Virtual Natives E-Book

Catherine D. Henry

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 380

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The eclipse of Digital Natives and the dawn of virtual culture--how Gen A, Z are radically redefining the future of work, play, economics, and social life. We're living through what is arguably one of the most exciting, confusing, and powerful social moments in the history of humanity, the shift from the Digital Age to the Virtual Age. This shift is being driven by technology, and the people who are leading it are the ones who know it best: the Virtual Natives, made up of Gen Alpha and Z. This book will introduce you to the Virtual Native cohort and mindset, decipher their socio-cultural and economic experiences, and unpack their expectations of companies looking to engage, market, or employ them. In this book, we explore: * How Virtual Natives are deploying the new technologies driving the virtualized world * How relationships and work habits are being virtualized * Identify ten main Virtual Native-led behaviors that are upending work and culture * How Virtual Natives are evolving their expertise into a full-blown economy This is nothing short of a cultural revolution. Virtual Natives are the driving force behind a seismic change that is redefining the world through technology and virtual worlds: this book tells you how they are navigating everything from AI to Augmented and virtual reality, gaming, blockchain and Web3 in easy, accessible language. To understand the future, read Virtual Natives.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

A Revolutionary Shift

Notes

PART 1: A Generation Unlike Any Other

1 Virtual Is the New Digital

Finding Your Fam

The Road to Virtualization

The Essence of Virtualization

Notes

2 What Is Reality, Anyway?

The Time and Space Discontinuum

Traveling with Your Mind

Everywhere and Anywhere

Doing Everything, and All At Once

Notes

3 Fluid Identities

Skins, Brands, and Identity

Love Is Love

“I'm Whatever, and It's … Whatever”

Redefining Gender

Living the Dream

Metaverse Games

Notes

4 Radical Acceptance

Shared Interests, More Than Shared Identities

First Love

For Fans, Virtual Is Real

AI Love You

Notes

5 Putting on the “Rizz”

Stardom and Social Media

I'd Say Yes

Notes

6 From Apprentice to Expert

Virtualization, Virtual Worlds, and Immersion

We're All

Otakus

Now

A Faustian Bargain?

But What About the Children?

From Apprentice to Master

Notes

7 Create, Consume, and Own

From Hobbies to Full‐time Hustle

Free Agents

Digital Goods, Real Incomes

Virtual Sweatshops?

Notes

8 Autonomous Agents

No More Bullshit Jobs

Hustle Harder: The Birth of the Gig Economy

Okay, Boomer

Late‐Stage Capitalism and the Revenge of the Precariat

Quiet Quitting and the Rise of Alternative Employment

Virtual Natives, Virtual Work

We're All Freelancers Now

Notes

9 Send Pics

A Generational Shift

Virtual Search

Connecting Across the Generational Divide

Notes

10 The First Cyborgs

“Tell Us About the New Digital Natives in Virtual Spaces”

Machines Are for Grinding

Learning, Development, and Artificial Intelligence

Can We Beat the Bot?

We're All Centaurs Now

Notes

PART 2: The Revolution Starts Here

11 Meet the Degens

The Fever Is Rising

Searching for Gold in El Dorado

Notes

12 You're Not the Boss of Me

The Airline Puzzle

The Virtual Native Megaphone

The Age of Conspiracy

Fake News

Notes

13 Love, Sex, and Algorithms

Are Dating Apps Designed to Fail Users?

How Are Relationships Different on Virtual Media Platforms?

Is Love a Game?

Fortnite

and Flirt

Love Is Love

Notes

14 Web3 and the Culture

Whole Lotta Love

Do the Renegade

When the Default Is the Same Type

Economic Access Is Key

Notes

15 Life Is Games

“Red Light, Green Light, One, Two, Three!”

