Ryan: Love the topic. Way to kick this off. We have been given the unique opportunity to be raised right into the middle of the technology boom.  Our generation has seen changes that have never been seen before and are likely to only escalate as the next decade unravels. Think about it. We owned one of the first home video game systems ever as kids. We were the first users to adapt social media into our every day lives. We have revolutionized efficiency by allowing employees to work, get this, more efficiently by working remotely from mobile devices and tablets. Technology has now even taken over music as we see less live instruments and more insane production reliant upon the precise timing of the technologies that support it. It’s safe to say we’re beyond the point of “technology has changed the way we live our lives” and are quickly approaching “our lives would be irreversibly changed if these technological luxuries ceased to exist.”

My question to you is, does this technology make us better off? Here’s an interesting way to think of things that occurred to me while spending time with my precocious 9 year old brother, Nolan. I could make a legitimate argument to you right now that in a job that requires technological adaption or knowledge, I would hire Nolan over a 60 year old man with no experience in that area 95 times out of 100. I played a fun game the other weekend when I was back visiting my family. I asked my dad and my baby brother a question that neither of them knew the answer to. I wrote down the question, gave them each a copy and had them open it at the same exact time and told them I was taking the first one to answer the question out to lunch. The question read, “Where was President James Knox Polk born?” My father immediately walked over to his bookcase and removed a monstrous 700 page behemoth from amongst hundreds of historical databases while my brother quickly slipped over to my dad’s iPhone, unlocking it with the swipe he could determine based on

[/tps_header]

the fingerprint marks left on the glass. He proceeded to open the Safari app and search “James Knox Polk birthplace.” My brother had given me the answer before my dad even had the book open to the appropriate chapter. Our youth are better served in that KNOWLEDGE is now instantly available. Unfortunately, I think this will have an inverse effect on the amount that these kids actively use their brain for proactive problem solving. I know I didn’t answer half of your questions but I figured you got to start so I wanted to put in my 2 cents before the ball got rolling.