21st Century Family

It looks like the “#1 Voice” series will now include another study because it directly ties into the other study. It’s a study from the University of Maryland that began as homework for 200 students. It’s truly AMAZING that kids can admit they are addicted and even use those terms to describe themselves:

“I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,” said one student in the study.  “I feel like most people these days are in a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin.”

I pulled the following from the “conclusions” section and included a link at the bottom to the actual study website. The authors highlights are bold black and mine are in red:

“Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions…. In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions [that] have an affinity for material concerns and a primordial fear of moral and social ones.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks

The way students CONSUME media is related to “material concerns”–the stuff they have:  the iPhones, Droids, iPods, TVs, cars with their radios, etc.

But the impact of what they DO with that stuff has profound “moral and social” implications.

The major conclusion of this study is that the portability of all that media stuff has changed students’ relationship not just to news and information, but to family and friends — it has, in other words, caused them to make different and distinctive social, and arguably moral, decisions.

The absence of information – the feeling of not being connected to the world – was among the things that caused the most anxiety in students as they sought to learn about the role of media in their lives – ironically by completing an assignment that asked them to spend a day without using media.

What did they learn by foregoing media for 24 hours?

That they cared about what was going on among their friends and families; they cared about what was going on in their community; they even cared about what was going on in the world at large. But most of all they cared about being cut off from that instantaneous flow of information that comes from all sides and does not seemed tied to any single device or application or news outlet.

MEDIA IS ABOUT INFORMATION

Students reported in this study that while they missed their music and their movies and their TV programs, they found that going media-free resulted in a greater, all-encompassing loss: “I believe that those who are not tied to this system are missing something,” one student wrote. “They are missing information.”  And  information, they discovered, was a precious commodity – one that they used to define themselves in comparison to their peers. One student said he realized that he suddenly had “less information” than “everyone else,” regardless of whether that information involved “news, class information, scores, or what happened on Family Guy.”

Students also expressed their awareness that information connected them to a larger world, beyond their circle of friends.  One student wrote of finally logging on to the computer after going media-free and learning about the earthquake in Chile. A social network site directed her to news sites that gave her more information about the disaster. “Those who aren’t connected through media probably have no idea about certain things going on in the world,” she wrote.

CONNECTION IS ABOUT INSTANT ACCESS

Students may differ in their dependency on different devices and their appetite for different media, but an undeniable common denominator that came through in their comments was their demand for and dependency on instant access to information – information so omnipresent that it has become the essential background to their lives. “The ability to constantly receive information is a privilege that I recognize is a crutch at times but I relish its advantages,” one student wrote.

Information that is not delivered quickly is deemed as obsolete as the delivery method. “Why would someone take the time to go out and get a newspaper, when he/she can roll over and open a laptop?” another student asked.

And yet, there were flickers of knowledge that the ease of technology can hide its costs:  “Everything is so accessible and so instantaneous,” one student wrote, “that we lose sight of what is behind these snippets of information.”

This study began as a homework assignment for 200 students.  It has not ended, for them, or for the rest of us.  A closer look at reactions of these students offers profound insights for universities, developers of media technology and journalists.

LESSONS HERE FOR US ALL

• For UNIVERSITIES, the takeaway is that students cannot be taught about the role of media in their lives – how to distinguish between fact and fiction, credible and non-credible sources, important and unimportant information – if those who teach them do not have a basic comprehension of how students find, share and experience media.

• For DEVELOPERS OF MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES, the takeaway is that their grand inventions find a fickle audience, at least among young people. The students may feel tethered to their favorite devices, like the iPod, or delight in hot new applications, like Droid, or flock to essential Web destinations, like Facebook, but the most important thing of all to them is whatever latest technology can connect them the quickest to the people they most value.

• For JOURNALISTS, the takeaway is that the readers and viewers of the future see them at once as irrelevant – and indispensable. Specifically, students don’t care about newspapers or TV news broadcasts or even blogs, but covet the information that comes to them through a diverse and circuitous pathway of devices, platforms, applications and sites.  A truer mapping of those pathways could provide direction to journalists in their search for relevance in the century ahead.