Notes

16 The Charismatics

If AI Invented Politicians

The Estonia Model

Changing Expectations: “I should be able to …”

Sparking Joy

Virtual Natives Have the Edge

Substance and Shine

Notes

17 Main Character Energy

Working from Home: A Structural Shift

Greed Is Good and Closers Get Coffee

The Uniform Versus Uniqua

Valuing the Human Beyond the Resource

Rebuilding with the Employee at the Center

Notes

18 Future Forward

The Future of Labor: Radical Self‐Reliance

The Future of Education: Education as a Service

The Future of Collecting: “Show Me What You Own and I'll Tell You Who You Are”

The Future of Social Life: It's Global

The Future of Entertainment: Interactive and Revelatory

The Future of Money: Digitized and Accessible

We're All Natives Now

Note

Epilogue: Invisible Architecture

An Enduring Miracle

The Digital Divide

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Preface: Welcome to the Dawn of the Virtual Natives

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Epilogue: Invisible Architecture

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

Wiley End User License Agreement

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VIRTUAL NATIVES

HOW A NEW GENERATION IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE FUTURE OF WORK, PLAY, AND CULTURE

CATHERINE D. HENRY AND LESLIE SHANNON

Copyright © 2023 by Catherine D. Henry and Leslie Shannon. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per‐copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750‐8400, fax (978) 750‐4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748‐6011, fax (201) 748‐6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Virtual Natives is a registered trademark of Catherine D. Henry. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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ISBN 9781394171354 (Cloth)

ISBN 9781394171361 (ePub)

ISBN 9781394171378 (ePDF)

Cover Art: Carlos Andres Bernal

Cover Design: Paul Mccarthy

Preface

Welcome to the Dawn of the Virtual Natives

Today, we find ourselves in a period of technological acceleration the likes of which we have not seen since the dawn of the internet itself, and we're greeting it with the same cocktail of awe, inspiration, confusion, cynicism, astonishment, and disbelief. If you've felt this and wondered if you're the only one reacting this way – you're not.

Since the onset of the global pandemic, we have found ourselves caught in a moment that has demanded new solutions for an unprecedented era that has come to affect society permanently. Driven by the necessities of lockdown, multiple virtualized solutions – like using QR codes for tickets, and menus, or having food delivered to your door by people whom you never even see – became the new normal.

But it was more than just using technology to keep us a safe distance apart from each other. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, we found ourselves bombarded from all sides by terms like metaverse, VR, AR, NFTs, and digital assets and collectibles. Crypto, DeFI, Web3, ChatGPT, Midjourney, and DALL‐E came to dominate the common lexicon. Technology is suddenly at the core of conversations around the world, an issue of burning intensity.

Blink, blink. What just happened?

We're living through what is arguably one of the most exciting, confusing, and powerful social moments in the history of humanity. The 2020 pandemic drove a great acceleration in the development of multiple forms of technology. The urgent need for “contact free” tech solutions radically changed how we use digital tools to achieve virtual results. We used digital tools to deliver personal virtual “presence” in lieu of face‐to‐face meetings. We used QR codes to generate virtual menus and expanded digital payment systems to send each other virtual forms of currency. Today, these virtual experiences have multiplied exponentially across industries and businesses, and have come to permeate our lives and our culture. What began as a series of “temporary” adjustments have now become permanent. This Covid‐driven shift in technology use has been matched by the simultaneous rise of new, Web3 technologies. The people who are leading both charges are the ones who were already using them before 2020 and today know them best: the Virtual Natives.

This book will introduce you to the Virtual Native cohort and mindset. As builders and creators in these new spaces, we aim to decipher their sociocultural and economic experiences and unpack their expectations of companies looking to engage, market, or employ them.

Whether for work, gaming, or social life, Virtual Natives are driving how we use emerging Web3 and virtual technologies, and evolving culture in the process. They're creating and inhabiting playgrounds for exploration, exchange, connection, and personal expression. And their economic activities are forging a bold new marketplace that is evolving in real time.

Virtual Natives use their devices like appendages to perform multiple tasks, simultaneously. Rather than escape the world through their devices, however, VNs are taking control of their lives by using them to their advantage. They are arming themselves with the tools and knowledge they need to hack their own futures, while discarding old rules, habits, and expectations that no longer serve them. From fax machines and long daily commutes to even standard business hours, Virtual Natives are reassessing their lifestyle, education, and workplaces, and optimizing everything in real time to better suit their individual needs.

This is nothing short of a cultural revolution, and it's happening now.

In writing this book, we have followed in the venerable footsteps of digital anthropologists such as Neil Postman, Marshall McLuhan, Sherry Turkle, and Don Tapscott, all of whom explored the birth of the digital era some 25 years ago.

