A thousand promises over that this will be the last mini-post before we got back to delicious long-winded mode (been working through Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody recently, which plays with some “freakin’ sweet” intellectual tensions with how Benkler characterizes the web in Wealth of Networks)
In any case, Alex Leavitt wades into the confusing back-and-forth about how people try to characterize the Millenial generation (whatever that term means).
I think taking the linguistic metaphor to its implications here is pretty good — reminds me a little of Doc Searls profound talk a little while back about the kinds of metaphors we use to frame our discussions about the internet (watch it here). Seems reasonable to think that how we conceptualize generations in certain terms ends up affecting how they become integrated and dealt with by the rest of society.
Alex’s analysis seems pretty on point, focusing on the commercial elements of “consume” as a concept, but I think there’s more to be brought out in even the relationship to food. “Consume” seems to indicate the ephemeral, like what we usually associate with consumer goods. While obviously there’s something quite temporary to the state of cultural phenomenon and institutions (read: the Twitter boom) online, it misses the deeper point that the information structure of society as a whole is changing in an important way, and that “consume” fails to reflect these more permanent shifts going on.
One element about this kind of language does seem right though — “consumption” seems to indicate some kind of desire, and I think that’s accurate. On a certain level, there’s some sense that these technologies sit on us in important ways (visual: like this guy). And whether its in our lap as a physical object or on our heads as a way of thinking about things, it feels needed and important in some fundamental way. Ever spend hours just basking in the warm glow of knowledge on Wikipedia not even learning much? Yeah, like that.