The above excerpt was pulled from the “conclusions” section of the University of Maryland’s following study: “Without Media”

I’m going to start a new series about media consumption in the lives of 8-18 yr olds in the US. The series will be based on a new report recently released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The report has a sample size of over 2,000 kids and gives us some great insight how technology is rapidly changing and impacting youth today. The following is an excerpt from the report:

“As anyone who knows a teen or a tween can attest, media are among the most powerful forces in young people’s lives today. Eight- to eighteen-year-olds spend more time with media than in any other activity besides (maybe) sleeping—an average of more than 71⁄2 hours a day, seven days a week. The TV shows they watch, video games they play, songs they listen to, books they read and websites they visit are an enormous part of their lives, offering a constant stream of messages about families, peers, relationships, gender roles, sex, violence, food, values, clothes, and an abundance of other topics too long to list.”

Kaiser Family Foundation report: “Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 yr olds.”

What does a generation gap in the 21st century look like? Does it look the same as one would have looked back in the 1800’s? How about 5th Century BC? Does the rate of current technological change affect this gap? If technology helps broaden this gap, then are modern “less technical” societies less affected?

As I watch kids that are 10 carrying an iPhone that their parents really think is just a “phone.” How is the generation gap changing with technology? First, I have to acknowledge clear trends that show huge numbers of older generation men and women getting involved with social media and newer technologies. However, just because they have it and use mean they are playing at the same level. Let’s use the cell phone and social media as examples. A grandmother may very well use a cell phone to place calls and then fire up the old Dell to log into Facebook to see pictures…thus making her “technical” for her age. On the other hand a young person today generally insists on having a mobile device on them that is always connected to the cloud and can provide instant access to friends/family/games/music/etc. They are super comfortable with the technology and willing to share and create all kinds of information. Privacy is just a thing old people talk about. They use their cell phones to both create media (text msgs, pics, video,etc) and they have all type of social media sites (FB, Twitter/Twit pics, etc) to connect with each other and they do it like it’s second nature.

In the business world the differences are even more profound at times. There are “old school” leaders (even C-Level IT leaders) that don’t understand shifts in current movements of social media like many young people do. Although they might get up to speed on certain technologies they don’t necessarily eat/sleep/breathe it like many young people do (of course there are always examples). In fact, many that will probably read this will be surprised at e-mail commonly being referred to as “old school” by younger crowds. Now it’s all about always on, instant information: micro blogs, real time search, etc.

It’s natural to have generation gaps as technology pushes forward…the question I’m chewing on now is this: “does the generation gap grow on the same curve as the technological growth curve?”

Perhaps the gap will actually do the opposite as older generations get more connected? Will opening up more ways to communicate with younger generations actually create greater understand and therefore narrow the gap?

At this point I think the jury is still out but I would enjoy hearing some other people’s opinions on this!

UPDATE: Here is a perfect case-in-point…the Supreme Court of the United States has trouble with a “sexting” case because they are not up to speed with what most consider “basic” technology: http://holykaw.alltop.com/supreme-court-befuddled-by-sexting-case

Top 5 Family Tech Tools of the 21st Century: #1 Social Media

There is so much information to cover here that I’m going to have to break it up more than I thought. I’m going to walk through a “Top 5″ list of technologies that I think are having the most impact on the 21st century family. The list is for fun and to promote thought on the subject and is in no way meant to be exhaustive.

I’m going to start with “Social Media” because I’ve already touched on it in the previous post for this section. The other reason I wanted to start with this topic is the fact that social media technologies have exploded squarely into the middle of the 21st century family. My personal opinion is that the effects of this will be profound but little is really known at this point. First of all, let’s get a list together of different types of social media: Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, MySpace, forums, and many others. Here is a Wikipedia (we won’t rabbit trail on what a “wiki” is:) definition of social media:

Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

In the 20th century people simply did not do much or any of what I’m sitting here doing right this very instant. The tools/technologies were not in place to really empower the a grassroots change in the way people view themselves…content readers/consumers to publishers. People now interact with others around the globe in an entirely different way. If a person wants to capture a short video on their cell phone and publish it for the world to see it’s just a few clicks away. Although there is way too much in this definition to dissect in one blog post, I want to zero in on one particular area: “..it allows people to connect in the online world and form relationships for personal and business.” There is no question this is true and growing at an amazing rate among various age groups. Facebook used to be the domain of young college students, now grandmothers and grandchildren connect from the corn fields of Nebraska to the beaches of Australia.

