Digital technology has taken over our lives in recent years.
The invention of smart phones and the mobile internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure that has grown to support them means that we can be online virtually anywhere.
One generation that the digital revolution has affected the most are school age children.
There are now generations of children growing up that are digitally native, they have never lived in a world where information and communication was not at their fingertips 24/7. Children are drawn to technology from an early age and it seems to come naturally to them.
Teens in the UK, like most everywhere else in the world, are incredibly digitally literate. Smartphone adoption is sky high and by 2013, 8 out of 10 UK teens had a smart phone, using it for browsing the web, playing games and using social media.
Young people are estimated to be only for 27 hours a week and there is concern that is too much and children are becoming dependent on being connected.
Last week the BBC put together an interesting experiment to see how high school students would cope with a weeklong digital detox.
“Digital detox refers to a period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic connecting devices such as smartphones and computers. It is regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world.”
It was insightful to see how the students use the technology and how different their experience of the world is to their parents.
All quite endearing it shows just how important digital has become in the behaviours of the next generation. This will affect how they respond to how they find and absorb information and how they communicate with each other.
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