Generation gaps are influenced by many factors: Some are moral, religious, and sociopolitical, while others are little more than quibbles over style. (Though at 18, fashion can take on fairly grandiose connotations.) While some gaps can be measured in hair or skirt lengths, others are almost unquantifiable in scope: shaped by political transformation, war, economic collapse. I believe that-while our world faces many factors shaping us all-the generation that is in college and entering the workforce today grew up on the other side of a gap that will not be readily traversed. While many of my peers didn't use computers-much less the internet-until college, and my superiors may not have used them until well into their careers, Digital Natives grew up in a web-connected world. There have certainly been generationally transformational technology shifts in the past: the industrial age; the rise of radio, then television. I know that books have been written on the impact of the telegraph, and there's probably a tale of woe pictured on some cave wall about how kids just don't get what life was like before the wheel.
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