Born between 1980 and 1994, the generation dubbed the “Millennials” has already recieved a label: the coolest computer geeks ever.
Lecturer Richard T. Sweeney, university librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, has diagnosed this generation as a technology-loving, multi-tasking group of youngsters who have entered the collegiate scene with a buzz, prompting many universities to up their technological anti, gasping to keep pace with the wireless and portable-savvy youths, according to an Oct. 2005 article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sweeney lays out the nature of Millennials: smart but impatient, expecting results immediately, armed with every electronic device available, and practiced jugglers (such as instant messaging, emailing, downloading songs and surfing the Web for the latest Olympic results, while reading an English assignment).
Other descriptions, according to Sweeney, involve lack of brand loyalty, Millennial’s “accept as [our] right” ability to make and customize choices, their frustration by technology that keeps them in one location and their expectation that they will make more money then their parents, whom in general they will make more money than.
Sweeney’s prognosis aside, Millennials have been shaped by the computers in their lives, and in turn have shaped the technological age by being on the forefront.
No other generation has had nearly half its members familiar with a computer at the tender age of five, according to a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Of the Millennial generation, over 80 percent grew up with computers in elementary and middle school, nearly 70 percent had computers at home as children, and nearly 90 percent own their own computer now as college students, said the Pew study.
While Hillsdale College sits back with ease upon its traditional ways and moderate technological investment, colleges across the nation are scrambling to have the latest, the newest, and the shiniest technological gizmos at their students’ fingertips, hoping to lure prospective students.
UNC-Chapel Hill requires every student to own a personal laptop, reported a 2005 USA Today article “Gadgets rule on college campuses.” Perhaps they have felt the pressure from down the road where Duke University forked over $500,000 in 2004 to give each incoming freshman a free Apple iPod digital music player.
In just the past few years wireless connectivity has spread like wildfire, with a whopping 80 percent of colleges at least partly covered with wireless network services, compared with the 30 percent in 2000, according to a CCP survey.
As for requirements, 6.2 percent of colleges nationwide actually provide or require laptops for students, said a survey by Educause, a technology-promoting organization in schools.
Sweeney suggests the Millennials’ needs are different than previous generations. He says while throwing out books or blackboards is out of the question, educators should consider that Millennials “consume and learn from a wide variety of media, often simultaneously” and adapt.
His recommendations range from group studying through online discussion to more interactive online course systems such as WebCT and Blackboard and the use of digital and video equipment.
The question is whether excessive technology belongs in academia. Tom Connor, associate professor of history believes technology has its place in higher education.
“There’s a right balance,” Connor said. “There’s using technology in just the right way to support our educational endeavors and there’s going overboard.”
Connor believes Sweeney’s idea of molding to the demands of a new generation is unwise.
“Surrendering the heavy lifting, what I think is the hard work of classroom instruction to a machine is wrong,” Connor said. “We have to do everything we can do—human to human contact is important.”
Institutions must weigh whether jumping on the technological bandwagon is worth the possible compromise of reliable long-standing teaching tools. And the question couldn’t be more pertinent—as cutting edge as Millennials might be, just imagine their children.
“I wonder if future generations will be able to read well,” Connor said. “Young people are hurting themselves by over-relying on visual images on a screen, rather than those on a page, which require a mental engagement. It is worrying.”