The World According to the Class of 2018
Today is Move-In Day for the Class of 2018! Our incoming first-year students have never lived in a world without wearable cellular telephones, AMBER Alerts, computers that can defeat the world chess champion, or cloned sheep.
Television shows, from their point of view, have always displayed a score from the TV ratings system.
These millennials may have played with a Furby or with Teenie Beanies—miniature Beanie Babies included in fast-food children’s meals. At Christmastime, many of them received a “Tickle Me Elmo” doll.
They may not realize that the “save” icon for Microsoft and other products is an image of a floppy disk. Even if they do, they probably have never used a floppy disk.
Adobe Flash, MP3 (audio format), wikis and JAVA have always existed in their lifetimes, as has Amazon.com.
And the dictionary has always included the terms “alcopop,” “always-on,” “censorware,” “fist bump,” “microbrowser,” and “phishing,” as far as they’re concerned.
Certainly you could add examples not included on this list. Please share your own ideas/observations about the class of 2018 in our Comment section.
Article by Gerald Dierkes, information services specialist for the Information and Research Assistance team, senior copy-editor for the Communication and Service Promotion team and a liaison to the Department of Theater. Graphic by Joanne Quinn.
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