The (generational) lag of online media

In the past week, I've perused the following stories concerning online media:

• November 13, 2009: Facebook status update provides alibi
• November 16, 2009: Patients Turn To Online Community For Help Healing
• November 17, 2009: "Unfriend" named word of 2009
• November 17, 2009: Report: Countries prepping for cyberwar
• November 17, 2009: Can the law keep up with technology?

It goes to reason that people are not unaware of the changing cultural norms and customs regarding online tools. From the third article above, the New Oxford American Dictionary even named the single word of the year for 2009 as a word from the world of the Internet. Not since the dot-com boom of the late-1990s has a word from the online arena been dubbed Word of the Year.

So what makes 2009 different from the rest of the years of the '00s? Arguably, the Internet came to mass appeal in the '90s (which could explain how online-related words claimed the Word of the Year throne for six non-consecutive years during the '90s), but it wasn't until throughout the '00s that it has ultimately fundamentally changed the way people function, work, and interact with one another. Think about it. You can apply to colleges and graduate schools online (some only have online applications). You can apply to jobs online. Email is the preferred method for a lot of professional dialogues. If a company doesn't have a website, it is probably severely hindered compared to those that do have one. The company names "Google," "YouTube," and "Facebook" have all become verbs. Most younger people probably couldn't function without Internet access of some sort. You can watch movies and television shows online. You can go shopping online. You can compare prices between/among various competitors online. I could go on and on.

Ergo, this collection of events has essentially been spiraling toward a point in which the legal/cultural/infrastructural boundaries of yester-decade are being hard-pressed to change. Online tools have changed the population, but the infrastructures currently in place are for a population essentially before the Internet. From the articles above, people are relying on online social networking sites like Facebook for legal alibis, people are turning to the online community for mental help, countries are anticipating some type of new warfare via the Internet, and the laws of today rudimentarily apply to issues in the cyberworld.

So how can all these issues be rectified? The people currenly in power (that is, the older working-age population [ages 35-65]) could hardly be said to understand the Internet as well as those coming into power (i.e., the younger working-age population [ages 15-35]). As with any cultural shift, the effect undeniably affects the younger people much more than it affects the older ones, with the more-affected younguns bringing the changes with them as they age to become the older ones of tomorrow. Therefore, any type of foundational change (legal, economical, etc.) related to these cultural shifts must be implemented by the younger generation coming into power, which of course would take roughly a generation (20-30 years) to occur.

Unfortunately, we are already feeling the strains that the online world have been putting on our legal system since current laws have set geographical precincts. The online world doesn't quite understand national/state boundaries. We'll have to see what happens.

By the way, Mashable.com's CEO is surprisingly handsome.


Today's unrelated music video comes from U.K. singer Emma Deigman. I became a fan of her from her acoustic cover of the Killers' "Human" (which you should YouTube ... as well as her acoustic cover of Lady Gaga's "Just Dance"). This video is her official single "It Was You":