Let me see a show of hands for all the people in the room who can fairly accurately emulate the sequence of beeps and boops made by a 28k modem dialing into the Internet. Who here doesn’t have warm memories of the robotic AOL voice declaring, “You’ve got mail!” as you signed in? Do you remember what your very first ad-infested Geocities webpage looked like?
Consider the fact that today’s younger generations will soon look back fondly on the days when Web sites used to ask you what you were doing and the dominant video upload service only let users upload ten minutes of video.
For now, however, children aged 2-11 are thriving in the Web 2.0 world. Nielsen Online released an impressive collection of statistics this week, essentially concluding that not only are more kids in that age group going online, but they are also spending more time there than ever before.
As of May 2009, nearly 16 million children are going online, making up almost a tenth of the entire active online community. That latest peak has been reached by an 18% growth over the past five years, almost double the 10% growth seen in the adult population. On top of this, the U.S. Census Bureau reports a 1% decrease over that same interval in the numbers of that particular age group, making the growth appear even more startling.
Furthermore, kids have been staying on longer: about 63% longer, according to Nielsen. Again, the adult population has also increased its time online, but only by 36%–measly, compared to the massive growth exhibited by the younger age groups.
What does it mean, exactly, that so many children are growing up alongside the bursting growth of social media and Web 2.0? The best bet is that breaking technologies today will quickly become taken for granted.
Sharing intimate connections with celebrity or politician—made most widespread by the popularity of Twitter—will probably soon come to be expected by users. Daily substantial updates from public officials may evolve to become the number one source for learning about the latest political doings.
In the most extreme, one must imagine that the constant flow of friend updates, the vast plethora of visual and audio content from around the world, and the all-around instantaneity of Web 2.0 must combine to create a shrinking effect on the world, especially for the generations immersed in these latest technologies.
(image source: http://mrrobbo.wordpress.com/)
