8B
Tuesday, May 3, 1994
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TECHNOLOGY
At the age of 6, Brian Moore was introduced to computers by his grandfather, a visionary who realized its power. By age 8, he was programming one.
"TV was a big deal when it came out, and now just about everyone has one," he says. "Computers are reaching that point when there will be one in every household. They are just a continued evolution of what has happened so far."
For Moore, Overland Park junior majoring in chemical engineering, technology is not something that only affects our generation.
Even though he doesn't believe the computer is the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century, he concedes that using it is an important skill — one mandatory in today 's world.
"People who are resistant to change are destined to die out," he says. "Typically, those who don't want to change are very close-minded. Personally, I don't like that quality in people because life is a continual process of change."
Wired to a new frontier
Technology's rapid advances have defined our generation.
It was a brave new world that our generation entered. The uncharted territory of technology sprawled before us. And, ironically, as children and teenagers, we would be leading the expeditions into it.
Brian Moore is one of the leaders. While growing up, he didn't realize that his hobby of programming computers would be so valuable until he got to college.
"I thought that what I was doing was really no big deal," he says. "But when I got to KU, I found there were people who were researching about some of the things I had already done with computers."
Part of our expertise about technology comes from watching technology advance and change before our eyes. We witnessed hand-held calculators evolve into personal computers, the eight-track tape gave way to compact discs, and now the CD-ROM could make the video cassette recorder obsolete.
by Terrilyn McCormick
"There have been enormous technological changes in the last 20 years," said Jerry Niebium, executive director of information services at KU. "But it is the speed of these changes that really sets these last 20 years apart."
Interactive TV, the information superhighway and 3-D holographic images are predicted to become commonplace within the next 20 years.
And it isn't slowing down.
"There really is no limit to what we can do with technology." Moore says. "We have the information now, we just have to find the applications."
Every generation has its new technology. For our grandparents, it may have been the radio. For our parents, it was the TV set. But it is more difficult to name a single technological advance that defines our generation. Technology is exploding now like never before.
Todav. we have more gadgets, gizmos
"Kids growing up with computers seem to absorb them very naturally, unlike the people who were introduced to them later in life," says Aletha Huston, professor of human development and family life. "Growing up with that technology creates a very different world."
and games than previous generations. And unlike our parents, we aren't afraid of new technology. For us, the computer, VCR and fax machine are friends.
But these generalizations aren't new to this generation that some call "X."
technologically savvy, growing up with the computer and television has colored a negative portrayal of us. We are accused of being couch potatoes wired to the remote, or computer nerds too lazy to use a dictionary because of spell checker.
"You will always find folks in any generation who say how hard they had it." Niebaum says. "They may say that students are lazy because they use spell checker or play computer games. But that is absolutely not true. Young folks, today are highly intelligent and creative."
It also creates an advantage for our generation when we are finding jobs, said Terry Glenn, director of the University Placement Center.
"There is no doubt about it, more students now have been exposed to information technology than previous generations," he says. "And there are many employers who are interested in those skills."
Also, there is no evidence that watching too much television makes you think more shallowly. Huston says.
Even though our generation is more
"Just like all technology, individual people use the TV differently and are affected by it differently," she says. "But there is no evidence that it has harmful."
brain-draining affects."
She says it is often easier to make the television or other technologies the whipping boy for all of society's problems without looking at what is really going on.
"Technology doesn't create problems," Brian Moore says. "We create the problems in how we interpret the knowledge. It's like the hammer. You can use it to hammer a nail or to kill a person. It's up to you. Technology is basically the same thing."
But society's problems would be around even if the technology didn't exist Moore says.
Our generation has the advantage of growing up in a time when technology makes almost anything possible. But like all manmade creations, it has its limits.
Our generation can't expect too much. Moore says, "Technology isn't always a life saver. It's just what you make of it."
ECONOMY
Split by the great divide
Jason Judit graduated from the University last May with a degree in aerospace engineering. But potential employers weren't exactly beating a path to his door.
"I was just like everybody else," says Jundt, Minot, N.D., graduate student. "I was getting rejection letters left and right."
So when he was accepted into the aerospace graduate program and offered a teaching assistantship to help pay for it, he opted for more schooling.
And the aerospace industry may be picking up. He's seen several of his recently graduated friends get jobs. But he doesn't regret his decision to stay in school.
"It's always good to get some more education under your belt because people will respect you more for trying to broaden your horizons," he says.
As the middle class shrinks, our generation faces a growing gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.'
The economic prospects of our generation look pretty good — if we can just wait until the economy completes its recovery, and the baby boomers begin retiring.
But underneath the surface are some dark trends that will divide our generation as they divide U.S. society as a whole.
