The Technology Generation Gap at Work is Oh So Wide
Recently, business information solutions provider LexisNexis released the results of a study that examined how technology was used in the American workplace. The focus of the study was on the differing opinions between generational groups. Their findings? The generation gap at work is really wide with vast discrepancies when it comes to what the appropriate use of technology is - a problem that leads to increasing tensions in the workplace.
The Findings: Boomers and Gen Y are Worlds Apart at Work
The survey compared technology and software usage among generations of working professionals, including Boomers (ages 44-60), Generation X (ages 29-43) and Generation Y (ages 28 and younger). The total sample size was 700 legal and white collar professionals with 250 coming from the legal profession.
According to the survey:
- Two-thirds of all Boomers agree that Personal Digital Assistants (like the Blackberry, for example) and mobile phones contribute to a decline in proper workplace etiquette, and believe the use of a laptop during in-person meetings is "distracting," less than half of Gen Y workers agree.
- Only 17% of Boomers believe using laptops or PDAs during in-person meetings is "efficient," while more than one third of Gen Y do.
- Only 28% percent of Boomers think blogging about work-related issues is acceptable, while forty percent of Gen Y workers do.
Yikes! Phones and PDAs are distracting and inefficient tools? Blogging is unacceptable? Who are these people? Unfortunately, they're the people who still have a lot of power when it comes to the decisions being made at the workplace. Baby boomers are the executives, the CEOs, the bosses, etc. while Gen Y is just now getting their foot in the door. But it's clear that these two generations strongly disagree on how technology is to be used.
More Findings
Another issue being faced is the blurring of boundaries between work and home. Gen Y workers generally don't see a problem accessing personal web sites from work - like Facebook and blogs. In fact, 62% of Gen Y professionals access a social network from work, but only 14% of Boomers do. That discrepancy could have something to do with the fact that Gen Y spends a lot more of their day online - they spend 10.6 hours per day accessing social networks, news sites, blogs, forums, and multimedia sharing sites versus only 5.6 hours reported by Boomers.
The study also found that Gen Y workers multi-task at higher levels, but it's here that the numbers get kind of confusing. According to the report, Gen Y workers spend an average of 22.9 hours per day using email, web browsers, IM, productivity applications while Boomers reported 10.3 hours with the same programs. But seriously, 22.9 hours? That begs the question: when does Gen Y eat or sleep? Who even stays up for 22.9 straight hours? The problem apparently comes from how the question was asked. Respondents were asked to report on how much time they spent on each of four types of applications in an average work day. The average time reported for "using" each application every day added up to a total of 15.9 hours, much longer than the standard 8-hour work day.
What this actually means is that workers are keeping many applications open at the same time and accessing them concurrently. (They're not staying up 20-some hours each day to work). However, we think that data could have been presented in a more straightforward manner. Still, the end result proves that Gen Y switches back and forth between applications far more than the Boomers do.
Wait, So Do Boomers Get Tech or Not?
The last time we wrote about Boomers' and their use of social media, we got a lot of heated responses in the comments about how "not all Boomers" are out-of-touch, so stop saying that! But actually, at the time, we weren't. We were instead sharing data from Forrester which stated that over 60% of Boomers were using socially created content. Yet that study seems to be a bit in conflict with this one. How can the hip-to-blogs (and videos, and podcasts, etc.) Baby Boomers of the Forrester study exist in the same world as those interviewed by LexisNexis? Which study is right? Or maybe, in a way, they both are. Maybe the stuffy old lawyers interviewed for this latest study don't care for blogs, but there are plenty of Boomers out there who do. We know from the comments of the last post that there are certainly plenty of Boomers who read this blog, at least.
