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What’s Next for News?a place we want to go. And I think thatwe are going to start to learn that in ourenthusiasms and in our fascinations,we can also be flattened and depletedby what perhaps was once nourishingus but which can’t be a steady diet. Ifall I do is my e-mail, my calendar, andmy searches, I feel great; I feel like amaster of the universe. And then it’s theend of the day, I’ve been busy all day,and I haven’t thought about anythinghard, and I have been consumed bythe technologies that were there andthat had the power to nourish me.The point is we’re really at the verybeginning of learning how to use thistechnology in the ways that are themost nourishing and sustaining. We’regoing to slowly find our balance, butI think it’s going to take time. So Ithink the first discipline is to think ofus as being in the early days so thatwe’re not so quick to yes, no, on, off,good, good, and to just kind of takeit slowly and not feel that we need tothrow out the virtues of deliberateness,living in life, stillness, solitude.There is a wonderful Freudianformulation, which is that lonelinessis failed solitude. In many ways weare forgetting the intellectual andemotional value of solitude. You’re notlonely in solitude. You’re only lonelyif you forget how to use solitude toreplenish yourself and to learn. Andyou don’t want a generation that experiencessolitude as loneliness. And thatis something to be concerned about,because if kids feel that they need tobe connected in order to be themselves,that’s quite unhealthy. They’ll alwaysfeel lonely, because the connectionsthat they’re forming are not going togive them what they seek. Understanding the iGeneration—Before the NextMini-Generation Arrives‘As the pace of technological change accelerates, mini-generations are definedby their distinctive patterns of media use, levels of multitasking, and preferredmethods of communication.’BY LARRY ROSENThree decades have come and gonesince I started to explore theimpact that technology has onus. Back then we didn’t have desktopcomputers; the idea that one day soonwe’d hold a computer in the palm ofour hand seemed like something outof “Star Trek.” As I look back on theseyears—and on the various directionsmy research about the psychology oftechnology has taken me—I realizehow strongly connected my focus inresearch is to changes I’ve experiencedin my daily life.When students refused to usekeypunch machines, I studied computerphobia.When microwave ovens,fax machines, and desktop computersarrived, I switched to studying technophobia.And when technology becameubiquitous, I moved on to examiningtechnostress. This happened at atime when the conversation wasn’tso much about the stress of having touse technology, but about what happenswhen people do, including theinformation overload they experience,Internet addiction, the presence andfear of online sexual predators, andcyberbullying.At home I glimpsed these rapidtechnological changes through the eyesof my children. When my older son,now 34, was a teen and my youngerson, now 22, a preteen, they playedvideo games constantly, blasting aliensand splattering blood. Not surprisingly,I was drawn to studying the impactof games. Later they joined the herdin finding their way to MySpace,Facebook, IMing, texting, iPhones,and nearly everything with an “i” init (iPod, Wii). There were times whento get my teenage daughter’s attention,I had to text her to come out of herroom to join us for dinner.Even though I’m technologicallysophisticated, my kids left me in the24 Nieman Reports | Summer 2010