Generation Edge

As I consumed this week’s readings, blog posts, and videos, I was reminded of the significant differences between my generation, that of my students, and earlier generations such as Generation X and the Baby Boomers.  Of particular relevance to this post is Generation Edge, people born around the year 2000 and later.  (But that depends on who you talk to; some commentators- such as Ian Pierpoint in a 2013 blog post- describe this generation as beginning as early as 1994).  I am a freshman biology teacher at Dakota High School, and my students are usually 14 or 15 years of age, fitting squarely right in the middle of Generation Edge.  Some of what I have read this week describes my students uncannily precisely, while some of it sounds a little off the mark.  At the very least, I question a few of the generalizations made by some of the authors.

I enjoyed the video that compared the different generations, from the Greatest Generation all the way through Millenials.  I found it enlightening that each generation seems to be molded by world events, from wars to economic boom-and-bust, to social and political upheaval.  Although I would not say I see a general “pattern” in the sequence of these generations, I do find it interesting that generations seem to be influenced by the one two generations before.  For instance, Generation Edge was raised by Generation X, and so we can begin to see the influence of Generation X on youth who are emerging in higher education and the workplace.  The video helped me begin to put the differences between my generation and those of my students into clearer perspective.  Statements about modern students should not begin with “Kids these days are...” but rather, “This generation is...”

Next, on to Marc Prensky and his 2001 article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.”  Prensky’s central thesis is that the generational divide between most teachers and current students is so drastic as to constitute a “discontinuity” between them.  This divide is carved by the influence of digital immersion on young people, to whom Prensky refers as Digital Natives.  He says that young people process tasks differently than older generations, and that they value collaboration, play, connectivity, and instant gratification more.  There is, he says, a “language” barrier between generations; Digital Natives speak a different sort of language than Digital Immigrants- people who have not been steeped in digital communication technology their whole lives.  This divide leads to differences in expectations between instructors- older generations- and students- the Edge Generation.  Some students have even quit the outdated methods of learning altogether for faster, more personalized, accessible educational opportunities.  Prensky paints Generation Edge as future-oriented and forward-looking, and Digital Immigrant teachers are going to have to accept and cater to this new generation’s preferences if we are to get anywhere.  Controversially, Prensky also claims that such digital exposure reshapes or rewires young peoples’ brains so that they are structured differently and therefore function a little differently than those of older generations.

How does this describe my students?  Pretty well, in some respects.  My students demand constant engagement, connection, and support, as they very well ought to.  As discussed in Sarah Fudin's 2012 post, they want genuine verbal feedback right now, not a comment scribbled on an assignment returned two weeks after they do it.  My Generation Edge students want to collaborate meaningfully with each other.  This does not mean they want to do “group projects,” or even what some of us uncritically call “group work.”  Rather, they want to engage with each other and the teacher in order to walk out of the classroom with new ideas that they can bring to their parents that evening.  They want to discuss things, not simply be told things.  They want to explore possibilities, not be told the facts up front and asked to memorize them.  They want to play games in class.  My students want to use technology for fun, communication, and for learning, sometimes at the expense of traditional forms of education.  They are indeed at the cusp of consumer-driven technology.

But Jamie McKenzie, writing a 2007 article in the educational technology journal From Now On, balks at some of Prensky’s claims about Generation Edge.  Some of McKenzie’s objections are precisely the same ones I have worried about.  Like McKenzie, I question the logic of lumping everyone into two camps: Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.  I mean, the social and economic spectra upon which all student and educators lie engender a plentitude of varieties of digital users.  McKenzie points out TV, gaming, computer, and reading habits as some of these spectra, but there are so many more.  I particularly like the more modern categories of Digital Heirs, Digital Orphans, and Digital Exiles, as described in this 2017 article shared by a classmate in IT 6140.   McKenzie also derides Prensky’s claims about how Generation Edge needs to focus more on future-learning as opposed to legacy-learning, but I side more with Prensky on this one.  My students are not content to learn skills they regard as old and stale; they want to see where the world is taking them.  They want to know the ethical and political implications of biotechnology, genetically modified organisms, DNA fingerprinting, and designer babies; they don’t just want to know what they are and move on.  

But I suspect that some Gen Edgers also have a dependence upon technology that can lead to helplessness if they are not constantly plugged into a Wi-Fi network or get a cell signal.  The photo below is a stock example of how this looks:

Image source: http://www.protection1.com/campus-safety/top-5-social-media-safety-tips/

As any teacher would say if they look at an image like this one: “Oh, that is so true.”  I do worry sometimes that the inundation of technology is socially crippling my students.  They actually go into withdrawal if I don’t allow them to use their phone when they want to.  It’s like telling them not to scratch an itch.  I think McKenzie would point this out as a real danger of the flood of digital communication to which Generation Edge is accustomed.  In fact, McKenzie cites the publication Towards a New Literacy of Technology, put out by the Alliance for Childhood which says:

“Computers, headsets, and cell phones have made it possible for children and parents almost to avoid each other’s company entirely, even when sitting next to each other.”

I saw a lot of this when I was a student at Grand Valley State University, among those of my own generation of Millenials.  Is it getting worse among Generation Edge?  I’m not sure it is.  The reason I say that is because I sense that my Generation Edge students crave meaningful, genuine, face-to-face interaction, and I think they sort of know that instant messaging, SnapChat, Twitter, and Instagram are neither meaningful nor genuine.  But they are more convenient, ubiquitous, far-reaching, and popular, which I think accounts for their gross overuse. 

