On a recent episode of Kobi and Lital, a docucomedy series in
Israel examining various life issues, the two comedians, each around the age of
40, were given expert advice how to increase the number of their followers on
Instagram. These experts were half their age or less. It was quite striking and
entertaining to see not only how unfamiliar and incompetent the hosts were with
new media forms such as TikTok and Instagram, but also note the gap in
mentality between the two generations. This difference is also increasingly
evident in the business world.
“Facebook is for old people” was a phrase repeated several times during
the show. It is apparent that many younger people consider raising and
responding to an issue in a written text, even a single picture, passé. The under-20 group values 30-second clips. For those
that, to paraphrase the Genesis song, can’t dance and can’t sing and can’t invent
a story every day, these media forms are very uncomfortable and almost inaccessible.
Posting a daily story with trivial pictures with captions seems much ado about
nothing for older people. The generation gap is clearly evident in the use of
media.
This discrepancy in technology is partly a reflection of a difference in
worldview. Almost 60, I grew up in a United States where the “I” was
subordinated to the “we”. While children had individual needs, they were part
of a class, family or team. This distancing from the ego was even reflected in
writing where the use of the first-person singular form was discouraged, even forbidden
in formal writing. As adults, it was generally we or the company
that sold the product or provided a service even if it was a sole proprietorship.
Even in autobiographies for conference program, it was accepted practice to use
the 3rd person singular form: John Doe has more than 30 years’
experience. By contrast, at least in Israel in 2020, children and young adults
are encouraged to promote themselves. What is more shocking than the number of
people that film themselves doing banal tasks is the number of people that
watch them, to the tune of the hundreds of thousands, if not more. What my
generation considered egocentric, even crass, is now proper self-esteem.
This change has already affected the business world. First, younger executives
tend to feel less need to learn the ropes from older workers and wish to become
entrepreneurs at an early age. Moreover, these business people under the age of
25 are native to most if not all of the current mass media forms and therefore
comfortable with their use. By contrast, employees aged 40+ often struggle with
the how and why of these same forms. Furthermore, many older workers find the
blatant personal approach a bit too much and beyond their personal comfort
zone. Age is becoming like East and West as Kipling would say.
The clock keeps on ticking, creating natural generation gaps. One
omnipresent form of this change involves media use, not only in the technical
details but also the raison d’etre of their use. In this sense, the
world, including the business world, belongs to the youth.
* Always add a caption to pictures to allow full access to blind people. Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/hrohmann-848687/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=700874">Hans Rohmann</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=700874">Pixabay</a>
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