Generation G

By Curtis Ogden

In the final chapter of What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis makes a provocative statement about the future and promise of a networked world. Many of the points Jarvis makes appear to turn things on their head, at least compared to the way that many of us might first react to developments in our ever more densely connected and information-rich world.

A few things to ponder:

1. This current generation is growing up with an ability to stay in touch with nearly everyone they meet throughout their entire lives. Whereas those of us who grew up pre-Facebook may have lost track of old childhood friends and college buddies, this generation has the possibility of always being more directly in touch with the different chapters of their lives. Scary? This seems profound to me, and yet I don’t really know exactly how. What might this do to the very nature of relationship?

2. The flip side of TMI (too much information) is greater transparency. Young people are putting so much more of themselves and their lives out for public consideration. Often this gets construed as risky and/or a kind of exhibitionism. However, if more people are playing the same game, then perhaps the rules will enforce greater overall acceptance and safety of full and liberating self-expression. Jarvis quotes author David Weinberger (who was quoted by blogger Lisa Williams - and so it goes in a twitterific world) - “An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness.” Wow.

3. And what about all of that apparently inane information that people share about their bunions or the mold growing on the bathroom tile? Well, how about the benefit of “ambient intimacy” (Jarvis quoting blogger Leisa Reichelt, swapping the small details of our daily lives? This may just help us to develop stronger relationships as we come to know more about people who would otherwise be just acquaintances, or grease the wheels for the next time we physically see one another or talk by phone (less catch up time).

Throughout these and multiple other points, Jarvis seems to be suggesting that more integrated lives and more widespread trust are a result of living in the Google age. Given that collaboration thrives on trust, and that collaboration may be our saving grace as a species (see Charles Darwin and my post “The Group Effect," shouldn’t we all be striving to be fully exposed and (wireless) card carrying members of Generation G?