Lift10 notes on the Generations and Technologies session

Lift10 took place in Geneva from May 5-7. The group of students that won free passes offered by the City of Geneva to participate in Lift are blogging their notes and insights from Lift10...

Sandra Davila shares her thoughts about the session on Generations and Technologies (edited by Sachin Gaur)

How will longevity affect technology usage? Is there an imaginary border between digital natives and digital immigrants? What is a 20 years old perspective on how technology affects his generation? These are some of the issues discussed during the session of Generations and Technology.

Prospects for defeating aging altogether

The first talk by Aubrey de Grey from the SENS foundation discusses the human causes of death and the progress made in postponing it. In brief his presentation argued that with molecular and cellular repair humans would be living in average 30 years more. How? You can go ahead and read Mr. Aubrys book:

Doomed to be forever young? A social archaeology of the 'digital natives'

Antonio Casilli's talk argues that terms like natives and immigrants have stretched a border between two imaginary generations. Casilli is a sociologist that does a semiotic analysis on how the occidental society interacts with computers. Below I share some remarks and concepts relevant to his presentation:

* Reterritorialization. - The expansion of the spaces that computers take in the home.

* Miniaturization. - The effect of computers becoming smaller.

* The young boy was associated with technology since early stage of introduction of technology.

* Computers have being targeted to younger audiences for economical, political and cultural reasons.

o Economical: Younger generations buy high added value services.

o Cultural: Technology changes our perception of time.

o Political: It echoes a general climate of ageism.

In conclusion the divide between digital immigrants and natives reproduces the same forms of social exclusions.

How and why is the current generation staying connected?

Finally Julian Zbar presented his opinion on how his generation interacts with technology. Important remarks shared by Julian about "his generation" were:

* They expect to get information and entertainment for free and everywhere. Though he is aware that this model can't sustain itself, other members of his generation are not.

* Connectivity is no longer a luxury is a necessity. Being connected is what is most important.

* Short attention span.

* They don't want to be bored; they are searching for things to do. They are never doing anything. He compares his generation with Inspector Gadget; a young adult will always have something a piece of software/technology to entertain him/her.

* They move fast to the next things.

* They don't like to choose; if it's of not interest they move on to the next thing.

* He describes Facebook as everybody summary of his or her lies and presents is in headline form. He compares is it to being a paparazzi.

* Is not “facebook” that is important but what that they can find all their networks there?

* Technology is no longer confined to geeks.

Julian’s perspective was compromised because of his privileged background, and the lack of recognition of his own bias towards his generation. This said I believe he contributed important remarks of how younger generations see the Internet. For example the encrusted perception that content in the web is free.

How will the current paradigm shift with the expansion of human life span? As we go on with the dichotomy between native and immigrants, asking this question takes importance. Change will happen and we see it more and more as older generations “catch up” to the digital transformation. In conclusion the three conferences shared meaningful insights of how should we consider generations in the design for the web.