I can remember a short time ago when I had never heard anything about blogs. It’s not that I didn’t know about them, but I simply was not tied into or interested in any. My wife then started telling me about this blog called Pioneer Woman and as a result of this blog, I got to experience a killer scrambled egg sandwich with jalapenos. In my mind we were off to a really good start with social media; I was officially a fan when it put killer food on the table:)  Then I would start hearing about some lady that adopted some Chinese kid that lives in New York City or some lady whose husband got his hand stuck in a tractor or something. Uhhhh…..Houston, we have a problem. Seriously, I was shocked at how we started talking about people we didn’t know at all….crazy!  This led me to another topic I’ll tackle by itself in a later topic more fully: virtual relationships. Are virtual friends really “friends?” Let’s take it one step farther…can these virtual relationships create a virtual “family”? Are there invisible boundaries or limits associated with these types of relationships? I think we would all agree that there are some limitations, but where exactly are they and how does this define this type of relationship?

…to be continued in Part 3

I think a lot of people that come to this site are wanting information about what the 21st Century family will look like so I wanted to do a series associated with that topic. I wanted to start with something that met the following criteria: it had to be specific to the 21st Century and needed to be something that profoundly affects every family unit, regardless of the myriad of variables associated with such a far reaching subject.

OK, I looked at a lot of different ways to begin this post and wanted just the right image. I looked at visual time lines of the major mass media and technology mile stones of the 20th century and it was amazing! It’s so hard for me to comprehend my grandmother in a “horse and buggy” era. When she was born there were really no cars, radios or airplanes. The invention of first mass produced car (Model T), motorized airplane, and the ability to utilize radio waves came around in the early part of the 20th century and began to change our world quickly. It was not long at all before radio was mainstream and television was starting to make it’s move. Once television settled in, things quickly moved from “Brady Bunch” to “MTV” and cellular “bag phones” started to show up in some cars. Pagers and cell phones took off like crazy and then the big one hit: the Internet! When the Internet was first made public it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I still remember people in college starting to use it to email and connect to others that lived in far reaching places. However, it was still pretty “nerdy” at the time and pretty much reserved for the “computer people.” Fast forward to our current situation and you have wireless broadband Internet piped through hi resolution screens on full blown “pocket” computers like the iPhone. The power and speed of both the Internet connection these devices have, as well as the computing power, didn’t exist when I was even in college (not that horribly long ago…early to mid 1990’s)….not to mention the fact that it “senses” position and movement and has an incredible “touch” interface. These are all things my kids and their kids will think are common place and just things “everyone” has.

The image I’ve included for this post is just what I was looking for because it shows the exponentially explosive growth of technology. The graphic illustrates the introduction of social technology and you can easily see that there really just wasn’t much going on until 2003 or 2004 when it just exploded. The list included in the graphic is by no means comprehensive, but it certainly makes a profound point: “social use of technology is exploding and becoming a mainstream part of the 21st Century family!” I will have to dive into what exactly that means in another post…

My hope is to create a series that provokes thought on both the good and bad associated with how technology and media in the 21st Century are affecting the modern family unit. By the end of the series I think we will see that media and technology today are having a profound impact on the family unit of the 21st Century in very historically different ways.

Encouragement: Do a technology “audit” for your family of today by listing all things you would consider both “technology and media” and the time spent exposed to these things. Follow this up by doing one for the family you grew up in and perhaps the family your parents or grandparents grew up in (depending upon how old you are). Really challenge yourself to dive a bit deeper than the first “layer” of the onion to take a hard look at both the good and bad you may or may not have seen before associated with these audits.

I remember as a young boy watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time and being shocked when I finally got to see the “Wizard.” I think at that point and time in both my life, and within history in general, special effects were neither elaborate nor really well known. When all the lighting and sound and “effects” were finally exposed for what they were it was shocking. There behind the curtain sat an old guy on a stool pulling levers and switches. How many times do you hear about people in the most serious relationships  (husband-wife/father-mother/son-daughter/etc) where one individual finds out the shocking truth about what was “behind the curtain” of a loved one. It reminds me of an auditor I once knew that described how almost all of the people he busted for high level financial crimes started small. It would start with something little like hiding a small financial loss in an unknown account. Then they realized they did not get caught so the next time another loss came around they would hide it and hide it and hide it…until they finally get caught. I think this is a huge problem for dads because all dads have to have a business/work face. The reason for this is simple: no matter how bad things are at home you are generally expected to perform at work to get your pay check. I think many young men have certain good intentions as they start out trying to be a good dad and certain things happen in life and they begin the “disconnect.” Of course there are different degrees of “connectedness” and the patterns of putting up a “curtain” may come and go depending on the season of life and the many variables contained within.

