We've all heard the stories of babies under the age of one 'swiping' books with a look of confusion because they don't understand what a book is, they're used to an iPad. Or watched fascinated as a toddler 'just knows' how to disconnect the cables from the DVD player to reconnect the Playstation. The age of the internet and the computer is upon us, most things carry some sort of technology, even if it's just a hidden barcode. "Where will it all end" seems to be the lament of the older generations, "when I were a lad, I had a hoop and a stick and I were grateful"...yes, but try to wrestle the iPad from Grandpa's surprisingly tight grip is these days quite a challenge!
Should we assimilate...?
We, as leaders of Techno Ninjas, are of the generation born and raised before the invention of the internet and the world wide web, so we are digital immigrants. According to the many definitions in Google-dom, we struggle with the terminology, we shy away from and in many cases, shun using technology. We prefer paper and pen and good old fashioned talking to each other. And yes, we do agree with some of this...we do like to talk, we do feel that there isn't enough interaction between people these days as they're hooked on their devices, but...we also realise that in order not to be left behind we need to 'get with the program' and just do it. Karen, especially, has taken this to the nth degree and Lynt is often telling her to get off her phone and join the real world! It can be quite anti-social, but increasingly this is how it will be and in order to connect with our own children, who really haven't known anything else, we do need to reach out and join with them, in whatever capacity we can. This can be a proper 'geek out' like one ninja parent who is building a robot with his son, to playing games with your kids and connecting with them on their level. Do you really want to get to the stage where they're shaking their heads and tutting at us because we just don't get it? We don't, and so we have vowed to keep up with the technology and try and stay one step ahead of the game where we can.
Douglas Adams (author of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "How to stop worrying and learn to love the Internet" sums it up in his latter book:
"1) everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal;
2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
3) anything that gets invented after you've turned thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it - until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."
So are we (by that we mean those born before 1994) really Digital Immigrants? Or can we learn to love those things that are invented after we are 30? We like to think so and believe that now is the time to jump on board and get involved. In these exponential times we're living in, perhaps there will only be a short window of opportunity for us to do this, before it all gets too much for our old, grey matter! Let's try to meet our Digital Natives somewhere along the way, who knows, we might actually enjoy the ride and learn something valuable at the same time!
