Generational Divide Archives

When Dee Dee Myers became President Clinton's press secretary in 1993, there were 50 websites worldwide. By the time Dana Perino left her job as press secretary for President Bush in 2009, there were over 20 billion websites worldwide, said Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. Sesno moderated a panel discussion with four former press secretaries sponsored by the university Monday evening.

The panel took place as President Obama's current press secretary, Robert Gibbs, wraps up his term. His last day is Friday when Jay Carney will take over the office.

Thanks to the Internet, people all over the country now have a say in what's happening, said Perino. The Wyoming native noted that while her grandfather can't get the New York Times delivered to his ranch, he can stay informed.

Yet, all this connectivity presents a challenge for the White House. For example, when a plane crashed in Long Island, N.Y., two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary from 2001 to 2003 took nearly five hours to brief the press, making sure to get all the facts correct.

"I made enemies in the press [that day]," he said, noting that the continuous news cycle amplified speculation over the cause of the crash at a time when terrorism was foremost in many peoples' minds -- without any word from the White House.

Perino admitted that she resisted social media at first, but now she has nearly 30,000 followers on her Twitter page. By comparison, Gibbs on his official page has just under 147,000 followers.

It just doesn't feel like 1994 was this long ago:

The National Archives and Records Administration just opened a door to what the agency expects will become a sort of time capsule containing U.S. historical materials that future generations will be able to access irrespective of innovations in technology.

A prototype of Online Public Access, which launched Monday, lets average citizens, as well as scholars, gain more comprehensive information on holdings that already are online, including card catalogs, digital representations of some records and multimedia from the agency's homepage, Archives.gov. Results for keyword searches play up the article images to appeal to eyes more familiar with social media layouts, like Facebook pages.

Each query retrieves a list of relevant records, archival data about the records identified, the source of the data and the physical or Internet location where the records are viewable. Next year, the site will offer a tool that allows users to zoom in and pan across the online materials, say NARA officials. In the future, people will have the ability to tag records with context based on personal knowledge -- as well as access audio, visuals and personal papers from presidential library collections, agency officials add.

The Archives does not have the resources to post all of America's artifacts. NARA's holdings include papers that would encircle the Earth more than 57 times; about 93,000 movies; more than 5.5 million maps, charts and architectural drawings; roughly 207,000 sound and video recordings; about 18 million aerial photographs; nearly 35 million still pictures and posters; and more than 3.5 billion electronic records.

But the agency is working on a project -- dubbed the Electronic Records Archives -- aimed at digitizing all records in a way that will make them accessible to the public even if the Internet no longer exists.

White House officials earlier this month announced a plan to accelerate the $994.9 million ERA program. The government has spent $425.2 million on the concept since 2002, but hardly any agencies are using the system, federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said.

As of this month, 16 agencies are depositing electronic records at the Archives via ERA software, according to the latest status report. Under the expedited schedule, ERA will be the default conduit for transferring records by July 2011 and mandatory for agencies in 2012, the Archives says.

The White House blog and Twitter feed this week promoted a Thursday MTV town hall meeting featuring President Obama and students by asking teens to tweet questions about jobs, energy and other issues weighing on their minds. But the moderators on MTV's website, which was live-streaming the televised event and posting comments, didn't seem to get the whole "youth" theme.

Staged as a forum to get out the vote -- the webcast looked more like an uncensored free-for-all, or a Tea Party rally. Here is a sampling of the comments that appeared on the MTV site:

• "#askmarijuana Dear President Obama, What are your thoughts and views on legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes in all states ?"
• "Why is the middle class suffering more than any other group right now? I worked 2 years very hard to get you elected. Now I"M being audited!"
• "#askjobs Will the President help push for passage of the Equal Employment for All Act (H.R. 3149)? Credit checks are discriminatory especially so for older Americans. This is a real job creation program. Are you aware of it and that it's been stuck in Committee for the past year?"
• "How are you going to push for Universal Health care? And how do you think that it is not a violations of our rights as Americans? Personally I feel like it is unconstitutional, how can you argue that it is not?"

In another sign of just how attached individuals have become to their cell phones, two thirds of adults say they have slept with their mobile device or placed it next to their bed at night, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

As expected, younger cell phone users are more likely to bed down with their phone, with 90 percent of 18 to 29 year olds saying they do so. Only 50 percent of 50 to 64 year olds say they curl up with their cell phone.

Sleeping with a cell phone also varies among race. About 62 percent of non-Hispanic whites say they retire to their bedroom with their mobile device in tow compared with 78 percent of blacks and 75 percent of English-speaking Hispanics.

And the trend varies among income levels, with lower-income Americans more likely to keep their cell phone at the ready at night. About 73 percent of people making less than $30,000 a year sleep with their cell phone compared with 70 percent for $30,000 to $49,999, and 61 percent and 64 percent for those who earn between $50,000 and $74,999, and more than $75,000, respectively.

Older Americans are quickly becoming avid users of social media - something their children are sure to be embarrassed about.

The percentage of Internet users 50 years old and older who say they use social networking tools and sites nearly doubled from 22 percent in April 2009 to 42 percent in May 2010, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. For those 65 and older, social-networking use jumped from 13 percent to 26 percent.

Social networking is still a young person's game, however, Pew reports. About 86 percent of 18 to 29 year olds partake in social networking, more than double the 50 and older crowd's rate. That oh-so-20th-century e-mail is the primary method the old crowd uses to maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, said Mary Madden, senior research specialist at Pew and author of the report.

