Friday, January 28, 2011

Generational Communication



I attended an interesting presentation yesterday on how each generation communicates. Marjorie from Independence Title talked of the differences of communicating and connecting. She recommended a book called Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John Maxwell and spoke of how each generation relates. For example, The Greatest Generation, born before 1946, likes to receive information via telephone or in person. They like details and want to know all of the facts. Then there's the Baby Boomers who want to be super tech savvy and love their email but some are more or less into technology and texting than others. Then you have the Generation X which communicates via text and would rather do all of their research online before making any decisions. They are more savvy and are a little skeptical. Gen Y is even more comfortable texting, using Facebook, and doesn't even know what a phone book is! Last but not least, The Millennium Generation will be growing up using the iphone & ipad and will be on the cutting edge of all of the technological gadgets. It's true that our ways of communicating and taking in knowledge is changing. You can easily communicate many different ways but are we really connecting. Is connection still face to face or is texting just as good.

I think a lot of the older generations are picking up on all of the new technologies but still cling to some of the classics like phone books. My 91 year old grandmother has a Facebook account and checks email daily, but she still has her handwritten address book and always reads the print newspaper. However, she just got an iphone, way to go!

There are always going to be new technologies, once upon a time it was VHS, CD players, and television. Now we've got ipads, blue ray, HD and I'm sure there's something amazing that will hit the streets in the next few years.

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