Growing up in today's connected era

Yesterday, I was reading the blog that my 15 year-old niece is writing while volunteering in poor communities in South Africa for a couple of weeks. The funny thing is, this doesn't even sound so strange in our connected era. Half a generation ago, we might have gotten one postcard of her stay, and it probably would have arrived after she was already back home. The fact that she can write a daily summary of her activities down there and post it seamlessly to the Web is remarkable - especially from a place where she writes of extreme poverty and lack of basic public infrastructure.

Later in the day I was playing Mario Kart racing on our Nintendo Wii console with my daughter, and next thing you know we are entering a race with other Wii players from the UK, Canada, the US, Mexico, etc... The Wii is WiFi enabled and makes it completely seamless to play in real-time with others around the world. My daughter downplayed my excitement by reminding me she could already do that on her little hand-held 2 year-old Nintendo DS.

Still a bit later, I spent some relaxing time on Facebook, making a few moves for Scrabulous games I'm playing with friends in California, Pennsylvania, London and Dublin. Then I played a few hands of Texas Hold'Em poker with table partners from all over the place, including Turkey, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Lebannon, UK, Norway etc... My younger daughter reminded me she plays online games on sites like Webkinz or Club Penguin with kids from all over as well.

It is just amazing how connected we are - but also how amazing it is to see that kids take this so completely for granted. We talk about Web 2.0 as a revolution, for them there is no other Web. Everything is or should be digital, virtual, networked... Why wouldn't it be?

When I marvel at new digital camera storage cards (hardly bigger than a postage stamp) that are now WiFi enabled and allow you to post pictures to the Web pretty much as you take them, or at phones like the Nokia N95 that allows you to capture DVD-quality video and stream it to the Web in real-time, my kids think that's cool but not surprising at all.

My hope is that this ubiquity about networking and virtual community engagement will lead to a generation of adults for whom geographical boundaries - and somewhat artificial territorial borders - are less dominant in their thinking and decision making. The true promise of globalization, trade equalization, environmental protection, and yes - world peace - lies in their hands. It's time to get past the protectionist and sectarian thinking of past generations.

In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy testing new ways to connect to the rest of the world, and enjoy watching my kids embrace them much faster than I ever could :-)