Apparently a recent survey has discovered an 'alarming gap' in technological knowledge between generations. Can I get a slow hand clap please? To think that some idiots ran around armed with clipboards and pens, throwing away precious time to gather as statistics something everyone already knows? How utterly retarded.

It reminds me of the time I read on the news that Loughborough University had conducted scientific research into why biscuits break in their packaging. The obvious answer being because they're fucking brittle you twatty nerds! The fact that that wasn't the answer they proposed tells me all I need to know about this sort of research.

Anyway, I digress. The technology gap. So now the fact is printed for us all, we can believe it. Because, as the very fact that someone felt the need to document this proves, we cannot believe a single thing without someone spelling it out and writing it down with statistical key figures detailing it for us.

Well, anyway. So kids know more about technology than I do, and I know more than my parents. Is anyone really surprised? The technology in question didn't even exist until maybe 20 years ago, and wasn't widely available until just before the turn of the century. We're in the middle of a digital revolution, and the only people who are going to be able to keep up are those that either have nothing better to do, or who are in the industry to begin with.

I'm fully aware that, because I can't sit around the school playground crossing swords with the other kids, the finer points of the digital age are beginning to pass me by. I still don't fully understand what a podcast is, although the name still offends me (just as being labelled a part of the iPod generation makes me feel sick, just as being labelled a part of the playstation generation did before it), nor do I really get why anyone would bother to do one. It reminds me vaguely of people who used to post their MP3 playlists online to publish to the world what they were listening to. Who fucking cares? And while we're on the subject, can we please, please stop calling online diaries 'blogs'. It's the ugliest word I've ever been subjected to, an absolute abomination. Weblog, the word from which it is derived, I could live with. But if it's going to be abbreviated to blog, then it can fuck off as well.

Personally, though, I'm fairly philosophical about the technology/generation gap. In a couple of years, manufacturers will discover that there's only so much data people want their mobile media machines to hold, although by this point, they'll be downloading and saving live television. There's a limit to the extent to which current services can be improved. In 20 years, there will be no such thing as a TV guide detailing when programs are on and on which channel. Instead, we'll just have a release schedule, with dates detailing when new episodes and series become available for download or viewing. Same goes for games and much of the rest of the entertainment industry. Why buy physical DVDs when you can just download the film + extras direct to your TV's 50 terrabyte hard drive?

It'll only go so far before the likes of me get a chance to take stock of the technology platform the digital revolution leaves us with. Oh, the ball will keep on rolling, but much of what comes after the entertainment industry is saturated with wireless, on demand services will be higher brow breakthroughs that don't really affect the likes of me (fusion power, stem cells, nano technology etc). Well, nanotech will probably have some influence in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath.

So should we be concerned with the technology gap? Not really. Perhaps from the perspective that kids shouldn't be able to roam unfettered through the vast repositories of data available to them on via modern media. But beyond basic parental control, I say just let it be. You can't really teach old dogs new tricks (and I still cringe at these images of 'silver surfers', their deformed, arthritic fingers desperately clutching a mouse, eyes straining through thick, unfashionable glasses to read the screen), and fretting about what has already passed you by will only allow other advances to do the same.

One thing that did piss me off though was a quote from some twat at Tesco Telecoms (hi Andy Dewhurst, if you're reading this) trying to push the benefits of modern technology by quite astonishingly stating that 'For example, parents can use texting to stay in regular touch with their children.'. Am I being stupid here? Can parents not use mobile phone to talk to their children? Are they no longer allowed? Or do mobiles not come with that talking function any more? There's already too much of a communication problem between generations in this country. Propogating it by refusing to talk to your kids and using the rather impersonal - and often difficult to interpret correctly - SMS medium instead just seems a bit dumb.

Maybe Andy's parents didn't talk to him much. Maybe that's why he sounds like a bit of a turd.

IB

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