Digital Divide in Web Use and Learning.......

By Karl Kapp

There was an interesting posting by Business Week called What are People Doing? that clearly shows a difference between what baby boomers are doing on the web and what younger "gamers" are doing on the web.
For example: only 12% of young boomers (41 to 50) and only 7% of older boomers (51 to 61) and only 5% of 62+ people are creating content on the web. Meanwhile, 34% of young teens (12 to 17) and 37% of youth (18 to 21) and 30% of Gen Y (22 to 26) are creating content (check out the chart). There is a trend showing a difference in how the web is used among different ages.
So while everyone dislikes a boring lecture no matter what their age, not everyone creates dynamic, original content on the web...the trend is toward younger people (digital natives) creating web-based content for their use and others.
It would seem natural that they would also be more comfortable learning via technology than Generation X or Boomers and that they would want the design of learning to be more closely associated with the type of technologies they have grown up with (yes this includes video games).
It is not that they can't learn from books (in fact the thickest books of all time aimed at kids are selling like crazy...Harry Potter)...it is that they also see VALUE in learning through games and video game-like interfaces...this is where some boomers do not see any value...why not learn something from a lecture instead of a video game? What is the difference they ask...its the same and...at least in a lecture their is no goofing off, its all serious because learning is serious.
The difference is that boomers tend to see games as Non-Learning...just fun...not serious...where the gamer generation seems to be more comfortable with games as a form of learning. In fact, children have always learned through games...playing "school" teaches proper behavior, playing certain card games teach about numbers. As Tom Crawford quoted Thiagi
Q: Have you encountered any companies or cultures that do not accept game playing?

A: While there are cultural differences, here is an interesting fact: All human beings play games. There is no culture in the world that doesn't play games, other than some middle managers in Chicago who think it's beneath their dignity
But the truth is that kids google information as much as they look it up in a book, the truth is they are creators of content as much as they are consumers, the truth is they network via technology as much as they do face-to-face, the truth is valuable lessons can be learned in a video-game format.
To ignore those tendencies or differences does a serious disservice to those we Generation Xers and Boomers are trying to train (so they can fit into the boomer dominated hierarchal structure...which, by the way, is crumbling under an information dominated world, that is non-hierarchal.)
As the world changes from when we have grown up...from the static one-way communication of television to the dynamic two-way content creation of the web, our training programs must also change. We cannot keep doing the same trainings and expect to get the same results...it will not work and our trainees will just sit in class and check their email during our dynamic lectures on safety.