Now we enter a new period of change, an inflection point with profound technological, cultural, and historical implications, and it's time for reassessment.

Let's go!

A Revolutionary Shift

First there were the Baby Boomers (born 1945–1964), then Generation X (1965–1980), followed by the Millennials (1981–1995), then Gen Z (1996–2009), and the latest group – the Alphas, born 2010 or later. While the level of digital familiarity and expertise has increased with each subsequent group, it's with Gen Z and the Alphas that we begin to identify a cohort, the Virtual Natives (VNs for short), that are using digital tools not just to get the job done, but rather to deconstruct traditional ways of approaching tasks, and to pick and choose only the angles and activities that make sense to them. They're questioning the way things have always been done, going against expectations from previous generations, and using the massive power of computing that has surrounded them their entire lives to rebuild processes and systems to match their own expectations and desires. Virtual Natives are not just the kids who hang out in various virtual realities, as the term might suggest on its surface; they're the kids and young adults who were born into a world where virtualization is increasingly central to their existence, experiences, and expectations.

It sounds like a big shift, and it is. But hold on – are Virtual Natives different from the Digital Natives we've been talking about for the last 25 years? Yes, they are, and in significant ways.

The term “Digital Natives” was originally coined by educator Marc Prensky in 2001.i He used the phrase to describe the late Millennial generation who “are used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging.” These were kids who laughed at their elders who printed out their emails and bought books from a brick‐and‐mortar bookstore. Instead, they were happy to leave their emails online and order their books from a little (at the time) company named after a big river. They spoke “technology” fluently and adapted to digital formats quickly and almost effortlessly. By the time they were college graduates, Prensky said, they had spent “less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games” and more than 20,000 hours watching TV, which was their main cultural influence.

This was all a big shift from what had gone before. Prensky's accurate description and catchy title caught on and entered general usage.

While the Digital Natives moved happily and effortlessly in the newly digitized world, the online world of 2001 was still very much a digitized version of the original analog world. Almost all the online functions that anyone could perform back in 2001 were computerized versions of existing physical‐world processes that replicated the original process but did little to change or improve it. Most of those were one‐way transfers of information, or transactions, made slightly faster and easier by virtue of being accessible through a computer. For example, annual reports were no longer printed but posted on corporate websites as PDFs, still looking exactly as they had when they were mailed out in envelopes. College students back then may have played video games for more hours than they read books, but they still did read the books that they ordered on Amazon, and watch broadcast TV. Digital Natives no longer asked each other for turn‐by‐turn directions, but got them from Google Maps on their computer at home, and then printed them out to take along with them in the car.

What has changed, and made the new Virtual Native cohort possible, is that technology has advanced to the point that it is now possible to achieve many goals in ways that no longer bear any resemblance to the original non‐digital process that preceded them. Where a pre–Digital Native would have sent a physical letter, and a Digital Native of the early 2000s would have sent an email whose format still mimicked that of a business letter (and was still called “mail” and would land in the recipient's “inbox”), a Virtual Native has abandoned all links with the postal past and will have a video call, send an emoji‐laden What's App message, or will create and post a video and tag their friends. The objective of sending another person a message has been reached by all three methods; but the Virtual Native approach is so far removed from the original process that Virtual Natives today likely have no idea or interest in posting an envelope.

This is the heart of the difference between Digital Natives and Virtual Natives. Both groups use digital tools, but Digital Natives tended to use those tools in a way that replicated the physical process that preceded it. If you, dear reader, are a Digital Native, chances are high that you're still using email, and probably using it more at work than you use group chat tools like Slack or Yammer. You probably haven't realized that what you're doing is just a computerized version of the previous process of writing on a piece of paper and sending it to your colleague via an interoffice envelope. Virtual Natives, on the other hand, completely lack the experience of the original, pre‐digitized past, and are free to entirely reimagine how things can be done, using the extremely powerful digital tools at their disposal. Why waste time sending one message to one person once via email when it's much more efficient to post a message in the group Slack, Discord, or Teams channel, which then automatically becomes part of the shared history of the project?

