Early Insights into the Future, May 24, 2008
Johann Günther
It's a pity this work is not more readily available. The best work right now that is available is Marc Pensky's Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!, whose 2005 article in Educational Review (December 2005/January 2006) on “Listening to the Natives,” first illuminated this huge distinction. As Pensky says, children today are no longer “little versions of us.”
Forthcoming in August 2008 is Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. The key point that I have seen in my broad reading is that the future is not here now–it will be here when the digital natives are digital adults, and overthrow the “command and control” (“do it because I say so”) regimes that are all too prone to corruption and misdirection behind closed doors.
See also:
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