That brings me to the blog entry by Amy Lynch.  Even my own students will readily admit that they use their smart phones too much, share their personal information too widely, and that they are too reliant upon technology.  I think this meta-awareness of technology is a step in the right direction.  It could be that we are seeing the first small steps of a shift toward a more moderate approach to technology.  I think Lynch makes a sidelong glance at this trend in pointing out that she observes Generation Edge to be pragmatic, polite, and more private than Millenials. 

I often overhear my educator colleagues (and some parents) commenting that young people today are extremely “entitled,” that they think they deserve everything to be handed to them, that they are supremely narcissistic, that they want things without working for them.  This is true of certain individuals, but I am beginning to wonder if it applies more to Millenials than Gen Edge.  Of particular interest to me was the post by Fletcher & Pierpoint.  The interesting points I gathered from this post was that Generation Edge kids are more cynical, pragmatic, and tough, because they were raised by Generation X parents.  They are also less sanguine about their own prospects (and possibly about the prospects of our nation), because of the influence of 9-11, “institutional failure,” and a years-long recession.  Fletcher & Pierpoint also point out that Gen Edge is more realistic about technology and are more likely to view it as a tool to keep in contact, not a panacea to solve every problem.  They are also less trustful of institutions and scorn superficial invitations to participate in institutional operations.  In addition to the Mountain Dew example in this article, there are four notable recent examples in which Gen Edge has hijacked the participatory process in order to poke fun at institutional power.  In 2007 Greenpeace crowd-sourced ideas for naming a rescued whale, and the one that came in first place was Mister Splashy Pants.  Last year, when the Natural Environment Research Council did the same for an ocean research vessel, the public chose Boaty McBoatFace.  There is also an ongoing situation in which the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is calling for names for their new mascot, a license plate with limbs and a face.  

Not surprisingly, the winner is currently Platey McPlateFace.  (Fun side note: In 2014 a Canadian couple crowd-sourced their daughter’s name, and they received suggestions such as Ixtley, Iagathor, Cthulu all-spark, and WackyTaco692, with middle name suggestions including Le-Dash-A, Pond, and Salad.)  I see a playful version of that institutional derision when my students play Kahoot reviews with me, and they post user names such as ShugrBuns, MrNolan, and GottaPee.  These behaviors are a little contradictory to those described by Lynch, who says Gen Edge students are more likely “to do the job without asking why.”

I must also comment here on the subject of "multitasking," brought up in the 2012 Fudin article.  I really don't agree with this term, because clearly students cannot literally do multiple intellectual tasks at once.  I specify with "intellectual" because obviously a person can do more than one thing at once: You can watch Wheel of Fortune while cooking an omelette, or walk while having an engrossing conversation with a friend.  These activities are simultaneous and practiced.  But when a student tries to do multiple intellectual tasks at the same time, they are really task-switching.  They are instant-messaging, then texting, then changing the song on their iPod, then doing a math problem, then paying attention to a TV show for a minute.  They do small tasks incrementally, one at a time.  This Time article goes into more depth on this phenomenon.  I think that certain passive activities can take place while learning, such as listening to music.  But when it comes to work that requires intellectual elbow-grease, students- even Gen Edgers- simply can't multitask to produce work of the kind of quality that can be achieved by singular, intensive concentration on one task.  I hear a lot of people lauding this generation for being so tech-savvy, but I don't think that multitasking is something that should be regarded as a desirable skill while doing classwork.

Lastly, the November 27, 2011 post by the WiseWords blog raises a few more questions for me.  The author brings up a lot of interesting points about the differences between Millenials and Generation Edge, but the one that has me thinking most is the last one, regarding competitive spirit versus collaborative spirit.  The article says that because of the no-sugar-coating language of Gen X parents, Gen Edge kids have a global competition-mentality.  I wonder how much the rhetoric about China, Russia, and Europe has influenced this quality in recent years.  I’ve heard many commencement speeches recently that emphasize that students are competing in a global marketplace, not just local, state, or national.  All the same, I stand by my earlier statements that students want to collaborate with each other and communicate in order to get the job done, and to walk out of the room producing something genuine and real, something they can stamp as their own and feel proud of.

One thing, I think, has gone unaddressed by all the above articles.  Some authors, such as Fletcher & Pierpoint, obliquely reference it.  As a teacher, I am sensing that today’s students are not only a little more cynical and less trusting than Millenials, but they can see through baloney.  What I mean is that they have a strong intuition about what constitutes meaningful work and collaboration, and what is “busywork.”  Students are much more likely to ask, “Why are we doing this assignment/unit/subject?”  What they mean to ask is How does this work benefit us?  Is it really the best use of everyone’s time?  How does it fit into the skillset and content we need to have if we are to be successful in life?  What is it good for besides a few points?  Will I use it in my career?  Students can smell baloney when they see it.  I think this is why we see them using the cameras on their phones to capture and send pictures of written assignments: If this is just empty busywork, why does it matter if I do it the hard way?  Let me copy it and get it out of the way so I can work on more important things.  I think they can sense when learning is genuine, deep, and meaningful, and their effort gravitates in that direction.  This may be why I see such amplified engagement when I have my students participate in discussions.  They want to have meaningful interactions and will strive actively to involve themselves in them.  At the same time, I am sensing a growing uncritical credulity when it comes to accepting claims made by dubious sources.  I don’t know who came up with this, but there is a science myth floating around that a person ingests on average 8 spiders a year, while sleeping.  I cannot stress how absurd this is, but I have had students strenuously insist that it is true, because they spotted it on one of their news or article feeds.  The real discontinuity, if you ask me, is why Gen Edge students have such a critical eye toward what they are asked to do, while at the same time have such a gullible eye toward outrageous claims made by anonymous sources.  Maybe rather than a “generational thing,” it is simply an “age thing?”  I am wondering to what extent other educators have noticed this, and if it is truly a generational trait.