Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Class Discussion Debrief - Usage of Technology Differs Across Generations

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.