Jason Jundt graduated in May 1983 from the KU department of aerospace engineering, without a job. Jundt, a Minot, N.D., graduate student, decided to hide out in the graduate program until the economic skies cleared.
"At least I knew I be doing something."
"he says of his decision."
David Burress, KU research economist, says, "Presumably, sometime in the next couple of years, companies will get down to where they're hiring college graduates and competing for them again — where they come to you instead of you having to come to them."
But things are picking up.
Nancy Slabaugh, branch manager of Manpower Temporary Services, 211 E. Eighth St., estimates that her Lawrence office filled out 500 more W-2 forms in 1993 than in 1992. Her company includes permanent placement, and companies seem to be less cautious about creating permanent positions, she says.
And our generation eventually will be helped simply by virtue of its size — or lack of it. Between 1965 and 1976, 41 million babies were born in the United States, nowhere near the demographic bulge of the 76 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. The future decline in the labor force will mean less competition for jobs.
But until the baby boomers begin retiring, moving up the career ladder will be tough, says Neal Rosenthal, occupational outlook economist at the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
Now, the question for us is, "How long are the baby boomers going to be around?" he says, "Because they're going to be over you all the time. They're going to start leaving the labor force in the early years after 2000. Once you have the top people — the first wave of the baby
by Joe Harder
boom — starting to leave, it'll open up things for a lot of other people."
Under that surface of smooth sailing, though, lurk some trends that are not only fundamentally reshaping the U.S. economy, but also reshaping our generation's professional lives.
One of those trends is a slow shift from a goods-producing economy to one dominated by service-producing jobs. By the year 2005, the bureau projects an increase of 24 million service jobs — jobs in transportation and communications, for example, or health care and education. The bureau expects the goods-producing sector — with jobs in, for example, mining or construction work — to increase by only about 500,000 positions.
A portion of the shift is illusory, Burress says. Companies that used to have their own employees to do jobs such as janitorial work may now find it cheaper to have such jobs done by service companies.
Yet the shift from goods-producing jobs to service-producing jobs is evidence of a divisive undercurrent: a growing gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
Simply stated: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and our chances for a middle-class existence shrink.
"With the growth of restructuring of the American economy, you have very large changes in labor markets so that the kinds of jobs that created
the big expansion of the middle class in the '50s and '60s aren't being produced now," says Robert Antonio, professor of sociology.
That middle class decline often means a shift to low-wage and part-time work without benefits — temp jobs.
Our standard of living, on average, hasn't improved since 1973, Burress says. A 20-year-old going to work at the median wage in 1994 makes about the same real income of a 20-year-old in
"There's a sense that everybody's not going to be an investment banker, get their MBA and have a wonderful job."
-Robert Antonio professor of sociology
1973. The median full-time weekly wage of 20-to 24-year-olds has actually fallen in the last five years.
Antonio says, "Wages have dropped, and if we disaggregate that, there are groups who have just been clobbered."
school.
Those who will not be "clobbered" will be those who are able to create and apply knowledge to produce results, says Peter Drucker, management theorist and author.
While the economic challenge in our future will be the productivity of those "knowledge workers," the social challenge will be how to maintain the dignity of those of us who end up in the other class — the
"Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today." Drucker writes in his 1993 book, "Post-Capitalist Society."
Allison Cody graduated from the University in July with an undergraduate degree in English and went to work at Wal-Mart; 3300 Iowa St.
But there are only so many "knowledge jobs" out there. Already the bureau estimates that 20 percent of college graduates end up working in jobs that don't require a college degree.
"A lot of people kind of joked that 'Ha, ha, I didn't waste all my money going to college, but you did, and you're here, too,' she says. Cody now works at a travel agency and is making plans to go to graduate
service workers. Drucker writes.
So where does that leave our generation? Staring over the edge of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the knowledge workers and the service workers.
And we are seeing
ing the middle class shrivel. That creates a lot of angst.
"Twenty years ago, nobody could ever have understood things like 'Married with Children' or 'Beavish and Butthead.' Antonio says, "They wouldn't have understood what these things are about. A theme that appears in 'Beavish and Butthead' often is this generation without hope, a generation without future. There's a sense that everybody's not going to be an investment banker, get their MBA and have a wonderful job."
For us, the American Dream that there is equal opportunity for all and success for all who are willing to work for it has ended. There are no more frontiers, no more forests to log off, no more land to settle. The resources out there have been grabbed up, and they won't change hands quickly.
Down the road, our generation is going to have to face some pretty nasty inequality. Antonio says.
"I think that's going to be something that somehow we're going to have to face in the next 20 years if we're going to maintain ourselves as a democratic society."