T A B L E__T A L K

Riven and Myst fans discuss their passion in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Hatch vs. Gates
By Marcia Stepanek
Senator says Microsoft demanded more sympathetic voices at next week's hearing -- or Bill Gates wouldn't show
(02/26/98)

A doctorate in "Doom"
By Moira Muldoon
For students at the world's first video game university, it's all math and little play
(02/25/98)

Let's Get This Straight
By Scott Rosenberg
The case of the hijacked haiku
(02/24/98)

Schools of hard knocks
By Andrew Leonard
"Lock ups" for "defiant teens" use questionable tactics -- on the Web and off
(02/23/98)

21st Challenge
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
Challenge No. 6: Find-and-replace goofs
Plus: results of our "Ticklers" challenge
(02/20/98)

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BROWSE THE
21ST ARCHIVES

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THINKS SO.

BY ANDREW LEONARD | My daughter is only 3 years old, but already she's an e-mail junkie. I don't know whether to be scared or proud. She sends me cryptic messages from daycare -- "asdf;j;kdh!!" and "TTTTTTTTTT." She's not quite ready to hack my Win95 Registry, but it won't be long. She's already mastered the backspace key.

By Don Tapscott's reckoning, she's an "N-gener" -- a member of the Net Generation, an 88 million-strong demographic swath that includes everyone born between 1977 and 1997. Tapscott is the author of "Growing Up Digital," a hyperbolic gush of a book that predicts how the N-geners will transform politics, culture, the economy and everything in between.

Tapscott's an N-gener fan; he's even got a couple of his own in residence at his wired-to-the-gills home. He doesn't seem to be bothered by his conviction that the N-gen clash against baby boomer dominance will be a titanic, earth-shattering struggle -- "Their revolt will make the '60s protests look like kid stuff." Instead, he bubbles with glee describing the wonderful social boons sure to be delivered by these skeptical, hands-on, curious, interactive, independent and, above all, digitally literate youngsters.

Boring old two party political system? Forget it, N-geners won't stand for that tired old crap. Monolithic corporate cubicle-induced temp worker oppression? Not a chance. N-geners will demand flexible work environments -- along with T-1 access to the Net and screaming fast computers. Racism, sexism, poverty and injustice? As soon as N-geners throw off all their chafing boomer-imposed chains, they'll dispense with such nonsense.

"One thing is for sure," writes Tapscott. "Democracy as we know it will be finished."

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N E X T_P A G E | The children shall lead us. Or maybe not