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By Dr. Dave Watson (Published 4/04)
The techno-fix to our present predicament is rather convoluted, but here goes. We'll use un-erased video fragments, splice them together with scanned versions of old photographs interspersed with new digital images, re-tape the introductory and concluding segments, record some speakerphone conversation between grandfather and grandson and read some e-mail exchanges to create voice-overs, then overlay the whole production with fragments of songs Grandpa likes. Welcome to the complex world of fourth grade history projects in the 21st century. What started out as a simple interview videotaped 1000 miles away at The Farm during spring break between Jon, age 10, and his Grandpa, age 67, has turned into an exercise in gadget mastery, with the in-between generation (me) providing the complication. What did I do? Oh, I'll get back to that later. First though, let's have a quick look at Internet usage and the future of gadgets.
We all know that cyberspace is the domain of the young. Indeed, Nielsen/NetRatings reports that two in ten users of the Internet during a September 2003 survey were between two and 17 years of age. Remarkably, however, Internet usage is growing fastest among those over 65; between the years 2002 and 2003 some two million more seniors got online, a whopping 25% increase. Two-thirds of us in the cities and suburbs are connected, but only half of the population in rural areas has access to the net. Interestingly, a greater percentage of rural dwellers are over 65 than in the cities or suburbs, though it is not clear that usage is increasing among this group (though anecdotally, we can say that Grandpa's minutes online have been going up). Data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that approximately two thirds of white Americans are online, as are more than 60% of Hispanics (that is, those who speak English), while just slightly more than half of African-Americans have Internet capability.
Who isn't connected? According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, it is the poor. Whether in rural areas, in central cities, in young households, or in homes headed by a female, those with limited means are the last left to cross the digital divide. The poor are located in remote areas and in the decaying urban centers of our country, and are disproportionately represented among those with limited educational attainment who bring children into the world while they themselves are little more than children (a situation that often leads to divorce, or to children who never ever benefit from having two parents). In the case of the latter group, two-parent households are twice as likely to have a PC, and three times as apt to be on-line. Lack of education is also highly negatively correlated with Internet usage. It's no coincidence that the best students are also those most likely to be connected to the Internet (so says the National Science Foundation).
What about those proliferating, seemingly ubiquitous gadgets? What are the trends, and what's out? According to Stephen F. Smith, editor of the trade publication, "This Week in Consumer Electronics," a major trend over the near term will be the widespread availability of High-Definition Television (HDTV), meaning that the cathode ray tube's days as the standard for home TV are numbered. DVD recorders are arriving en masse, and digital audio and video will be everywhere. Increasingly, households will contain multiple personal computers, and networking capabilities will increasingly be incorporated into new home construction. Indeed, among tech users, many now say they would give up their televisions and landline telephones before they would part with their cell phones, computers and Internet access (again, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project). If this all seems surprising, consider that in the relatively short period of just two years, the percentage of households containing DVD players tripled, while over this same interval pager use declined significantly.
What I did to mess up the interview project was to rewind a videotape, then absent-mindedly assure everyone that indeed I had not done so. This, of course, inevitably led to the recording of new images on top of old ones. Maybe, though, it was some sort of Freudian slip on my part. Although I sometimes misuse gadgets, the truth is I enjoy them, and even more, I am thrilled to watch the process whereby a young boy uses an array of new technologies to connect in a truly timeless fashion with a Grandfather who knows only too well that his own days are numbered. I can see the future and so can my dad; it belongs to tech-savvy ten-year-olds, especially the ones with hearts full of love and reverence for those who have gone before them.
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Dr. Dave Watson is InDyne, Inc.'s Program Manager for Peer Review for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. In his free time, Dr. Dave serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pearland Independent School District, where all four of he and his wife Fay's children are currently students.
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