A lot of reports and articles -- including many on this site (here and here) and on Government Executive (here and here) -- depict younger workers and the Internet as joined at the hip. The 'Net and the social networking it spawned, the story goes, are indispensable to the so-called Net Generation (those between the ages of 17 and 31). They demand to have the tools at the ready at home, at play and at work, sociologists say.

But a study recently released by the Hans Bredow Institute in Germany questions that characterization. In fact, it debunks it. According to an article about the study posted on Spiegel Online International, the image of "tech-savvy youth who are mobile, networked, and chronically restless, spoilt by the glut of stimuli on the Internet, . . . [who] live in perpetual symbiosis with their computers and mobile phones, with networking technology practically imprinted in their genes" is false.

They're more like 17-year-old Jetlir. While he is online just about every day and likes to watch YouTube, he doesn't avail himself to everything Web 2.0, prefers to meet up with friends in person and play his favorite sport, basketball. In his own words:

"My [basketball] club comes first. I'd never miss a training session. If someone wants to meet me, I turn off my computer immediately."

In Spiegel's words:

Jetlir is content if his friends are within reach, and if people keep uploading videos to YouTube. He'd never dream of keeping a blog. Nor does he know anybody else his age who would want to. And he's certainly never tweeted before. "What's the point?" he asks.

The Internet plays a paradoxical role in Jetlir's life. Although he uses it intensively, he isn't that interested in it. It's indispensable, but only if he has nothing else planned. "It isn't everything," he says.

Spiegel raps Marc Prensky and Don Tapscott for their portrayal of the Net Generation saying,

these would-be visionaries base their arguments on impressive individual cases of young Internet virtuosos. As other, more serious researchers have since discovered, such exceptions say very little about the generation as a whole, and they are now avidly trying to correct the mistakes of the past.

Do you find yourself speaking in abbreves? Using emoticons in text messages? Or even in work-related emails? Everyday English is incorporating more and more Internet-speak, which is changing the way we communicate, according to National Public Radio.

According to the article, serious techies are the first to use these new words and phrases, but it's inevitable that they eventually filter down to the average person's vocabulary:

The migration pattern of Internet-originated words tends to move from intense computer users, such as programmers and online game players, to computer users who feast on words, such as journalists, broadcasters and advertisers. From there, words flow into everyday usage.

"The English language is something that will never be permanent and will be changed by technology," says Anthony Burke, a digital consultant at Toronto-based WSI Marketing.

But no matter how ingrained these new terms are in your vocabulary, there are times when they are appropriate and times at which they aren't. For example, :P probably doesn't belong in a professional email, no matter how chummy you are with your supervisor. And consider whether the recipient of said email will understand what "ROFL" means.

Lance Armstrong, pro cyclist and spokesman for RadioShack, which sponsors his team, mocks the out-of-control use of Internet shorthand and emoticons in a recent commercial.

"No colon-parentheses smiley faces, no fancy bracketed mustaches, no semi-colon hotwinks," he says. And don't get caught using "LOL" either -- or he'll stop pedaling altogether.

CBS News ran a story on July 3 about a Transportation Security Administration policy sent to employees informing them that officials there would ban their access to certain Web sites that offered chats and instant messaging, involved criminal activity, extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content, and gaming. Also included in that list was anything deemed to be "controversial opinion." Who would decide what was controversial? What would be the criteria?

That raised a bit of stir in the blogosphere, where writers charged the Obama administration was looking to block opinions that it did not agree with.

So, TSA on Tuesday retracted the "controversial opinion category, according to an item posted in its TSA Blog.

[J]ust as many other government entities and corporations, TSA uses a security technology that limits access to certain categories of websites that are known to pose an increased security risk or violate the acceptable use policy for government computers. "Controversial opinion" is one of many of those categories. This category is an IT software catch-all phrase used to describe sites that may pose a security risk or violate the acceptable use policy, such as sites that promote destructive behavior to one's self or others. After taking a closer look, TSA determined this category may contain some sites that do not violate our acceptable use policy. This category is no longer being considered for implementation. However, employees will still need to avoid those sites that do violate TSA's acceptable use policy while using government computers. TSA employees can access any websites required for purposes of performing their job functions, and if they lose access to something they need, the access can be restored by contacting TSA's help desk.

OK, the other categories are fairly straightforward. But instant messaging? That may be hard for the younger workers to swallow. Would like to see an explanation for that one.

A White House official this month has been taking heat for doing something many of us do almost reflexively on a daily basis - chatter with friends, coworkers and bosses online. Andrew McLaughlin, the White House deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy, reportedly used Web-based e-mail to communicate with administration colleagues and lobbyists at Google, his former employer. According to images posted on the Internet, a list of his contacts showed he used his Gmail account to converse with Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, and Katie Stanton, another Google veteran who now works at the State Department.

The difference between McLaughlin and those of us who aren't public officials is that our chatter doesn't typically count as a government record. Our Tweets, text messages and other digital gabbing on commercial apps aren't considered "evidentiary material" -- the definition of a government record. We don't have to concern ourselves with esoteric records disposition schedules or backup tapes for the National Archives.

Yes, White House officials are supposed to be up to speed with basic records management etiquette. Yet, it's hard to keep up with the rules when the technologies are outpacing policies. This month, McLaughlin came under fire for conversing with influential current and former colleagues through Gmail. Next month, a new government-approved commercial app, like FaceBook, could ensnare another official who does not carefully adhere to federal use and retention policies.

Now, if White House officials are intentionally communicating on commercial Web apps to avoid documenting their conversations - that's a problem. Social media can be an asset for the administration by increasing productivity governmentwide and increasing public interaction nationwide. But it can also be a detriment to society when used inappropriately - say while driving or negotiating broadband policy.