the electronic last minute

When you have kids, there's always something that gets saved until the last possible minute. At fredshouse, our guy demonstrates this behavior whenever it's time to leave the house to go somewhere. As in, "Are you ready to go?" "Wait, I just have to finish this one thing." (Cue sound of impatient parental grumbling and toe-tapping). I suspect this is pretty common for kids everywhere, but I've noticed a pattern that seems, well, new: the electronic last minute, where the thing we are waiting for involves some collection of tech gear.

We've had a lot of electronic last minutes, so there's quite a list of flavors. Any of these sound familiar?

"Wait, I have to get to a place where I can save the game."

"Wait, my [gameboy / phone / camera / laptop] is charging."

"Wait, I have to print these cheat codes."

"Wait, I need to set this up to record [Pokemon / Yu-Gi-Oh / Dragonball [/ Z / GT] / etc.]"

"Wait, I have to answer this message."

"Wait, I have to set my away message."

"Wait, I'm downloading Halo CE."

"Wait, I'm reinstalling XP."

And just this morning: "Wait, I'm burning a CD to take with me."

It's tempting to find these exchanges funny or distressing or annoying in an adult sort of way, but I think they are simply leading indicators of how fundamentally different the world looks to kids that have grown up with pervasive computing & communications. Unfettered access to the global net, media mashing and hacking, constant social connectivity, the intertwining of physical and digital worlds; these are increasingly the normal backdrop of life for our kids, the way TV was for the boomers and the automobile was for our parents. It's going to be really interesting to see where this goes.

Posted by Gene at July 7, 2004 12:26 PM | TrackBack