Technology+Leadership+Book+Summary

Grown Up Digital: And loving it

Tapscott, D. (2009). //Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world.// New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

This book is the sequel to the author’s 1999 //Growing Up Digital// and often becomes sort of a “where are they now?” update on what Tapscott calls the Net Gen. He has made quite a career of explaining how and why the Net Geners (sic) speak, act, think, work and play differently than their predecessors. He has written about a dozen other books on this topic.

Overall this book is excellent food for thought for any educator especially those working with technology. It raises many questions that we must confront when working with the Net Gen.

From the beginning of the book, Tapscott explains his research methods for studying this unique generation. The book was inspired by a $4 million research grant funded by several tech industry giants. Tapscott and his colleagues interviewed close to 10,000 people including nearly 6,000 Net Geners from around the world. The other interviewees were Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers who try to educate and try to lead the Net Gen.

Through this research, Tapscott has developed eight Net Generation norms that define this generation. “These norms are central to understand how this generation [born Jan. 1977- Dec. 1997] is changing work, markets, learning, the family, and society.” (Tapscott, 2009). The norms are not only central to his thesis, but are very important for educators to remember when dealing with this generation. The Net Gen: 1) wants freedom of choice in everything they do 2) loves to customize everything 3) scrutinizes all products and ideas to a minute degree 4) looks for corporate openness when deciding what to buy and where to work 5) wants entertainment in their work and education 6) is all about collaboration and relationships 7) has a need for speed in everything they do 8) expect and work toward lightening quick innovation (Tapscott 2009). Chapter 3 is devoted to explaining these norms in depth and using anecdotal evidence from the interviews to further explain the Net Gen. This works well, however, rarely does Tapscott use any quote from the interviews that does not overwhelmingly support the norm he is trying to explain.

Chapters 4-11 each list tips at the end of the chapter for the rest of the world on how to deal with the Net Gen in various situations. Education, politics, marketing and other areas are being greatly affected by this generation. They make up about 27% of the US population and, therefore, Tapscott feels that we must all dance to their iPod tunes. T he attempt at balancing his near hero worship of this generation comes in Chapter 11 when Tapscott attempts to debunk some of the criticism of the Net Gen. In-tune educators have asked themselves the same questions about this generation- Is this the dumbest generation? Are they screen addicted and losing social skills? Are they narcissistic? Do they have any real values? His answers to these and other criticisms of the Net Gen are mostly cursory and center around the wondrous things they can do with technology. Interestingly, he often blames past generations for not policing the Net Gen especially when it comes to violent video games, computer time and privacy violations on the internet. While this is a valid argument and can help open-minded readers to gain a connection with the Net Gen, most of his criticism of the Net Gen is in a form of an apology from Baby Boomers for not understanding these kids today.

However, the final chapter does have its list of tips like the others. They are aimed at the Net Gen and encourage them to work with us and not discount our experience and wisdom. If the Net Gen take this to heart, and we are willing to share power with them, then Tapscott says “I think this will be a better world.”