Young, old or just ‘emerging’? How does age affect language change? As times change so too do people’s life stages. Traditionally these were thought of as child > adolescent > adult, but this idea is now called into question with the addition of an ‘emerging adult’ stage before adulthood. As age is such an important sociolinguistic variable, this is a significant development for anyone interested in studying language variation and change, as Douglas S. Bigham explains in detail. An emerging adult’ is aged 18 – 25, in higher education, unmarried, moves around a lot and has a large, although not necessarily close, social network. Bigham makes it clear that not all 18-25 year old young adults are ‘emerging adults’. The ‘emerging’ label is dependent on a particular psychological state, defined by the following factors: identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and feeling that anything is possible.
The rise of virtual online networks has contributed to this sense of not belonging to a place or group, or ‘feeling in-between’. Digital Birth: Welcome to the Online World. AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Uploading prenatal sonogram photographs, tweeting pregnancy experiences, making online photo albums of children from birth, and even creating email addresses for babies - today’s parents are increasingly building digital footprints for their children prior to and from the moment they are born.
“Secondly, it reinforces the need for parents to be aware of the privacy settings they have set on their social network and other profiles. Otherwise, sharing a baby’s picture and specific information may not only be shared with friends and family but with the whole online world.” Internet security company AVG surveyed mothers in North America (USA and Canada), the EU5 (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), Australia/New Zealand and Japan, and found that 81 percent of children under the age of two currently have some kind of digital profile or footprint, with images of them posted online.
Key results USA - 92%Canada - 84% Australia - 84%New Zealand - 91%Japan - 43% Kietzmann-et-al_social-media.jpg (1178×729) Digital literacy can boost employability and improve student experience | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional. The nature of knowledge is changing and, in this digital age, our definition of basic literacy urgently needs expanding. With an estimated 90% of UK jobs requiring some level of IT competency, the notion of digital literacy – those capabilities that equip an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society – is one that needs to be taken seriously by colleges and universities.
We live in an online world with the digital divide closing up both through government initiatives (Martha Lane Fox, the government's digital champion, recently took up the challenge of getting 10 million people in the UK online, saying that otherwise "they will be even more isolated and disadvantaged as government and industry expand ever faster into digital-only services") and technological advances – more than half the UK population now own a smartphone with internet capability. But it's not just about employability – increasingly digital literacy is vital for learning itself. Whose Eyes Are Checking Out That Digital Content? « Media! Tech! Parenting! In his recent post over at the Changing Aging blog, Kavan Peterson describes a short video, Forwarders. Intended as a parody of people who continuously forward e-mail, the video reinforces stereotypes about elders and aging. It’s sad that this short film focuses solely on one older adult, especially since so many people of all ages are extreme (and irritating) forwarders.
While it’s intended to be funny, the video’s other message is that old people with wrinkles are silly and inept — at least that’s my interpretation. I’ll bet that the video producer — I am guessing an adolescent or young adult — probably cherishes a fair number of lifelong relationships with grandparents. This parody promotes a stereotype that could have been alleviated simply by adding in a few younger characters who also need reforming. (I posit a guess about the creator/producer’s age after looking over other published web content.) The video and others like it also raise a question. Like this: Like Loading...