Andrew Golis

I love little insights like this.  On why young people are more comfortable using social technology to spread information to their friends than the oldsters:

As a point of comparison, our “average” older person uses relatively few communication channels. Phone, fax, email – tools that are often depersonalized, tools largely “learned” in the work environment. It is hard for us to separate our social expectations from the tools we use, so some of us may feel uncomfortable pushing political messages in these forms. Our average “younger” person uses multiple communication tools; their toolset includes the traditional vehicles, and is extended to include new venues (social networks, IM) and forms (video, presence apps). Young people embrace these new tools because they’re more personalized, lower effort, and “learned” in a social context. Email is the tool of work, a wall post is the new tool of personal communication.

As Clay Shirky says, it’s only when technology becomes invisible, an assumed foundation on which normal interaction is built, that it’s fully revolutionary implications can be seen.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm and is filed under tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.