Image credit: Boomer: unclebumpy; Who's going to Hire a Gen Y? Anthony Weate
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part of it is the choice of sample: "700 legal and white collar professionals" - law, finance etc are fields where the people at the top are very behind in technology adoption
Posted by: Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
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April 24, 2009 6:18 AM
my dad's a boomer - he was a pioneer in marketing. He has more gadgets than me, as many MP3s. He's on facebook and spams me with his last.fm discoveries. He's more clued up about the current online tools than many of my web designers and developers (who are mid 20s) were, most of which don't have a twitter account or use even social bookmarking...
Posted by: Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
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April 24, 2009 6:19 AM
although anyone who does not think that mobile phones and laptops in meetings are distracting and have had a negative effect on etiquette is either oblivious or has never known meetings without them. Trying to get an effective meeting running when people are constantly checking their email or answering the phone in meeting... people have to constantly repeat things for the people who had stopped listening... (it seems perfectly ok to waste other people's time like that, which flabbergasts me - because a meeting's chance of being useful and effective decrease with every minute the meeting lasts over the limit of about 25 minutes)
Posted by: Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
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April 24, 2009 6:23 AM
This article is great & begs the question as to how Boomers & Gen Y can connect.
Boomers know how to make money & Gen Y knows how to use Social Media... How can the two work together?
This article is great & begs the question as to how Boomers & Gen Y can connect. Boomers know how to make money & Gen Y knows how to use Social Media... How can the two work together?
http://twitter.com/brettkopf
This article is great & begs the question as to how Boomers & Gen Y can connect. Boomers know how to make money & Gen Y knows how to use Social Media... How can the two work together?
http://twitter.com/brettkopf
My dearest Sarah. You got me goin' (again?!) with this one but way too much for the comments. Look for a 'counterpoint' on SEO and Tech Daily shortly ....
Are you suggesting that adults should act more like kids, rather than vice versa?
Stunning findings, Sarah! Only 33% of Boomers are rude jerks, while over 50% of GenY'ers are!
This is easily explained by the fact that most managers are older, since people rise up in the ranks during their careers. Most 25-year-olds rarely have to attend meetings, let alone run one effectively.
Try running a meeting sometime where everyone's surfing the web and IM'ing their friends, and let me know how you feel about PDA's & laptops in meetings then.
When Baby Boomers where young they adopted the fax machine and soon after the IBM PC (compatible).
The then older generation didn't trust these fax apparatus as all should be send by a signed letter.
Every generation has problems adopting new technologies in business.
The difference is entirely in perceived benefits. Boomers don't like technology less, they just don't see the benefits yet in using social media. They are too buried in mortgage and tuition payments to pay attention to anything that doesn't give them an immediate payback in their working lives. They clearly get the benefit of email and the Web, but social networks are thought of as having personal, not work benefits.
You say as much in the way you phrase the results:
"Gen Y workers generally don't see a problem accessing personal web sites from work - like Facebook and blogs. In fact, 62% of Gen Y professionals access a social network from work, but only 14% of Boomers do. "
If you see social media as personal, then it shouldn't be used at work. BUT do Gen Ys see it as personal? They understand that their personal network of "friends" is essential to their careers. They get job recommendations and learn about new opportunities from this network. As long as Boomers hear of these as "social" tools, they won't see that they are also "career" tools.
So how do we bridge this divide? As a Boomer myself, I've found that trying to get other Boomers into tools like Twitter is hard, if I try make them be users at first. A more gentle introduction is to have Boomers use tools they are comfortable with, like email, to observe social media, and see all the great career related conversations. I set up Google Alerts for friends that track their interests on sites like Twitter and Flickr. All I have to do is show them tricks like searching for their keywords with site:twitter.com added. I then point them to my free Google Alerts tutorial to learn more.
I remember teaching internet classes way back in 1995, before the Web really became mainstream. What worked best was to show people websites for their exact interests. We have to do the same thing now with social networks.
Ironic. Boomer's "Never trust anyone over 30!" rally cry now turned on itself to be "Never trust anyone *under* 30!".
