Last month my teenage daughter complained about a teacher who yelled at her for being on her phone while they were writing reports in class. “I was doing research!” she exclaimed. Last week, my husband noticed that she had left the instruction manual for something she was assembling on the kitchen table and chastised her for not follow the directions. “I’m watching a YouTube video on how to put it together,” she replied. Last night I asked her about the compliance training she had received at her part time job, and she said, “We had to spend half a day watching boring videos; I don’t even remember what they were about.” Today I suggested she call a college admissions office to get some information she needed, and looking at me like I have three heads, she said, “Why would I do that? I’ll just tweet them.”
That about sums it up, doesn’t it? My generation of baby boomers is used to doing things a different way, but that doesn’t mean our way is still better. Older isn’t always wiser or more capable. As new generations are joining the workforce, age isn’t the only thing that has changed. The differences in communication, learning, and management of information as we move from one generation to the next are more extreme than ever before.
