The internet is littered with (I'm going to take a stab here) hundreds of "articles" about the inherently flawed nature of one particular generation. I'll let you guess.
Here's a hint: 1980-2000...ish. It's hard to even write the word at this point. You know the one, starts with M. At any rate, plenty of people seem to have a lot to say about the first crop of parseltongues, and well...it's almost understandable. The first round experiement of growing up with the internet has produced a genuinely unique group of people. While editorialists like to throw around words like "entitled" and even "narcissistic" (ouch!) to describe contemporary young adults, it could be argued just as easily that this is all one big misunderstanding. A misunderstanding resulting from the gaping, undeniable generation gap that technology has created.
A Life Spent Connected
Imagine this: if you're 30 years old and you went to college, you've probably been on Facebook for just over 10 years. That's an entire third of your life enmeshed with a digital persona -- a concept that didn't even exist before roughly the time you started using it. As far back as 2013, a third of new marriages were between people who met online. We find (and often create) our jobs online, as well. None of this is a new trick for Snake People, but rather a fluid, natural evolution of a familiar convenience. You probably knew people who were building web applications from their dorm rooms. Some might have been self-taught, others might have called themselves "hackers", but they all ended up helping change the world really fast and made a ton of money in the process. They might be retired now. Your parents probably couldn't say the same at your age.
An Answer For Everything
Perhaps one of the biggest tropes of this particular generational critique is the insistent claim of entitlement. Indeed, there is a kind of confidence and set of expectations for the world that comes from having all of human knowledge readily available at all times in a digestible, portable format. You might call that entitlement. However, when you think broadly, the internet is the knowledge-base equivalent of having lived 1,000 lives and recalling them each flawlessly. Snake People may even take this for granted, sure, but that's irrelevant. The point is simply this: "I don't know" is no longer an acceptable answer. There is no lack of knowing, there's just the time it takes to Google something (or someone who does.) Understandably, this is a huge paradigm shift for most of the human race. Those who have been harnessing this techno-magic since the days of social studies homework seem to have a slightly firmer grasp on its power and how to wield it effectively.
No Limits
In a world more connected than ever, what does "limitation" even look like? We can communicate across languages, share intimate moments, build relevant audiences and change lives. We can consult, measure, build, proof-read, model, manage, and collaborate. Our lives are lived across time zones and borders, in an endless flow of information that we carry in our pockets. Instead of being overwhelmed or intimidated, Snake People take to it like fish in water -- and the water is data. This generation doesn't question if the next breakthrough will be in artificial intelligence, new energy sources, space travel or medical science. Instead, they hold the awareness that they're all happening right now, simultaneously, faster than is even worth tracking. And they know this because they're playing a key role in it.
Snake People and their younger peers of the next generation will inherit global leadership not as an entitlement, not as the owners of intellectual property rights -- but as the collaborators on an endless open source project of life-enhancing discovery and innovation. That's not a narcissistic claim, just a casual, intuitive prediction.
In fact, here's your opportunity: sign up for the XPRIZE Visioneers Challenge and you'll get the chance to be a part of imagining the next XPRIZE Competition concept. This is a key step in getting right in the middle of that swirling race to a better future for humanity. Go on, prove 'em wrong.
