Our Human Resource
Information Systems class recently completed an assignment that sought to help
us analyze trends in the different ways that people belonging to certain age
ranges and generations use technology. We each individually conducted an
interview to assess how the generations used the following technologies
differently: movies, mobile phones, gaming, e-mail, blogging, social networks,
video sites, cloud computing, music, and collaborative websites. We then shared
our findings during class discussion time.
The following range of
years was given for each generation:
Generation Y: Birth
years 1978-1989
Generation X: Birth
years 1965-1964
Silent generation: Birth
years before 1946
As with any trend
analysis, many of the students' in our class found that they had interviewed
people who were outliers in their age group due to their individual experiences
or situations. For example, there was mention of some silent generational
interviewees who were more technologically savvy than certain baby boomers, and
certain baby boomers who were more technologically savvy than generation X’ers.
So, the generalization or assumption that younger generations are
unquestionably going to be using more technology is not necessarily true in all
arenas.
The technology that
seemed to be used most consistently across all generations is Facebook for
social networking and Youtube for videos.
The technology that
seemed to have the most variance seemed to be telephones and the way that
telephones are used. There seems to be a good mix of people who still use
landlines across generations. There is also a mix of people across generations
who use flip or slide style cell phones and have not upgraded to smart phones.
The percentages of the amount of time people spend on voice calls versus text
messaging varied greatly, even among individuals of the same generation.
Therefore, phone usage seemed to be highly individualized versus generational.
The following related blog introduced me to the existence of the concept of the Technology Acceptance Model:
http://comm367spring2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/joining-a-revolution-the-silent-generation-and-baby-boomers-embracing-technology/
The Technology Acceptance Model has been mentioned in behavioral research since the 1980s, and constantly gets revisited as different technological advances come about. There are even academic studies, such as the one on the following link, which analyzes the Technology Acceptance Model with regard to generations who did not participate in online social media websites and communities as of 2010.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~hwang23/Research/JournalArticles/Chung_et_al2010_CHB.pdf
Following different interpretations and applications of the Technology Acceptance Model would be an interesting way to follow different generational uses of technology for years to come.
