Intergenerational trends and technology adoption

Adopting technology is not a one-off task – it is an iterative and on-going process, given that technology is continuously evolving and adapting. This automatically confers a competitive advantage on the young who are better placed to assimilate and absorb new concepts and working methods. However, research has demonstrated that the older generation find newer touch screen device interfaces to be far more user friendly and intuitive to operate than the old mouse and keyboard combination.

100% adoption is not necessary in the developing world to achieve significant social and economic impacts. In India currently only 15 million people have Internet access at home (of which probably 12 million work in the ICT industry). If that figure rose over the next few years to 100 million (still a fraction of India’s 1.2 billion citizens) that would clearly have substantial positive social and economic consequences.

Need to foster mechanisms and opportunities for intergenerational learning, which is a process that can benefit both old and young alike, whilst creating social capital which can trigger new forms of economic activity.