Meet Your IT Workers Of The Future
Digital natives are now raising the first generation of children who are using smartphones in the crib, and it will change everything for IT.
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A study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in San Diego last month shows that the first generation of digital natives are handing their children mobile devices as soon as they can hold the gadgets in their tiny hands. This is likely to have profound effects on the next generation of workers, who will be even more technologically demanding than their parents' generation.
The first generation of digital natives, also known as millennials, are those born between 1980 and 1995, according to TrendsActive, a trends analysis agency. They grew up amidst an explosion of technology and new media, and were the first to use social digital technologies, such as usenets and bulletin board systems. Yet, most digital natives grew up in the era of the PC, not the smartphone.
Anyone who has been around children these days has seen what we're talking about: They walk up to a television or a computer screen, and the first thing they try to do is touch it. They don't look for a mouse. They don't look for a remote. They certainly don't expect a keypad.
If you're lucky, you'll be retired before most of these kids hit the workplace.
TrendsActive identifies a generation of "digital teens," born 1995-2002, the eldest of whom are college-aged. But you've got at least a decade before these so-called "mobile natives" hit the workplace. Children whose first computer was a true smartphone (an early BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android device) or a tablet (like an iPad) aren't much older than 10 or 12. Nowadays, six-month-old babies are being handed computers to show them video, teach them to read or write, and even to soothe them for sleep.
On the plus side, the PAS study -- conducted at the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia -- may assuage concerns about a growing digital divide across socioeconomic or ethnic lines. The study researched the smartphone and tablet habits of low-income, minority children at a hospital-based clinic. The survey, conducted in October and November 2014, polled 370 parents about their children's habits from six months to four years of age. Nearly three quarters of respondents (74%) were African-American). The numbers are not too far off baselines established from other surveys that went into less detail.
The study reveals an astonishing level of smartphone literacy in children who can't even walk. One questions whether we shouldn't create a smartphone case that has a Binky on the end.
What does this mean for an IT department already under harshe pressure from the first generation of digital natives in the workplace? What will this next generation of mobile natives bring? Undoubtedly, even more change, and more demand for easier technology.
Check out what they're up to, and then tell us in the comments section below what you think this means for the future of your workplace.
More than a third of survey respondents (36%) said their babies have at least touched and used a smartphone between six months and twelve months of age. Another 12% of respondents said their children had actually played a video game before their first birthday. Let's hope it wasn't Halo.
That's how often 14% of respondents said their one-year-olds were using a smartphone. Presumably they're texting with friends while hanging in the crib.
Nearly nine in ten respondents (89%) said their children had "touched" a mobile device by age two. Whether it was simply scrolling and looking at pictures, playing mobile games, or making a call, most kids have used a mobile device before they were potty trained.
Slightly more than one in four respondents (26%) said their two-year-olds were using mobile devices at least an hour per day. Their kids have real literacy on a computing device before most know the alphabet. Tell me that won't lead to profound changes.
Nearly three quarters of respondents (74%) said their kids had played a video game by age two. There's no research on whether this means messing around with Candy Crush Saga, or playing one of many free or cheap "educational" games out there.
Even those parents who hold off until their kids are out of diapers don't wait until they are in kindergarten to introduce them to mobile devices. Some 99% of respondents said their kids had played a mobile video game by age four. At the very least, it is clear that the distinction between "gamer" and "non-gamer" is something that the smartphone is destroying.
More than three quarters of respondents (77%) said their babies have used a mobile app by age two. It is difficult to determine if this includes apps that are not games, such as Facebook or Instagram to look at pictures? Perhaps Youtube or Spotify for music? Even if there is overlap, the number is higher than those who play games, which means some kids are using smartphones to do more than play before they are three years old.
It shouldn't be surprising that kids watch TV at very young ages: 77% of respondents said their babies had watched TV by their first birthdays. What is surprising is how quickly smartphones are catching up to TV: 69% of respondents said their babies had used a phone by age one.
More than two thirds of respondents (65%) said they have used their smartphone to "calm the child." Better than a Binky? I do have to wonder how many phones have been destroyed by babies drooling on them.
Nearly three in ten respondents (29%) said they use their smartphone to help their child sleep. OK, I have to draw a line here. Mobile Native is one thing. Needing to stream Sesame Street in order to get your child to sleep is asking for a generation of insomniacs with very strange dreams.
Parents surveyed said they most often let their kids use phones while they were running errands (60%) or doing chores (73%) -- much like Gen X and Baby Boomer kids were parked in front of the TV to give their parents some free time. What do you think? Are mobile natives going to change the world, or rot their brains before they hit puberty? What will a generation of mobile natives mean for IT? Tell us your worst fears, and best hopes, in the comments section below.
Parents surveyed said they most often let their kids use phones while they were running errands (60%) or doing chores (73%) -- much like Gen X and Baby Boomer kids were parked in front of the TV to give their parents some free time. What do you think? Are mobile natives going to change the world, or rot their brains before they hit puberty? What will a generation of mobile natives mean for IT? Tell us your worst fears, and best hopes, in the comments section below.
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