Mixed future awaits hyper-connected youth

2012-03-13 14:59

分享到

 

Get Flash Player

download

For a long time, there was talk about America's "Generation X" and then "Generation Y," referring to our young people.

Mixed future awaits hyper-connected youth

Now the buzzword is "millennials," since many of our teenagers and young adults were born in the years just before and right after the turn of the century - which also happened to be the beginning of a new thousand-year millennium.

Others call our young people the "always-on" generation.

They seem to be in perpetual touch with each other - and sampling information from the world over - via cell phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Now Elon University in North Carolina and the Pew Internet and American Life Project have produced a study of millennials and what the future may hold for them. It's based on a survey of more than 1,000 tech experts, scholars, and educators.

The survey finds that today's young Americans are, in its words, "hyper-connected." That's both good and bad for their future.

On the good side: Millennials are nimble, quick-acting "multi-taskers" who approach problems in fresh ways and have an almost magical ability to quickly process a great deal of information. They are astute at telling the difference between so-called "noise" and truly important messages in what the report calls "the ever-growing sea of information."

These abilities could lead to important breakthroughs that will benefit the country.

But the experts interviewed by Elon and the Pew Project found a troublesome flip side as well: They predict that the "always-on" generation will, in the report's words, "exhibit a thirst for instant gratification and quick fixes, a loss of patience, and a lack of deep thinking ability," due to what one expert called "fast-twitch wiring."

That particular conclusion won't surprise parents and other older adults who watch today's young people zip through information with the speed - and sometimes the analytical skills - of a buzzing gnat.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Project, notes what he called "palpable concern" that the marvelous communications skills exhibited by many "tech-literate" young people are not shared by all of their peers. He says this could create "new social and economic divisions" between Americans who can comfortably navigate through the maze of technological gadgets, and those who cannot.

In other words, a different kind of "lower class" that literally isn't up to speed.

Related Stories:

X一代女性:拥有一切 除了家庭

调查:多数美国人恋旧 宁愿回到过去

Generation X

“无忧”的一代

(来源:VOA 编辑:Rosy)

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
搜热词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn