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SteveDallas · 11-20-2003, 01:46 PM

Teenagers? It's the generation gap. I've been working IT in higher ed since 1992... well, since 1987 if you count while I was still in college & working as a student. I mean, I still made cash in college typing research papers for people because hardly anybody knew how to use word processors. At that point, in that place, you weren't even automatically entitled to an email account as a student.

Fast forward to my "real" employment, and I handed out email accounts and passwords to students at orientation darn every year now since 1992. I've seen it go from "e mail? What's e mail? Oh who cares I'll put it in my pile of other papers from the college that I'll never read" to "Oh really, I've heard about email, it might be neat to try it out" to "Gimme my email account now" to "I don't want your stinkin' email account, I've already got three of 'em".

My employer supplied high-speed networks in the dormitories for the first time in 1995, and we were kind of in the middle of the pack for our peer group institutions. (I still have nightmares about setting up TCP/IP in Windows 3.1.) These kids, who are now mostly in their late 20s, were more interested in email than anything else--because there wasn't much of anything else, just telnet and ftp, and gopher, which was really fabulous and trendy for about 10 months. On the other hand, your average college freshman today has been IM'ing at least since starting high school, and may well have had as much or more bandwidth at home as my 1995 employer provided for the entire campus!

I think there really is an online generation gap that shows up in a lot of things, like writing. The expectations of writing in email in the mid 90s for example may have been informal... but not as informal as IM or txt msging.

11-20-2003, 01:46 PM	#38
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	Teenagers? It's the generation gap. I've been working IT in higher ed since 1992... well, since 1987 if you count while I was still in college & working as a student. I mean, I still made cash in college typing research papers for people because hardly anybody knew how to use word processors. At that point, in that place, you weren't even automatically entitled to an email account as a student. Fast forward to my "real" employment, and I handed out email accounts and passwords to students at orientation darn every year now since 1992. I've seen it go from "e mail? What's e mail? Oh who cares I'll put it in my pile of other papers from the college that I'll never read" to "Oh really, I've heard about email, it might be neat to try it out" to "Gimme my email account now" to "I don't want your stinkin' email account, I've already got three of 'em". My employer supplied high-speed networks in the dormitories for the first time in 1995, and we were kind of in the middle of the pack for our peer group institutions. (I still have nightmares about setting up TCP/IP in Windows 3.1.) These kids, who are now mostly in their late 20s, were more interested in email than anything else--because there wasn't much of anything else, just telnet and ftp, and gopher, which was really fabulous and trendy for about 10 months. On the other hand, your average college freshman today has been IM'ing at least since starting high school, and may well have had as much or more bandwidth at home as my 1995 employer provided for the entire campus! I think there really is an online generation gap that shows up in a lot of things, like writing. The expectations of writing in email in the mid 90s for example may have been informal... but not as informal as IM or txt msging.