I just had this discussion during easter. Consensus of people over 30 is that anyone using their phone at work in "stealing", to which I protested, unsuccessfully.
The notion that the modern, 2009 workplace is like a 1950s era tuna cannery, or a car assembly line, is alive and well. Boomers in positions of authority think you punch a clock, perform labor at a fixed rate, the cans of tuna go flying by, each can means X cents of profit...then you punch out and stop thinking about work.
Trying to convey the notion that creative thoughts for work, problem solving, etc. is a 24/7/365 mental task just doesn't register.
This is going to get worse before it gets better.
Bret's right on. We ALL need to communicate!
I am a boomer but this is so me...
I'm for anything that keeps the mouths of American Women shut while I'm trying to work. Working Etiquette 101 into the curriculum would be a bonus as well. You don't even deserve to be called Women.
As a manager, I don't care how much time you spend doing your job, tweeting, IM'ing your friends or posting to your blog. All I care about is how much value you bring to the organization. At the end of the day, we're all here to make a living.
In this "new" world, you either carry your weight to justify your job, or you're gone. Everything else is crap.
Surely when we quote surveys, we need to question the methodology. Are we extrapolating from the legal profession and white collar jobs? Seriously? If so, their clients need to question time sheets pronto! Those 22.9 hours are surely being billed to some sucker somewhere.
What's a white collar job? Many Gen-Y people actually work unconventional jobs like new ventures, many in web 2.0 driven ventures. Being online is like breathing for some people so how do they even know they spend 2.38 hours on activity X and 4.763 hours on activity Y? Where does that come in? Aren't those in the legal profession the compliant, stereotypical sort anyway?
One cannot even begin to discuss anything meaningfully if the data that the discussion is based on is, well, for want of a better word, bogus and poor quality.
I think this is a huge issue that isn't always addressed. The workplace will continue to see this generational divide for a number of years to come. And quite frankly, baby boomers need to understand that the web is forcing businesses (and its employees) to act differently. I think that we will begin to the see the rise of Gen-Y ideals applied to current business strategies (i.e. Zappos).
But hey, this is just one Gen-Y's opinion, what do I know?
http://www.techsoomer.com/breeding-nation-techsoomers/
Interesting study, but the results are, as far as presented in the PDF report, uninterpretable. The methods appear to be pretty sloppy (how, exactly, is the daily routine of medical work comparable to that of legal? I've worked in both fields, and can say that they demand very different things of one's time), and the sample is very small for an online survey.
I think there's a great deal of value in considering the generation gaps in workplace dynamics. Older managers need to know how to engage younger workers (there was a graet talk at TED last year about this, but I don't remember who gave it/its title), and younger workers likewise need to understand how to work with the older ones (and the next batch of youngers). But sadly, this study can't really help us. We need surveys done properly, with well-documented sampling strategies and valid analysis plans.
I would say the Forrester study is correct. Here's why. The boomers are lying. My own informal research (observation) tells me that many boomers are online as much as Gen XY. They just don't want to admit it because many in your survey were in management positions. How can you tell your employees not to be online when you are?
Lot's of Boomers are into high tech. Steve Jobs and Bill gates to name just 2. We get it, we just don't want to admit it.
In regards to pdas and laptops being distracting while communicating with others in physical reality, consider the following situation where the results of a distraction are more pronounced: driving a car. Does texting whole driving impair your ability to drive? It certainly does for me (don't try it). Does browsing facebook or checking email on your laptop impair your ability to drive? I've never done it, but I'm sure it would. The point I'm trying to make is simple, these activities (using a pda or laptop) inherently involve a portion of ones attention. That is a portion of ones attention that is not given to the physical world activity. That cell phones and laptops are distracting when engaged in a physical world activity is obvious, what is not so obvious is what this generation gap is about.
The generation gap I'm seeing is not one of technology per say, but one of attention. Technology has allowed split attention streams to become commonplace and accepted in Gen Y. In this paradigm, if person A and person B are having a conversation (in physical reality, or by sms, or IM, or twitter), then they are likely in the middle of many conversations, so if A suddenly receives communication from a new person C, then person B merely reengages in on other their previous conversations with say, D. At some point in the future, A and B's attention will return to each other, and their conversation will continue as if it had never left off.
Boomers on the other hand are working in the paradigm of "don't answer the phone during dinner." Or, "'m giving the person I'm talking to my full attention".
This dichotomy of paradigms becomes a problem because each one expects the other to live in their paradigm. The Gen Yer expects that the Boomer will be having 34 different conversations going on other than theirs and so feels no qualm about dropping in and out of the conversation. The Boomer on the other hand has probably self-consciously suspended other conversations to make this one "as focused as possible" and so finds the Gen Yers tendency to drop in and out as conversational taboo. The Gen Yer of course considers the Boomers suspension of other conversations as a conversation taboo.
Long story short:
Boomers == Serial Conversationalists
Gen Yers == Parallel Conversationalists
This gap is much bigger than a technological gap. This is a gap in how we interact with one another.
Cute, that you feel your own audience needs the explanation that a Personal Digital Assistant is "like a BlackBerry."
One more non-Boomer voice that the policy of "laptops / PDAs off" in meetings is a really good one.
We implemented it in on our team and it makes a real difference in the quality of the meeting. People are present and engaged, stuff gets done, and then we can all go back to our laptops, IMs, Twitter feed, etc etc.
As a Gen X'er toward the younger end of the range who just this week started into the whole social networking thing with Twitter, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn, I think this study is moderately interesting but not useful unless some form of productivity study is done along side it. "using" or "adopting" technology is meaningless unless it produces some desired result. If folks using all this stuff get more work done or become better informed in their industry, etc. then I'm all for it. That's the main reason I'm trying it out after avoiding it for a long time.
If all this is doing is helping Gen X and Gen Y people planning their weekend activities throughout the work day then the technology is not helpful either to the business they work for or their career prospects in the long term.
I'm in the Boomer generation but I have Twitter, Second Life, Facebook, blah blah. All well and good.
But... I want to know if the Gen Y and Gen X using these all day all the time with continuous partial attention are *productive*. If they *get work done*. I'm not seeing it. I know myself that if I want to get work done, especially in writing complex texts and analyzing other people's reports and news, that I need to shut off the firehose.
So I'd like your surveys not to be about what people *do* but how you analyze what is *effective*. Whether they are productive! Otherwise, it's just a lot of techno hype.
Went to a funeral, kids were texting during the prayers. Relatives of the deceased, not dragged-along teens. I am so sick of being mid-conversation with someone when they go 'Oh! Hang on, I just got a text message!' and then spend five minutes texting or calling back. It's basic human courtesy to make eyecontact, listen, reply, prioritise the person you're with and answer your texts later. Unless you're under thirty. Nobody under thirty ever turns up to an agreed meeting now either. They meet if they text you 'I'm in Joe's, are you near?' but if they say 'okay, five tomorrow at my place' they are NEVER there, ever. And if you try to explain to them that you find this rude, they tell you you've got a problem. I actually agree about the efficiency of pdas etc. at work, and as anyone circa30 or younger had a computer from year 1 in school in the UK, it is very hard for me to keep up with them (started 3 years ago). But I think people should try to understand what other people find polite, that's basic relationship skills, not ineffieciency.
Really interesting findings, Sarah...
IMO, the Boomers are either more connected or less connected. There seems to be very little middle ground. The ones who are connected, and understand life online, are the ones who've been using/working with computers since the stone age (before the Internet)and are the very early adopters. I've met many of them in my travels, and they're some seriously fascinating people.
I was surprised, though, that you said little about Gen X. From my observation, Gen X'ers (lots of people in my generation) can be curmudgeonly about new apps (Twitter? Why should I want to use that??) not because their kids are using it, but because it looks like just kids are using it. If it can be demonstrated how it is useful in one's life, they are very quick to pick up whatever it is and use it.
