From Zoomers (Gen-Z) to Voomers (Gen-V) – From the “Digital Native” Generation to the “Virtual Native” Generation

The younger generation – (millennials & zoomers) are “digital natives” and can navigate & interact digitally very different than the older generations. 

In the next 5-7 years with enhanced XR / smart glasses technology, will the next generation lead the way to “virtual native” and can navigate the world remotely as easily as in person. 

List of “Virtual Native” Generation characteristics.

• Can learn virtually as easily as in person (with the right education / communication / VR technology)
• Can interact socially virtually with others as easy as in person or via the phone, text or PC video
• Can navigate the different video platforms, VR devices and VR platforms easily
• They are hyper local and hyper global – they meet and interact with people around the world
• Create new ways to connect to others virtually – think from phone to text or from email to social medial
• Can teach others how to be a virtual natives

Author’s note, feel free to add to this list

Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 is considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward is part of a new generation (Gen Z or Zoomers) – Maybe children born in 2020 or later will be Gen-Vs: Gen-Virtual (not Gen-Virus)

Author’s note, there is a “Generation Alpha – born in 2013 and beyond” but just like the name Gen-Y went away, I think 2020 is such a significant year that children born in 2020 and beyond should be called Gen-Vs.

I started working for Motorola/Nokia in 1989. In the early 1980s, a cell phone cost >$3K, weighed ~3lbs, had 30 minute battery life of talk time and cost ~$3 a minute to make a phone call (if you only talk 20 min in the month - if you talk 80 minutes for the month, you were paying $1 per minute).

"On October 12, 1983, Ameritech initiated the first commercial cellular service in the U.S. Service cost $50 a month plus 40 cents a minute from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 24 cents a minute off-peak." https://mashable.com/2014/03/13/first-cellphone-on-sale/

https://www.knowyourmobile.com/phones/the-history-of-mobile-phones-from-1973-to-2008-the-handsets-that-made-it-all-happen-d58/

Right now VR is difficult to use but in the next 3 to 5 years it will be as easy to use as a smart phone. In 10 years, “They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”.

“Most important, ubiquitous computers will help overcome the problem of information overload. There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing [and SAFE] as taking a walk in the woods”

https://postscapes.com/internet-of-things-history

1991: Mark Weiser's Scientific American article on ubiquitous computing called ‘The Computer for the 21st Century’

See these articles about the impact to births because of COVID around the world and in the US

A tale of two worlds

“The population paradox of the pandemic - the UN expect up to seven million unplanned pregnancies as a result of the pandemic - That’s in the order of a 5% bump for the world as a whole.  

https://www.thearticle.com/the-population-paradox-of-the-pandemic

The coming [US] COVID-19 baby bust: Update Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine Thursday, December 17, 2020 - 300,000 fewer births US

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/17/the-coming-covid-19-baby-bust-update/

"34% of American women have either delayed their plans to have a child or reduced the number of children they expect to have as a result of the pandemic."

TelePresence & Saving Your Health and the Health of the Planet

In 2020, we stopped going to conferences (and schools, work and the doctor) in person because of the risk of COVID-19 but we found in many cases we could be just as productive, save time and minimize our carbon footprint by not traveling and still get most of the benefits of attending the conferences remotely. 

We just need to optimize the new normal for telepresence, distance working, telemedicine, distance learning, telenetworking.

In 2021 and beyond with telepresence, we will continue to reduce traveling to save time and save the planet?

The distance learning is a great challenge. Students especially need socialization as they learn. Telepresence education optimized for distance learning (and not zoom calls) can help with this.

I have a teacher friend that said that her students are only learning 50% with zoom calls of what they could learn if they were in the classroom. 