Virtual Natives swipe instead of typing, use YouTube and TikTok to search instead of Google, and are often more comfortable meeting new people as an avatar in an immersive 3D environment such as Fortnite or Rec Room than they are with dealing with others in person. To VNs, physicality is less important than the end result: the feeling of live connectedness with others. This is a whole new generation with new tools and new habits, and those in turn are driving new ambitions and expectations.

New ways of thinking give rise to new economies. Just like Digital Natives and their excitement at the dawn of the dot‐com era, Virtual Natives are eager to leverage the burgeoning Web3 economy and reap its many bounties, in an attempt to become masters of their own economic destiny. But Virtual Natives will go further than the Digital Natives could, thanks to the improved power of the tools in their hands. Generative AI, for example, will level the playing field so that young bedroom entrepreneurs with no formal education and on a shoestring budget can take on big business and compete with brands in platforms where the physical properties of a product – e.g. a thick, cashmere sweater – no longer has meaning, and must instead be re‐imagined and promoted as an emotion. All of these movements have seismic implications for the future of business, entertainment, and culture.

In this book, we explore how different this generation is to its predecessors in unique and significant ways. As we studied Virtual Natives and what sets them apart, we identified 10 main themes that, together, define the unique Virtual Native mindset and approach to life, the universe, and everything. We cover these in the first half of the book, along with the VNs' unique habits, behaviors, and thinking patterns that led us to identify each theme. We'll also look at the awesome technical powers they have grown up with that have necessarily shaped their activities, expectations, and worldview.

In the second half of the book, we explore the implications that the VNs' powerful cocktail of new technologies, habits, and expectations will have for the future of work, play, education, entertainment, culture, and social life. We dive into the potential challenges that will arise for people trying to understand how Virtual Natives' innate virtualization has already impacted their social networks, values, behaviors, economic prospects, and expectations and, importantly, how VNs will balk when confronted with anything that doesn't instinctively feel right.

In both halves, we'll look at examples of how VNs are rethinking the world and evolving it on their own terms. We'll also look back at other moments of significant technological and cultural disruption for parallels and insights that are relevant to understanding what is happening in today's new era of virtualization.

We spoke to many people in the Gen Z and Alpha contingent as part of our research. Because the majority of our interviewees are children, we have left their last names out of our reporting. Any quotation that is listed as coming from someone with a first name only, and which is lacking an endnote, is the result of a direct interview.

The lesson to learn from Virtual Natives is not that they are inaccessibly different and eternally “other,” but that they are the product of a new paradigm, an intersection of time, place, and tools. This is an important nexus among technology, media, and culture not seen since the dawn of the internet itself. Those of us who were born in any other generation can take inspiration from the discoveries of VNs both to understand them better in the home and workplace, and perhaps to discover new efficiencies and ways of thinking that can bring welcome change to our own workplaces, professions, and personal lives.

Twentieth‐century futurist Alvin Toffler famously said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”ii The wheel is turning, the times are changing, and once again, it is time for all of us to learn, unlearn, and relearn, most particularly from those who have the most to teach – the Virtual Natives. Today, watching the sun rise on the 3D internet, we can only wonder what marvels they will create.

Catherine D. HenryLeslie ShannonSeptember 2023

Notes

i.

Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,”

On the Horizon

, MCB University Press 9, No. 5 (October 2001).

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20‐%20Part1.pdf

.

ii.

“Alvin Toffler, Author of

Future Shock

, Dies Aged 87,”

Guardian

(February 22, 2018).

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/30/alvin-toffler-author-of-future-shock-dies-aged-87

.

PART 1A Generation Unlike Any Other

In our assessment of the preferences and activities of Virtual Natives (VNs), we've found 10 recurring themes that, taken together, express the core of how VNs differ from previous generations. Some of their behaviors are the product of unique historical factors, such as the Covid‐19 pandemic and the 2008 financial crash, but most of them flow from the fantastical abilities to communicate and create that Virtual Natives have been granted by the digital tools readily available on the screens that surround them.

We'll start by examining each theme individually in dedicated chapters, then, in Part Two, zoom out to look at how the themes work together to build the Virtual Native worldview – and why we older generations may ultimately end up adapting to them, instead of the other way around.

