Recently, I had a chance to eat at a semi-fast food restaurant. It wasn't take out, but I did take out yet another appreciation for how quickly today's youth assimilates the latest in technology.
The seating was such that you were a metre away from the people next to you and the people were a young girl who appeared to be about 10 years old and her grandmother.
It's hard to not hear the conversation because the young girl was very excited and animated. It was hard to miss.
The gist of her conversation was that she was explaining to her grandmother what MP3 files were. In very accurate, computer terminology, she was describing the process of downloading music from the Internet and putting it on her personal MP3 player. The hope was that she would be getting an expansion kit for Christmas to store more songs.
The grandmother had a glazed over look on her face, turned to me, and shrugged her shoulders. It was an invitation to pay a little more attention.
It's the glazed over look that you see so often when a new technology comes along. The little girl was confused that her grandmother just wasn't getting it. When the grandmother asked why she didn't use a CD player, the girl shifted to one of those "you're so behind the times" looks!
I felt badly for the grandmother and immediately thought of a website -- Luddites On-line. (http://www.antecode.com/luddites/index2.html) From a historical perspective, the Luddites were a group of people who resisted any change in technology. In fact, the motto of this website is "Life was better before sliced bread". With technology advancing so quickly, don't we all have a little luddite in ourselves? I didn't share with the girl, but I still own a turntable and a good selection of LPs!
Then, something wonderful happened. The little girl shifted gears and started from the beginning and went into a long description about digital music, how it works, the ethical issues of downloading music from the Internet, etc. She put the whole topic into perfect perspective. I sat there with my mouth open. She had it. She knew exactly what the technology was about, how to do it, and the ethics behind it. It was a refreshing change from hearing about all of the "free stuff" that you can get from the Internet without having to pay for it, financially or morally.
I congratulated the girl for what she knew, and what she knew about it. The grandmother was still trying to figure out what the discussion was all about. In many ways, it was a deep contrast between the two generations. What was satisfying was the recognition of the ethical issues. Wouldn't it be nice if all students recognized these issues?
In the meantime, I think I'll continue to enjoy listening to my Beach Boys albums.
