"grown up digital"

Grown up Digital

(view the YouTube info ad on this book by clicking on the link above)

Sorry it’s been a while since writing in my blog…

I’ve been very busy reacquainting myself with my instrument and my deep love and passion of music making. I have been asked to join in and perform with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony all week. It was a combination week of performing school concerts, with introducing classical music to young people between the age of 7 and 13. We, the KWS, performed 3 programs for about 3000 kids! Wow.. great fun! Later on in the week we performed 2 pops concerts with the involvement of more kids, this time on the stage. The Kitchener Waterloo Youth Orchestra, and a  youth stage band that was on tour to Canada from Chile.

This whole week ties in with an very interesting Book Launch I attended on Monday at the University of Toronto, Business school . Don Tapscott has written his newest book “ grown up digital” He presented it on Monday at his book launch. An interesting book about a 4 million dollar study that he and his company initiated in order to study and interview 10,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 31. In this positive outlook on this new “ Net Generation” he quotes that this generation is not the dumbest generation but that they are smartest generation of all time! Now that’s a very relieving statement for me, as I’m the Aunt of 5 teenage nieces and nephews. Although my brother-in-law seems to disagree with this statement, or better said twists it into his own portrayal and calls this generation the slowest and laziest generation ever. He says: “They may be good at all the tech stuff, but they are the slowest and laziest generation ever!  and not willing to do any hard physical labor!”

Now how this all ties in with the book, is that I was very impressed or better said, blown away at the high playing level of these kids that performed with us. Sitting beside me in the orchestra was a 15 year old boy playing his French horn. He sounded great! And much better than me at 15 years old too! I was totally impressed by his high level of playing. Plus these kids that played in the stage band from Chile. They played at a very high level as well!

Now all these kids are exposed to cell phones, text messaging, the internet, TV, video games, ipods, facebook, youtube, myspace etc.. plus hang with their friends and do homework from school ! I tend to agree with Mr. Tapscott, because for all of these kids that performed with us, they not only found time to do all of the above but also found time to practice their musical instruments and rehearse with their bands or Orchestra! I think these kids are the most talented multi-taskers ever! Talk about incredible efficient time management and task development. These kids will no doubt be hugely successful in all their adult lives and careers.

Me as I type this entry into my blog today, I tried turning on the radio for background stimulant or mindless entertainment, and after 5 minutes I had to turn the radio off because I couldn’t concentrate on this task of writing this entry.

I’m one of the “ X-Generation” and as Mr. Tapscott also explains in his book, that we the X-gen, grew up watching TV. In a vegetative state, sitting on the couch and not doing anything else but tv watching. We did not grow up as multi-tasked individuals like the kids today are stars in multi-tasking. So in comparison, kids today can watch TV, listen to their ipod, text their friends, update there facebook status and do their homework all at the same time!!

Now I really understand what TV for the X-Generation really meant:

…. The Boob Tube! …boob as in  - stupid!!