As for the attention span thing: I think that has to do with being young, having different kinds of responsibilities, and attention being directed differently. When I was young, I could work as an accountant, pick out oriental rugs, plan board of trustees dinners, and co-ordinate my own social life (albeit using rather primitive tools ;-) ) It was that I was young and didn't have the same kinds of responsibilities that I now have as an adult. So, it's not necessarily a "slowing down" or a disdain for technology, but just that what needs paying attention to differs at different stages of life (not different socio-cultural generations.)
Remember that even if the Boomer is on the Internet a lot, there still might be a gap.
I work from home as a freelancer. I run exclusively Linux, BSD, Solaris, *nix. I'm fluent in 15 programming/ markup languages, design graphics in many formats, have a blog, blah blah.
My Boomer in-laws have had computers for the length of my marriage (currently going on 16 years), and yet they still use Windows + AOL. Yes, you heard me. They still get hosed with viruses and malware, they still get their bank accounts cleaned out by 419 scammers, they reply to every spam and always click every ad banner that tells them to, and about every 2 years their computer "breaks" and they have to buy a new one. They're as good as married to Best Buy's "Geek Squad", whose word is gospel to them.
The fact that their son-in-law has earned his living and supported their grandkids in technology the entire time they've known him doesn't add a lick to his credibility. My mother-in-law *corrects* me when I say she runs Windows - she "runs AOL". She calls me up from Best Buy offering to buy me software. A 1000 times I've said, "That won't run, we use Linux." She cannot bring herself to speak such a foreign word. She thinks I'm possessed or in the mafia or something.
They're Boomers, and they're on computers and online alright, but that's like putting a monkey in a car and saying that it can drive.
When in a face to face conversation with someone in my office, I have a very simple policy. If I give a person my exclusive attention, I expect to get theirs. I don't pick up the phone, I don't check my email, I don't reply to IM, I don't tweet. If the other person is unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me, the next time they ask for a meeting, they will likely find it that much harder to get a hold of me.
Part of the generation gap is also that each generation builds on the achievements of the last - my grandfather would have been flabbergasted at the working conditions we have today, holidays, pensions, car allowances, regular breaks, training, a good amount of autonomy at work and all the little things around health and leisure we're given - to him it'd be such a wonderful amount of progress how can we want more? And of course to us who have grown up with this, we want more respect, more flexibility, more autonomy, even better work/life balance, less overtime etc. Would the previous generations have wanted that? Of course, but they wouldnt even have dreamed of it to ask for it - there were more basic things to wish for first. Of course to the people who have lived through the changes before our time, changes we take for granted, we seem like spoilt people who dont appreciate what they have and just whine for more...
Posted by: Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
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April 25, 2009 3:37 AM
I'm a boomer. I spend much more time on line than my Gen X and Gen Y friends. In fact, when I visit Gex X relatives, they complain that I am checking my email too often and not paying enough attention to them. I'm also on Twitter and they are not.
Where we differ is that I hate chat and don't use cellphone text messaging more than I have to. I don't like to type out conversations. It's easier just to pick up the phone.
As for having people text at things like funerals. No, I'm not big on it. It removes them from the moment.
Another area where online communication is changing the experience is at music concerts. The audience is often more engaged communicating with their friends, who aren't there, than they are in the music that is in front of them. The bands notice. Gen Y performers are being ignored by Gen Y audiences.
++Joelle People never look back at those who lifted them to their starting point. The entire idea of the weekend did not exist before those terrible "socialist" unions. Why how could people want decent working conditions, sick leave, benefits? Besides, "legal and white collar professionals" are not "early adopters." As someone who is in his 6th decade who built his own website in 1993, I look at this sample as skewed. They didn't talk to the geeks I know.
