Change Throughout Generations

I've thought recently about change and how age and generation can affect how one perceives change. Why do people in the older generations tend to resist change more than the younger generations? Sure the answer may just be that kids are growing and learning and therefore more adept at change, but I think it runs a little deeper.

I think it has to do, in part, with Moore's Law and the fact that technology in general is improving exponentially. Moore's Law basically states that computer processors will double in capacity (speed) roughly once every 2 years. This is exponential growth, which means that the rate at which it increases in constantly increasing.

Let me put this into context for you because as humans we often have a difficult time imagining exponential growth. If you take a theoretical piece of paper and fold it over on itself 50 times (which means the thickness of the paper doubles every time you fold it) how thick would the paper be? 100ft? 1 mile? 100 miles?

Answer: The average piece of printer paper, #20 weight, is 0.0038 inches (or 0.097mm). That means that 0.0038 x (2^50) = 4,278,419,646,002 inches or 67,525,562 miles. That's the equivalent of 282 times the distance between the earth and the moon. That is a huge stack of paper! Of course, it's not physically possible to fold a paper that much, but it shows you the scale that we're working with.

Nevertheless, this is basically what is happening with our computer technology, and could basically be extrapolated to our technological history with humans. Think of the bronze age, in Europe it lasted for 2,600 years. Look what we've accomplished with technology in the last 20 years, I would say slightly more than the entire bronze age. As time progresses our technology, progress and change speeds up exponentially.

Now, let's look back at our original thought. Those that were born in the 1920s, 1930s, etc. saw and grew up with very little change relative to kids born within the last 10 years. Someone that was born 10 years ago (in 2001) were born onto this earth without the following: the iPod/iPhone, Twitter, Facebook, the Roomba, YouTube, USB drives, inexpensive GPS, TiVo, Nintendo Wii, HDTV and a ton of other digital inventions and breakthroughs. Kids today are used to change and new and better technologies being released almost constantly.

In my opinion, it is completely understandable that people not used to so much change so quickly are hesitant and less equipped to keep up with the change. It is not, by any means, a reflection of the person, but the time and era they grew up.

It is really difficult to grasp technology improvements and innovations over the next 10 years, especially if exponential growth continues. I can imagine that I will be the person resistant to all the change in another 50 years.