1Virtual Is the New Digital

You may be familiar with the video of a one‐year‐old baby who, before she could talk, had figured out how to turn on an iPad and open her favorite pictures and apps. This isn't so unusual; since the iPhone's 2007 arrival and the iPad's launch in 2010, harried parents have become much more likely to hand their toddlers a smartphone or tablet as a distraction instead of a rattle or a set of jingling keys. So what does this baby do when she's given a magazine? She tries pressing on the images. They don't move. She turns the pages and tries swiping. No response. Puzzled, she tests her index finger on her thigh; is it pressing right? Is her finger working? After a few leg pokes, she decides that it is working and tries it on the magazine again – no luck! Now anxious, the baby begins to squeal. Why won't these images open? What is wrong with this paper thing, why won't it work the way it's supposed to?1

Similarly, there are multiple videos out there of slightly older children, trying to swipe the screen of the television set to change the channel, and becoming equally frustrated when the device doesn't respond as they expect. These are Virtual Natives.

Virtual Natives (VNs) are the people who have known nothing their entire lives but fully digitized versions of what were originally analog activities. This experience is the foundation of not only how they perceive the world, but also how they are shaping it as they grow to reflect their own lived reality. Digitization has led to VNs being able to “virtualize” their experiences, or, that is, to select only what they see as the best and most useful elements of what were previously entire processes, while discarding elements that seem inconvenient, wasteful, or useless. We'll look at examples of how this plays out in practice in this chapter, and come back to explore the larger ramifications of this mind shift in Part Two.

By 2025, there will be more than two billion Generation Alphas,2 the largest generation in history, who have been born into more diversity and more technology than ever before. The Alphas, like many of the Gen Zs that precede them, have never known a period when smartphones, apps, and video calls did not exist. As babies, they learned that their media is interactive, and when it's not, they consider it to be broken. In fact, this is a crucial point for understanding how Virtual Natives differ from others: How do they identify what is, to them, broken, and how do they use the digital tools they've handled since birth to create a more desirable fix? To create these fixes, VNs are learning and teaching each other new codes, new ways of connecting, and hacking life in a radically different way than previous generations.

Let's start with some definitions. We define Virtual Natives as the people, largely belonging to the Gen Z and Alpha cohorts (though not exclusively – it's a mindset as much as it is an age group), who are using digital tools to craft a life that makes sense to them, on their own terms, rather than blindly following the patterns laid down by those who have gone before them. Virtual Natives are not just the kids who spend a lot of time in virtual reality, as the term may casually indicate; they're the kids and teens with the courage and the skills to deconstruct the world as it is, and to rebuild it for themselves as they'd prefer it to be.

Merriam Webster defines the word “virtual” as “being on or simulated on a computer or computer network” or “occurring or existing primarily online.”3 For the purpose of this book, we define “virtuality” as the grand sweep of digitized experiences and functions that are evolving along with new technology, enabling Virtual Natives to express themselves in all facets of their lives. Their education, play, work, and collaboration are all seamlessly both digital and physical and, to them, indistinguishable, with neither format being materially “better” or “worse” than the other. Technological tools and devices are to Virtual Natives seemingly natural extensions of their being that allow them to reach their desired results without worrying over the formalities of “how,” focusing instead on the “why” and, more important, “what's in it for me.” And that's exactly what Virtual Natives do: refuse to accept traditional processes that don't make sense to them, using their powerful digital toolbox to reach target outcomes. We'll see many examples of this virtualization dynamic in the coming chapters.

Ziad Ahmed, the 20‐something CEO of JUV Consulting, who specializes in helping companies understand the Gen Z cohort, says it directly: “We're not going to do something just because that's the way it's always been done.”4

Finding Your Fam

While a key part of VNs' development lies in their familiarity with technology from birth, it's also undeniable that the global pandemic of 2020 played a formative role in the construction of the Virtual Native worldview.

As Covid began to grip the world, and country after country reacted with strict lockdowns and the prohibition of public gatherings, people around the world suddenly found themselves unable to attend events with landmark life significance, such as graduations, weddings, even funerals. Older generations grudgingly moved their meetings and happy hours with friends to platforms such as Zoom, where they could see each other as they raised their wine glasses.

But not the Virtual Natives. They went into their games.

