Rising Exectations of a New Demographic (Kids and Youth)
We have been saying for sometime that the real revolution in digital
government is going to come in the next generation of children who view
the Internet as an appliance much in the same way people of my
generation viewed TV and my parents generation viewed the radio. Still,
this report
came as somewhat of a shock and indicated clearly that we are already
well on our way. According to a report by the National Center for
Educational Statistics and reported in the Salt Lake Tribune:
"About 90 percent of people ages 5 to 17 use computers, and 59 percent
of them use the Internet -- rates that are, in both cases, higher than
those of adults."
How will this change the expectations of digital government and online service delivery? In my opinion, a lot.
Technologies, particularly the most disruptive ones are viewed very
differently across generations as they move from magic to science
fiction to marvelous innovation to necessity. We could debate the
wisdom of children who seem to think TV viewing is a fundamental
necessity, but try to pry that remote from a group that has clearly
extended the utility of the opposable thumb! Still, how many of us
except in maybe the most impoverished parts of the world see eating
utensils for instance as purely a luxury?. Yet if you go back a few
hundred years you would find they were an invention used only by the
wealthiest in society.
So, how does that relate to the expectations of government when our
5-17 year old children reach the age of majority? If we aren't
prepared, the reaction will appear seismic in proportion. Luckily for
us we have a little breathing room to be ready. Some people in my
generation and also among even the younger Xers seem stuck in the idea
that 24X7 eGovernment is a nice luxury that we provide to citizens and
businesses as long as it doesn't interfere with "our day job." I've
also heard some managers express the view that an employee portal is
not a tool of sound management but is merely an employee perk!!? All I
can say to this group is it is time to crawl out of the tar pits.
Sadly, though they are in for a real shock. They were some of the same
folks that saw the dot.com bust as the end and not the beginning. Also
in 2001, other alleged "visionaries" were already predicting the
"death" of eGovernment.
But the demographics don't lie and kids and youth (5-17) are already
of "voting" age and they are voting with their mice (mouses?) and
blowing us adults out of the water as they flock to the Internet
quicker than college students to Spring Break. And although they are
playing games and checking on the weather the most frequent use is to
complete school work. When these young people grow up some may never
have stood in a line at a government office except maybe as a young
child with a parent. For many the only channel of interaction they will
have ever had with government (outside of the public school system or
an occasional trip to the local libary that is) was online. Will they
say: "Gosh, isn't it great that we can do our business with the
government online instead of inline?" NOT! They will expect all (or
nearly all) government services to be available online and if they
aren't they will demand to know why not. This culture shift will shake
governments that are not prepared, to their core. If we are not there
waiting for the 5-17 year olds when they show up as adult citizens with
a huge portfolio of government services basic confidence is government
to deliver will suffer a blow that will be hard to recover from in the
near term. In coming articles I will explore some steps that we can
take right away to take with our portals to reach out to this age group
because as this survey shows, they are already one of our biggest and
newest customers.
8:35:47 AM 
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