But see the TALE2020 Keynote Speech 1 “Education Reimagined” Alvin Wang Graylin, China President, HTC of what the potential could be if education to be optimized with telepresence and VR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pLSNfac5_4&t=2496s

(IEEE TALE 2020, the IEEE Education Society’s flagship Asia-Pacific conference on STEM education and educational technology)

How long will it take to transition from zoom education distance learning to the “Education Reimagined” Alvin Graylin outlines in his talk?

The lessons from the steam engine and electricity shows it takes a generation. We shall see if the risk to COVID and Climate in the 2020s changes the trajectory of this timeframe.

“But just as it took generations to improve the steam engine to the point that it could power the Industrial Revolution, it’s also taken time to refine our digital engines.

Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

“In the case of electricity, it took over thirty years to realize productivity gains – and interestingly, it was after retired managers were replaced by a new generation. I can’t help drawing an analogy to modern day. Digital technologies are deployed as isolated initiatives (versus combinatorial), they are layered onto broken processes, forced to work within the construct of antiquated operating models, and inhibited by a management approach that has not changed since the 1920’s. Will we have to wait for the next generation of managers to realize productivity gains?” https://frankdiana.net/2014/01/31/the-second-machine-age-and-business-evolution/

The Zoomers & Voomers may navigate the virtual world as easily as the real world. We shall see.

Then in 2045, we can have Generation-S, the Soomers. According to some, 2045 may be a significant year for humans and AI.

Epilogue

There is a lot of activity in the US and around the world to connecting the unconnected and improve the health and education of people around the world. 5G and 6G are a part of this activity and focus

• CTIA Connected Kids Summit - K–12 Connections: How Schools and Wireless Providers Are Partnering to Get Students Online During COVID-19 Acknowledgments - Emergency Educational Connections Act of 2020
• Connecting the Unconnected – RDOF Auction Winners: Charter, SpaceX, Windstream, $9.2B for Rural Broadband - $16 billion auction
• “Within the focus area of ICT infrastructure goals the target that has the best benefit-cost ratio (robust to both methodologies of assessing benefits) is: Increase mobile broadband penetration around three-fold in developing regions of the world which would return $17 for every dollar spent. https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/infrastructure
• In Africa, it 45% of users on 2G and, 87% of broadband connections in the developing countries are mobile. With 2010s technology not 1990 technology – think how inefficient you would be if you only had a 64 kbps internet connection.
•  Vint Cerf and I issued a call to action to address the more than 1 billion children whose learning has been disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The 21st Century – The Century of the Billion and Billions. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/21st-century-billions-doug-hohulin/
• 2023 – 1 Billion 5G Users
• 2027 – 1 Billion VR Users
• 2028 – 6G Launches
• 2028 - 1 Billion Students having access to >25 mbps broadband service
• 2030 - 1 Billion Students Telelearning at least 50% of the Time – learning more efficiently than they do today.

see the blog: What did you do “novel” in 2020? What will you do “novel” in 2021? 

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/most-novel-free-willed-human-what-ai-ia-teach-us-being-doug-hohulin/

COVID-19 (previously known as “2019 novel coronavirus”) Changed the world dramatically.   Sometimes the world brings us “novel” challenges. We need to create “novel” solutions to make the World a better place.  

In 2020, many people wasted a lot of time being locked down but I am hopeful that there will be an explosion of novelty in 2021 because some people used this opportunity to do something interesting things with their time.

I gave a public 6G presentation to the University of Kansas: 6G - Bridging the Physical-Digital-Biological World 

I am part of Peter Diamandis’ Abundance Digital (AD) group “made up of 2,000+ Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Learners” I gave a 6G to the Abundance Digital community.  6G - Bridging the Physical-Digital-Biological World  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXevH2Y8UWA

See The Nokia 6G paper and the Presentation by Marcus Weldon (The future of human existence: Proximity, productivity and the pursuit of happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgY467UGR8) points to some of these concepts. 

See the paper - 6G for the inter-connection of physical, biological, and digital worlds. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9040431

https://www.bell-labs.com/disruption/6g-era-research/

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