Kindergarten and grade school graduations took place in Minecraft. Live video calls with celebrities streamed on TikTok. Concerts were held in Fortnite, and funerals and other memorial services took place in Animal Crossing. In fact, Animal Crossing, which had the fortune of launching its strongly community‐focused New Horizons variant just as the Covid lockdown began, became a common location for meaningful gatherings of all kinds, its gentle avatars helping participants to share warm and loving feelings during tough times. And Virtual Natives were already there.

Not allowed to leave the house for Halloween? Do your trick‐or‐treating in Animal Crossing! Unable to get together in person with your friends from school? Join them online in endless games of Among Us or Rocket League! Miss seeing and sharing the latest fashion trends? Kit out your digital avatar with a hot new look and take plenty of selfies in ZEPETO!

Organized religious services, which moved online early, revealed a difference in expectations around participation between their older congregants and Virtual Natives. “We've seen a hunger in Gen Z for more experiential stuff – something they get to participate in rather than receive. They want to belong to a community rather than an audience,” commented nondenominational Pastor Zach Lambert.5 And for those with no interest in religious services? Immersive yoga, kickboxing, and meditation apps abound!

At a time when a multiplicity of one‐way broadcasts from both school and local communities left kids feeling alone and lonely, digital platforms were able to provide Virtual Natives with much‐needed engagement, community, and a sense of belonging.

Like babies swiping iPads, Virtual Natives intuitively use digital spaces to meet their friends or watch YouTubers from other parts of the world, and turn to virtual worlds as places to connect with wider, meaningful communities. A 2022 study found that players of Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft all spent more time in those worlds – and spent more money there – when they also met their friends and did their socializing there.6 Whereas Millennials have been known to overshare, documenting the most minute details of every meal, moment, and milestone, in often overly glossy and perfected tableaus, Virtual Natives see social media much more as a tool for understanding the world and are more interested in creating than curating and cataloging their lives.

Joining communities online, finding their “fam,” or friend family, helps Virtual Natives answer that very human need of wanting to feel part of something larger, of having a sense of solace and purpose, and belonging. When asked in 2023, a majority of teenage girls in one survey confirmed that social media has had a positive effect on their lives, by connecting them with others, helping them find friends outside their immediate geographies, and giving them information about mental health and other resources that they couldn't find elsewhere.7

Mike Schmid, head of publishing for Rec Room, sees online worlds as an extension of daily life, saying, “We don't use the term ‘metaverse.’ We don't talk about ourselves in the sort of creepy way that some other experiences do. We're just supplementing real life.”8

The implication here is that for Virtual Natives, both digital spaces and avatars are worthy stand‐ins not just for gameplay, but also for humanity's significant rites of passage. Digital worlds are valid places for both community and communion, and VNs feel that actions that are taken there (weddings, graduations, funerals) have meaningful significance in the physical world.

Hanging out is a rite of passage, and each generation has had their “third space” – not school or work, and not home – where they hang out and socialize. Boomers met up at diners and soda fountains, Gen X in record stores and malls, and Millennials in Starbucks. For Virtual Natives, digital spaces are not just meeting spaces, they're also community spaces in which they can truly connect with others. This may be especially meaningful for VNs, many of whom may never know what it's like to have a community at work. In this case, these digital “third” spaces may become even more important. You can be a genuine human participant in a group and its activities, seeing, being seen, and interacting with others, without ever meeting anyone in person.

The Road to Virtualization

Virtual Natives were practically born with digital devices in their hands, and Covid accelerated their embrace of digital spaces as a practical solution to a real‐world problem. But the pandemic was (we hope) a one‐off, a black swan event that isn't a persistent motivator for long‐term behavioral change. There must be another factor at work that has driven Virtual Natives to reject the status quo and to seek different, more virtual ways of living their lives.

Virtual Natives see Millennials as a cautionary tale as a massive cautionary tale. The older members of this group have had terrible luck with their timing. First, they had to deal with the Great Recession of 2008, when 17.2% of people aged 20–24 were out of work, and in the decade since then, they've faced higher levels of student debt and more stagnant wages than the generations before them. In 2019, it was calculated that Millennials earn 20% less than the Boomers did at the same age, a devastating drop that affects everything from daily anxiety levels to their ultimate ability to retire – ever. This is such a looming and ominous reality for younger generations that we'll return to this topic again; it's a driver for multiple behaviors among the VN cohort.

