Q&A: The Net Generation grows up and looks to shake things up, Tapscott says

Computerworld - Anyone who has a child or knows people who are between 12 and 30 years old can't help but notice that they're typically able to multitask and process information in dramatically different ways than most baby boomers can. Teenagers and young adults seem to have an innate ability to send text messages, listen to their MP3 players and do their homework — all while playing video games or watching TV.

But what's even more fascinating about this so-called Net Generation is that their brains are physiologically wired differently than the rest of ours are, and that they're already having a profound influence on workplace customs and even the political landscape, according to Don Tapscott, an author and university professor and chairman of nGenera Corp.'s nGenera Innovation Network.

Tapscott's latest book, Grown Up Digital: How The Net Generation Will Change Your World, will be published later this month by McGraw-Hill. A follow-up to his 1997 bestseller Growing Up Digital, the new book draws upon more than 11,000 interviews conducted as part of a research project, as well as scientific studies and input from academic, business and government leaders. Tapscott spoke with Computerworld this week about his findings and the effect that Net-Geners are having on technology use within companies. Excerpts follow:

You've said that the brains of members of the Net Generation are wired in a different way than older people's are? How exactly are they different? Twelve years ago, I sort of had a hunch that their brains were going to be different. It was based on this simple observation that baby boomers grew up watching hours of television each week. By contrast, this generation watches much less television and [instead] is in three windows — texting, listening to their MP3 files, with a video game going — and they're doing their homework at the same time, with the television on in the background. Instead of being ambient recipients of video, they're the active initiators, and they're reading and composing their thoughts, they're organizing and remembering things and developing strategies.

There is a big issue about how digital immersion affects brain development. Some would say negatively, such as in the book The Dumbest Generation. So we did this $4.5 million research project and interviewed more than 11,000 people, including research scientists. Thirty years ago, I was a psychologist; I do have some background to speak with experts in this field. How you spend this critical period of development [from age 8 to 18] affects how you shape your brain.

What's happening is that [Net-Geners] do two things better than their parents. They have better switching abilities between activities, and they have better short-term active working memory. There are probably some other things going on there with active parallel processing as well. I can't listen to iTunes while I'm working; it distracts me. But somehow, kids are able to do that. The implications are kind of profound [with them] coming into the workforce and the marketplace. One of my goals with the book is to help people understand this and the ramifications for the workplace.