The worst of the World Wide Web is a conversation that involves reducing humans to a demographic and squeezing out the largest common denominator. Intense commercial marketing is conducted toward this juicy demographic by the hippest hucksters on the planet. As television ushered in the age of excess and we all believed we had to have two cars in the two-car garage, so to, do we appear to need everything that is flashed on the Web.

The computer age is laying waste to the meek and the mighty, equally. As technology engulfs jobs, people, economies, and transforms our very understanding of existence, it completes the cycle by rendering old systems of knowledge obsolete. It is in this transformation that we are both blinded and lead.

“Print technology created the public. Electric technology created the mass. The public consists of separate individuals walking around with separate, fixed, points of view. The new technology demands that we abandon the luxury of this posture, this fragmentary outlook.” Marshall McLuhan wrote this in The Medium is the Massage in 1967 – long before computers consumed our every waking moment. His prophetic observations predicted the "invisible environment" and I give you the World Wide Web. The clarion call for symbiosis is echoed throughout other socio-historians work. In 1988, At the Edge of History author William Irwin Thompson – an equally prophetic mind – predicted that a “wave” was on the horizon for the nineties, and to him it looked like a Tsunami. He summarily referred to an "emerging global economy" being connected via a network of computers. It is precisely this connection that banishes borders and demands a new vision of life necessary for our evolution to continue. But are we really able to realize this vision of connection?

To be clear, I’m in no way against technological progress – only the misuse of technology. Civilization has flourished based on Man acquiring technology and learning how to manipulate his environment, thus ensuring his survival. Once Stone Age Man switched from food-collection to food-production, the technologies he created would beget trading routes, towns, and the need for centralized hierarchies to control production and consumption. Not far off would appear Kings and paupers, the Pharaohs and the pyramid builders, and the middle class and Bernie Madoff.

What will be the outcome? The disenfranchised will perish, as always, and Darwinian evolution will kick in until successive generations – surviving by living off the fruits of a new world order – stumble upon the next big technological advancement. I predict it will be time-travel, but we won’t be here to verify that. Just take if from me, time-travel is a shoe in.

Cheers,
Deborah Johnstone [Baby Boomer Extraordinaire]

In my opinion although the surface details seem dissimilar, the soul of each generation remains the same. When parents look at their children and can't help but focus on the outlandish differences, I feel that if they looked a little harder, they would see more similarities of their own past. Although environment does play a crucial role in the upbringing of each generation, equally does genetics. At the end of the day the "differences" may often be the hidden or forgotten traits of the past generations.

In generations pasts & generations to come, there we be each category of "people". Their will be that are tech savvy, and ones that will never truly understand outlook. As well as the groups that praise peace & happiness, or ones that rebel to seek their own freedom. 8-Tracks, cassettes, down to the first telegrams or even more historical- starting the first fire. Technology is defined by its essence of being-beyond who is creating or learning it. We may not exactly remember who invented what, but we do have a pretty good idea of what came first. Each generation's technology is build on those past.

As per the communication skills: Generation Y can make meaningful contacts, just the same as those in past generations. Some people may have better social skills, skills that may make them more profitable, but there will also be those in every age group that lack the very same communication devices.

I just feel, that for the overall well being of all generations, we should not be pinpointing our differences, but rather embracing our similarities. In the end that is how good contacts are made. That is how we place a guiding hand on our futures.

- John

[1] From the built-in dictionary in OS X:
"brand |brand|
noun
1 a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name : a new brand of detergent.
• a brand name : the company will market computer software under its own brand.
• a particular type or kind of something : the Finnish brand of democratic socialism.
2 an identifying mark burned on livestock or (esp. formerly) criminals or slaves with a branding iron.
• archaic a branding iron.
• figurative a habit, trait, or quality that causes someone public shame or disgrace : the brand of Paula's alcoholism.
3 a piece of burning or smoldering wood : he took two burning brands from the fire.
• poetic/literary a torch.
4 poetic/literary a sword."

And you're going to have to do it all the time, until it becomes second nature. Once you feel yourself getting sick half to death of it and asking, "What about me? When is there some me-time?" – you'll know you're on the right track.

This is a major lesson not just Y's, but a lot of us X's, still have to learn. Life is not just hard: if you do it right, it is at times absolutely f*!!ing impossible. If you don't feel like giving up sometimes, you just aren't trying hard enough.

The reward is all on the come. Once you are connected with others, you will be part of something that can see you through a lot and bring you a lot of joy. But until you put everything you have into it, you will get nothing out of it.

That is what perseverance is: you keep on keeping on because you believe, abstractly, with no need or thought of reinforcement to keep you going. And that's why Xs and Ys don't persevere well.

I suppose in a sense that's true. But what Gen Y doesn't understand is that sheer numbers of connections aren't the same as quality connections. Gen Y needs to learn that having hundreds (thousands) of "friends" isn't the same as having (or being) a real friend. A relationship is always about authenticity and truth, and the ability to form real connections, not just having followers on twitter or "friends" on facebook.

I work and go to school with many Gen Y people. In my experience, for all of their internet knowhow, none of them seems to be able to connect on a deep level. If you want a great personal brand, stop trying to manufacture one with miscellaneous tweets and become a person that other people know, like, and trust.

Had to keep the competition down somehow.