Posted by: Phil Boiarski
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April 25, 2009 5:00 AM
"Gen Y spends a lot more of their day online - they spend 10.6 hours per day" -- pretty accurate :)
Posted by: George Dearing
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April 25, 2009 5:16 AM
Interestingly in Asia, specifically South Korea, Boomers spend considerable time at work surfing the web. They text message lots, too. Few Korean Boomers spend time Blogging or using web-based social networking applications--the younger generation does however lots.
http://bridgingculturekorea.blogspot.com/2009/01/generations-us-and-korean.html
--disregard-- wow... long commenting to the wrong post
Posted by: Chris Heath
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April 25, 2009 6:07 AM
I think if this survey was done in almost any other occupation, the results would be very different. Lawyers are a breed unto themselves. I should know, I was one for a short time and got out quickly. Although I do realize that I probably spend more time online than most boomers, I still think that the results wouldn't be as drastic in other industries.
Use people's time wisely in meetings and they will put down their blackberries and listen to you. There are too many needless meetings and too many people invited to them.
Posted by: Ryan Miller
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April 25, 2009 6:33 AM
The problems with meeting interruptions by Gen X/Y people has another aspect that many don't consider. The reason I bring technology to meetings is that 99% of the time (and I don't exaggerate here), the meeting is a complete waste of time in the first place. Everything that is being discussed in the meeting could be better discussed in -- TADA! -- social media!
If there's anything Gen X/Y hates, it's watching some old Tom or Terry in the front droning on for hours about stuff that could have been summarized virtually or asynchronously through social media tools. I know that sometimes a face-to-face meeting is absolutely critical, but most meetings I find myself in are for people who asked me to write a findings report, didn't read it when it (necessarily) was more than one page, and then ask me to summarize it for them verbally in the meeting.
Another peeve is when I train Boomers on social media (again, in a time-wasting meeting instead of the 5 minute online tutorial I had already prepared but nobody bothered to watch). I get wisecracks about how "stupid" Twitter, or blogs, or Facebook are. I don't want to know how your spoiled 26-year-old Paris Hilton wannabe daughter wastes her life online. For everyone like her there are a dozen who aren't.
There are problems with etiquette on both ends.
Certainly the sample size is small, the structure of the questions limited and the broad strokes of the conclusions over reaching. But there still seems enough ideas to have a good conversation, as evidenced by the comments.
I think a lot of the issue is intensity vs. efficiency/effectiveness. When the only way to communicate with others was to take a sea voyage or mail letters (amazingly not that long ago in terms of history), everyone would 'go back to what they were doing' while waiting for a reply - especially when letters took weeks to return. But of course, there would be more thought that went into each letter. When you were sitting in the bar deciding how to create a new nation, I am sure a lot less thought went into each exchange.
I think we are in similar types of shifts now. When you can IM with 3-12 people simultaneously, you may not be thinking as much about each response or more while waiting for everyone to 'get back to you'. At least everyone is on equal footing. The challenge is when you have some in IM mode and some in 'in person' mode, and some in email mode, all at the same time.
I find it more efficient to have 1 conversation at a time, but when there is enough lag time between conversations, my mind wanders to the other issues as well. If I can I start to move the other conversations forward. For me 'If I can' is about being polite - in a large part for my own needs - if I don't respect someone in front of me, I loose their attention and it all slows down.
Back when dinosaurs ruled the world, an I programmed on mainframes by dialup, I would try to get multiple jobs running while waiting for the 1st one to finish. It took more effort to remember what each 'test' was supposed to do, and it had physical effort (I would literally have to walk to the different cubicles of everyone that had left for the day to use their terminals to get faster response) - but that allowed me to get more done faster. Of course the real solution was to have better software, and faster hardware (although I basically had a $1 million dollar per MONTH lease computer to myself) but that was the best solution at the time.
