Five Ways Screens Shaped Each Generation at Work |
Each new shift in how we use screens brings both benefits and consequences to our health.
As our screens shifted from public to private, we began feeling entitled to customized content.
As AI impacted our screens, we began feeling satisfied with quick but often inaccurate data.
Our lives today not only involve screens, but they often revolve around those screens. Most of us would say we cannot live without them, whether it’s a smartphone, a laptop, or a tablet. As I pondered how those screens have changed us, I noticed that each generation is shaped in their earliest years by the technology that grew up alongside them. Consider the screens that emerged when we were young:
Baby boomers were the first generation to grow up with TVs.
Gen Xers were the first generation to grow up with the computer.
Millennials were the first generation to grow up with cell phones and the internet.
Gen Zers were the first generation to grow up with smartphones.
And Gen Alpha, our children today, will be the first generation to grow up with AI.
The biggest impact, however, is the transformation that’s taken place inside of us due to this evolution. In our day and age, we’ve seen five radical shifts that have impacted us:
1. Screens have shifted from public to private.
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, my family had one screen in our home—a TV set in the den. Our family gathered to watch a “program” together (The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, Gomer Pyle, The Brady Bunch, etc.). We watched, laughed, and talked about it together.
Today, we now have our own private screen in our hands, where young and old are on different platforms, interacting with different people on different topics. We’ve been pushed into silos with people who think and talk like us, allowing no divergence of thought. Parents may know their teenage daughter has an Instagram account but have no idea she has four Finsta accounts!
Result: This placed us into........