Crossing the line to the Internet Generation

(Two members of the Internet Generation are pictured at right, in 1991. The one on the left is now a video game expert. The one on the right likes Facebook.)

My baby boom generation defined TV, starting in that epochal decade. We defined it as an audience, and in time we took control of it.

Our parents invented TV. They created its vocabulary. The half-hour sitcom, the hour-long adventure show, the interview show for Today or Tonight. But Tomorrow was ours.

The same thing has happened with the Internet. My generation created it. We built it. We understand its pipes and how it works. We defined things like http://, Web sites and e-mail and chat. We created its vocabulary.

But the Internet belongs to the Internet Generation. People like my kids who grew up around the medium, who take it for granted. They don't care about its plumbing, or how it works. They're not techies. They're users.

Two new Pew surveys show that this line has been crossed. A torch has been passed to a new generation. Users now dominate, people who grew up in a world of Web sites and video games and any question answered as fast as you can ask it.

This also means leadership has been passed to a new medium. TV today is what radio was in my day. It's background noise. The Internet is the new medium. Use is nearly universal among those under 30. And it's constant.

One other point is that the big screen no longer defines the medium. The average teen owns three or more online devices. Screen sizes vary, resolution varies, the size of the pipe can vary from moment to moment.

The balance between doing-and-being has also shifted. There is less writing and more reading.

I say being as opposed to watching. You don't just watch the Internet as you did TV. A new medium has a new vocabulary, new folkways, new habits of thought.

I consider this great news, not just for the Internet but for open source. Open source is a product of the Internet. The friction-free economics of open source, of contributions coming from anywhere, distribution costs of zero, all these came from the Internet.

Open source is attuned to Internet values, the values of the new generation. Its future is secure.

The kids are all right.