However, this post is about recognizing our own particular barriers (whatever they may be) and then fighting to tear them down so that we are “there” and engaged in our family relationships. I know many moms and dads who played high level athletics or achieved high education levels in college and certainly understand attention to detail from an athletic/academic perspective. To get to the highest level of any sport or course of study you have to pay attention to the fine details. The same is true of relationships and the subtle details are often what defines the difference between a “great/average/or poor” relationship.

The little detail I’m outlining today is the battle to be engaged in the moment. We need to make sure we take down any “curtain,” remove any busy, general life related distractions and engage the moment. This might include cell phones or thoughts about laundry but the fact is that it’s super easy to be distracted in the 21st century. It’s amazing how well loved ones can pick up even the most subtle distractions.

Encouragement: Consciously think about engaging moments with your loved ones with no distractions. Take a quick mental inventory of what’s behind your “curtain” and what needs to change so you can fully engage your loved ones. Fight hard to make sure you are not distracted when spending time with them and make the most of every moment.

I heard an illustration when I was a kid about a marching band member who insisted he was going the right direction while everyone else was going the wrong direction. Let’s pretend for the sake of this illustration that we could go behind the scenes in a “flashback” type moment to see what happened to lead up to this kid (named Cosby for this illustration) being out of step with the rest of the group. The scene finds Cosby out of step with the group while he knew the routine as good or better than anyone else in the band. He and the other band members had trained for years and knew it so well they could do it their sleep. Then one day Cosby got some new information and realized that the group was in fact wrong according to the national standard set for that particular routine. This national standard had been in place for years and virtually everyone in the country associated with bands knew this particular standard for that routine. Cosby now understood the new standard and he began to try to tell everyone in the marching band about it but nobody would listen. The band director and everyone else in the band (as well as parents and relatives in the area) insisted they were correct so they continued with the same routine. Now fast forward to the actual big event itself where we see Cosby going one direction and the rest of the band going another. People in the area are furious and so are both the band director and band members. Cosby goes back to school and is ostracized from everyone and told that he completely messed up any chance they had of going to the national competition. Three weeks later a member from the national organization shows up and everyone expected him to not only reject them but to make some comments about the boy who was completely going the wrong direction. The person from the national organization then tells the school they have been invited to the national competition because of the courage and bravery of the boy that did the correct pattern and was willing to go “against the grain.” The band member and everyone else were so thankful they had been invited to the national competition that they put Cosby in charge of leading the rest of the band to learn the routine according to the national standard.

The analogy does break down if pushed into different directions but does a good job of bringing some very important things to light. Does the group always determine the definition of right or does the individual? What happens when there are too many definitions of “right” and they are in conflict with each other. The interesting thing to me about the saying “against the grain” is that you first have to see the grain and then you have to determine which way the grain is aligned to be able to make a conscious decision to go with it or against it. Most people don’t observe the grain at all, they simply feel resistance and turn the direction that creates the least amount of pain and hardship or just go with whatever they are surrounded by in their own personal subculture. Once a person does observe the grain and makes the decision to go against it they must be prepared properly for the journey they are starting.

For my family I want to bring about the ability to go against the grain when needed. Every family wanting the ability to do this will a bit of rebellion to be successful. They will need to be able to determine the “grain” and then have the courage/determination/etc to turn into the grain and make progress against it. If the grain/current is really strong it will take an amazing amount of hard work and courage to actually create “against the grain” type movement. People and families that choose to go against the grain stand out, so you certainly have to know that it’s worth the fight. There are so many illustrations to bring this point home I don’t know where to start. However, let’s take a very simple example like game exposure. If every family that your children know has a PS2 or PS3 but you are trying to limit game exposure for some reason then you will have to be ready to go “against the grain” in making this decision.  Going against the grain as a family will model the type of character to our kids that will help them have the strength and determination to fight against the grain when they need to….whatever the situation may be.

