grown up digital

Don Tapscott has done it again. His new book, grown up digital, is engaging, based on extensive research and well documented. It also slips into a bit of rhetorical overdrive every so often and his fondness for empirical data is inconsistent. Strong on the usage patterns for technology, weak on the political and social arguments.

The NYT review is here.

The book is a follow up to his 1997 effort, Growing Up Digital: Rise of the Net Generation. The thesis is straightforward. The latest generation to enter the workforce and higher education institutions is the first generation in history to be nurtured entirely in an environment of digital media. My generation, the Gen Xers, have had to adapt to these technologies as major institutions have adapted. Granted, it has been easier for the typical Gen Xer than our older counterparts, but adapt we must. The Net Generation by contrast has not been forced to adapt, they simply are digital.

In all, I commend the book. It is a little too positive on the Net Generation and their potential to improve everything, everywhere they go, in all ways. I've seen that movie and it didn't end well. Tapscott highlights the positive effects of their generational traits like more natural collaboration but he fails to mention the trade offs that are necessarily associated. There are always trade offs. He draws extensively from ideas developed by his sometime collaborators Neill Howe and the late Bill Strauss -- men who more often feature these downsides in their analysis.

The most practical chapters are 5 & 6 on education and the workplace.