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Why is it that many adults describe a child who sits and reads books for hours on end as a "voracious reader" but describe a child who interacts with the Internet for similar durations as being "addicted to the Internet"? Don Tapscott believes the answer can be found in the lack of understanding of the new online technologies among most adults. Although reading books and surfing the Net both involve the use of technologies for information and entertainment, most adults grew up with books and thus see them in a positive light, while anything having to do with the unfamiliar technologies of the Internet are judged in a negative light.
Books are devices composed of paper, ink, glue, and string that enable print and image technologies to display, transport, and store information and/or data. Computers and networks are devices composed for the most part of metal, plastic, and silicon that enable print, image, audio, and visual technologies to display, transport, and store information and/or data.
Sometimes printed materials contain nonsense and dis-information, as any supermarket tabloid makes evident. And sometimes computers and networks serve up nonsensical and dis-informative content. Is there electronic trash on the Internet? You bet. Is there print trash in most bookstores and supermarkets? You bet.
Tapscott claims that "for the first time in history, children are more comfortable, knowledgeable, and literate than their parents about an innovation central to society." We are experiencing what he calls a generation lap. It is often the case in auto races of long duration that the faster cars gain an entire lap on the slower cars with the result that, although two cars may be driving side by side, one of them is an...