Encouragement: Challenge yourself to do something good “against the grain” as a family. Communicate with the rest of your family the types of issues facing your family and determine if there is a healthy “grain” or if he needs walk “against the grain” with certain issues.

Have you ever been stuck in a classroom or Dr’s office and watched the second hand slowly work it’s way around the clock? It seems like the more you focus on it the slower it seems to move. When you are watching the seconds pass it actually seems like time moves quite slowly. It’s quite funny then when we see a niece or nephew or relative we haven’t seen in a while and they’ve grown so much it blows you away. The typical comment is: “Wow, time is flying…you’re so big now.” When you have young children at home it’s amazing how much change even a month will bring. It’s like a whirlwind where you’re so busy days just fly by and you hit the bed exhausted…then get up the next morning (if your lucky a little one didn’t wake you up). Perceptions about the rate at which time is passing might change but the rate itself hasn’t changed.

Why is time even relevant? If you lived on an island with no clocks you would simply know time through the progression of the sun and day and night. After many day and night cycles the signs our body has changed emerge. If we are young we see all kinds of signs of growth and progress. As we get older we see the signs the body is in decline. The fact of the matter is that time exists primarily because we only have so much of it.

(This is the first of a two part post…please read “Life Meter” to catch the second half)

What if we were given a life meter as a young child? Let’s pretend that there is a ritual in every family when a kid becomes an adult (let’s say 14 for the sake of this illustration) that they are given a “life meter.” This meter is simply a measuring device that shows exactly how much time they have. Just like Outlook it can show it to you in 25 yr increments or days or hours or minutes, whatever you prefer. Like a “Quicken Online” you can also get online and view it broken down into pie charts and bar graphs as to where you’ve spent your time. Everywhere you go you know and understand that your time is super valuable because you see the Life Meter counting down.

If you are a mom or dad that has children what does your pie chart look like with regard to your relationship with your spouse and children? What is your perception of time with your family members? How valuable is it and does it change with children as they go through different stages of development? Let’s say that your child is fully “into” their mommy and daddy at age four and then  they begin to lose some interest around 10 or 11 and then much more so at 13 or 14. What type of “value” do the years from 4 ish to 12 ish have? Now let’s pretend you have two life meters, one for your entire life and one specifically for your relationship with your family. You can also jump online and merge the two life meters into a single pie chart that will show you the total amount of time you’ve “invested” in your family relationships (broken out by type: spouse, child 1, child 2, etc) in contrast to the other areas of you life. The challenge here first is to see the incredible value of these years and specifically years with these people. The second battle is to bring the “investments” of time in line with the value.

Encouragement: Engage the battle for your time and make it come in line with the value you place on these relationships!

YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY LIVE MEDIA-SATURATED LIVES, SPENDING AN AVERAGE OF NEARLY 6 1/2 HOURS A DAY (6:21) WITH MEDIA.

Across the seven days of the week, that amount is the equivalent of a full-time job, with a few extra hours thrown in for overtime (441/2 hours a week). Indeed, given that about a quarter (26%) of the time young people are using media, they’re using more than one medium at a time (reading and listening to music, for example), they are actually exposed to the equivalent of 81/2 hours a day (8:33) of media content, even though they pack that into less than 61/2 hours of time.

Download and Read Full Article

This research study was done in 2003 with a sample of over 2,000 people. I found several things very interesting. The first thing is the portion of the study that holds it up against a 1999 study and just how long that period of time seemed when you contrasted the two time periods. When discussing technology and media 4-6 yrs is an eternity….so many things change! Part of the reason I pulled in a pic of the iPhone is because it is such a game changing device that puts usable internet browsing, video, social apps, music, and standard phone stuff into your pocket. It’s virtually impossible for us to really understand and contextualize the effects of these changes in an accurate and timely way. What I can say accurately is that our children will grow up in a world that it will be normal to be “plugged in” to the virtual world through their phone-computer devices and devices (many yet to be released). I would love a 2009 version of this same study!!!

The conclusion of the article is this:

The sheer amount of time young people spend using media—an average of nearly
61/2 hours a day—makes it plain that the potential of media to impact virtually every aspect of
young people’s lives cannot be ignored.

Encouragement: Ask the tough questions about your media plan. How do you plan to handle it and what are the correct amounts of exposure? Do you want to simply move along with whatever the current “norm” is (which is changing rapidly)?