I think a similar situation continues - when the communication style does not allow full engagement from one participants perspective, they will engage in something else. I have watched this for decades - the eyes drift on to other projects, the papers start getting shuffled. Busy people start doing something else mentally, if not physically. If it is only 2 people then they should address the disconnect and get back on track. But when you have larger groups it becomes a challenge and may not be worth the time to 'discuss' and come to the compromises needed to keep everyone fully engaged.
Unfortunately in my experience, this can slow the overall process down and increase the overall effort required. Just like walking around the office starting up different dial-up terminals took more effort. The best solution was an OS that let me have many virtual sessions one terminal.
Being a boomer, living in Nicaragua, a developing country, the gap is so wide, that an elephant may go through. The implications are that developing countries will be left behind, very difficult to catch up, and will continue to offer their comparative advantage of low wages.
Regards
Heard from a priest last week: he saw a young person texting in church during the Easter liturgy. He told that young person unless they were texting Jesus, he didn't see any need for doing that in church!
Put things in perspective!
Of course the discrepancy of 22 hours could be Generation Y has lost the ability to add up!
The one thing that hasn't changed is the human being, evolution works but not that fast! Lets see in a few years who has risen to the top of Y, bet that those that resort to more traditional inter-personal skills (or manipulation!) will succeed better.
Surely the discrepancy is more to do with being experienced in a professional environment where people wish to use meetings to get things done and not a break between work to look important by checking your laptop every 5 seconds. If you are concentrating on your laptop how can you be concentrating on the meeting and if its not worth going to then don't go. I do agree that blackberry's are a very useful tool, though rarely given to the people that need them, but people who are blogging about work related issues are either so naive that they don't think this will affect them or their company or they have so little regard for the people who have to read their moaning unproductive posts that they shouldn't be blogging in the first place.
I'm Gen-X and I don't know that these traits are solely just Gen-Y or X but more the fact that there is a lot of technology around and people need to know how use it effectively in terms of both etiquette and productivity
The problem with this study is the group that was surveyed. Try the same survey in technology companies and you will get very different results. Also, the artificial cutoffs between "generations" is ridiculous.
I'm a someone who fits in the GenY class of worker given my age. I am not saying I agree/disagree with this study
I do agree with what boomers are saying about etiquette during a meeting assuming that they are talking about the use of a laptop or PDA during a meeting in a way that does not support the reason the meeting is being called. If this is the case then what the boomers are saying is probably what most people would say in that it is inefficient and unecessary. How ever if that is not the case then the results of the study might be correct with regards to only boomers not appreciating the need for such devices during a meeting.
Could you please expand on the exact questions that were asked being that this topic leaves some questions regarding how people view technology.
After reading the comments Ive decided that the study nailed it. Such pent-up anger...
>>They're Boomers, and they're on computers and online alright, but that's like putting a monkey in a car and saying that it can drive.
Posted by: Penguin Pete | April 24, 2009 4:47 PM
Such arrogance!
It only shows that, as most do, younger people spend more time doing non work related tasks at work than their older counterparts. A more relevant survey would have been a comparison of how many of each group catch a nap in the server room.
I'm a boomer and appalled at the number of fellow boomers I meet who refuse to learn new technology (even when it's part of their job) or are stuck in the mainframe age. Guess they don't get that they will be the first ones looked at when the need for layoffs arises. Their inflexible attitudes about the younger employees is also disturbing, since they don't understand there's a lot they could learn from these people. Another thing I've noticed is a lot of them expend more energy trying to avoid work than the energy they would spend actually doing work! It seems they're just 'treading water' until retirement rolls around.
I'll also have to say that the generations mentioned are inaccurate. "Gen Jones", the 1955-1965 generation of Bill Gates, Barrack Obama, Steve Jobs and many others, is once again incorrectly blended with the Boomers. The demographics and attitudes toward technology of these two groups is quite different. There is also a generation, sometimes called the MTV Generation, between Gen X and Gen Y, that is also different in their outlook.
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