Expert Calls Web Generation Smart, Diverse, Interactive

Think the Internet generation is made up of Attention Deficit Disorder-suffering World of Warcraft players and Facebook fiends with no purpose in life? Think again. According to one expert, the Internet generation is smarter, quicker to adapt, and more accepting of diversity than its predecessors.

Toronto-based Don Tapscott, author of "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World", interviewed more than 10,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 30 from twelve different countries (including the United States and Canada). This generation is the biggest ever, approximately twice the size of those angry Gen-Xers who rebelled against rebellion.  Instead, web kids are close-knit, interactive, and efficient.

What else did he find?

"They are a generation with really strong values of integrity," Tapscott remarked. "Today, the 11-year-old at the breakfast table is an authority on a digital revolution that's changing every institution in society." (Source: yahoo.com)

The Internet creates this kind of unique blend of integrity and tech-savvy knowledge, Tapscott contends. The web is a place where people can not only access information instantly, but they are faced with the possibility that the data they're collecting may or may not be correct. Thus, the Internet generation is made up of instant, natural problem-solvers and critical thinkers. (Source: theglobeandmail.com)

Tapscott's book outlines a number of "norms" inherent to this new gen, like valuing freedom and customization. This is a generation that wants to be able to adapt their tools and their environment to their own comforts and style. Unlike previous generations where people generally had to "tough it out", web kids have the ability and the knowledge to change parameters as they see fit.

"The world has changed. The web has changed," Tapscott remarked. Surprisingly, it seems it has done so for the better.