether the person contacting them is really a girl, a boy or a predator or their parent checking up on them?"

This is also why they rely on Jon Stewart or Web sites for news and information rather than the mainstream media.

I'm not sure this is necessarily Net Generation stuff.  Hardly anyone I know watches TV with the Real Timers any more, and we're all way past 30.  (Plus which "pre-tape"?  What's a tape?)  Many people are not just time-shifting, they are season-shifting, as they discover that two-or-three episodes on DVD a night with no commercials is a much more efficient and satisfying way to manage television.

I think it's important to understand that a huge amount of the "Internet transformation" stuff translates simply into: people are watching less TV, and in particular, they're doing everything possible to escape commercials, and to watch it according to their schedule.  This has marketers going mad, because there are literally billions of dollars of business done every year based on (in particular) selling free-spending American teen eyeballs to advertisers, and the eyeballs aren't watching TV in the same way.  MySpace, Second Life, and so forth: it's all a mad rush to find places where that vital service of telling teens what to consume can be performed.

I'm not sure "changes in general media consumption trends" translates into "revolutionary re-organizing of generational thought paradigms" but anyway...

Tapscott has a new book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

I suppose "some things may be changing although most of the technology is only 5 years old at most, so no one really knows exactly what it all means" would not have been as compelling a title.

Gratuitous Amazon linkery

Wikipedia - Book Sources - ISBN 1591841380

Previously:
June 06, 2005  blogging of Tapscott's keynote at SLA 2005