As Millennial Charles Bryant put it when interviewed by Fortune magazine in 2022, “I followed the rules that they gave us. I played the game and went to school and I did very well. Every job I've worked, I've worked very hard and it didn't pay off. It feels very unfair.”9

Exactly. It is unfair. And the Virtual Natives are highly aware of this dynamic; it's a conscious motivation for them. In a March 2023 Twitter thread responding to a poll of older generations that found Gen Z workers to be unmotivated, one VN retorted, “Lack of effort/motivation/productivity/drive: We don't care about the job, it's something we have to do, not want to do. The economy sucks, and we have no guarantee of stable CAREER future. Guess what? Boomers, Gen X, Millennials: It's YOUR fault.”10

“Working for the man” and playing by his rules didn't do the Millennials any good, so it should come as no surprise that Gen Z and Alphas are looking for other paths toward the life that they want to have. Digital tools, platforms, and services give them those paths, potentially restoring the life control that they perceive the Millennials as having lost.

But there's more to it than just using a set of tools. At a conference in late 2022, Lisa Costa of the United States Space Force spoke about how NASA finds some of their best workers among their youngest hires. It's not just that Virtual Natives are very comfortable with using computers; even more important is what she described as their “cognitive training.” NASA has found that VNs are very good at prioritizing the important and deprioritizing, even discarding, the unimportant, making them uniquely able to make rapid and confident decisions based on partial evidence. This cognitive training comes not only from fast‐moving gaming environments, but also from the TikTok world, in which content creators are used to grabbing viewers' attention within the 15‐second time frame that was TikTok's original video limit. It's this ability to discern what's important, often at speed, sort the wheat from the chaff, and focus only on the things that deliver value, that is the larger skill that sets VNs apart from older generations.11

The Essence of Virtualization

We began our examination of Virtual Natives with this definition of “the virtual” because it is so critical to understanding the VN approach to everything. To them, “virtualization” doesn't mean just doing the same thing as before, only digitally; it means tearing key constructs down into components and only retaining those that produce results or provide meaning. The focus is on outcomes, not on processes, no matter how expected or revered those processes may be.

This approach to the world may seem heretical and unthinkable to older cohorts, but ultimately, Virtual Natives will cause us all to rethink how we approach life, work, and leisure, and how to locate the true value at the center of many processes that the rest of us may not have thought about analytically at all. In virtualization lies power.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.12

—Pearl S. Buck

Notes

1.

UserExperiencesWorks, 2012, “A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work.m4v,” video, YouTube,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

.

2.

Genevieve Shaw Brown, “After Gen Z, Meet Gen Alpha. What to Know about the Generation Born 2010 to Today,”

ABC News

(February 17, 2020).

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/gen-meet-gen-alpha-generation-born-2010-today/story?id=68971965

.

3.

“Definition of Virtual,”

Merriam‐Webster Dictionary

(accessed on April 25, 2023).

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtual?src=search-dict-box

.

4.

“The Real Conversations Podcast by Nokia: Gen Z's Wake‐Up Call for the Telecom Industry,” n.d.

https://futurithmic.libsyn.com/gen-zs-wake-up-call-for-the-telecom-industry

.

5.

Mya Jaradat, “What Being Religious Means to Gen Z,”

Deseret News

(September 15, 2020).

https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/9/13/21428404/gen-z-religion-spirituality-social-justice-black-lives-matter-parents-family-pandemic

.

6.

Niklas Melcher, “Metaverse Gamers: Demographics, Playing and Spending Behavior,” Newzoo, January 19, 2022.

https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/deep-dive-metaverse-gamers-data-on-metaverse-demographics-socializing-playing-spending-2/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_5o3lnl_iXiNmWhh1P5iDaxhW3aztZETIiteb6aq7hEfTFcTrn8xHw-Q36UocezNMR-ak_EbKm3ZegVIiyn-3Ly_E8JNX5G0auLCWhLk810Bz_q04&_hsmi=201780763&utm_content=201782013&utm_source=hs_email&hsCtaTracking=3d2d8102-2fd9-449c-a5c7-cbb1720bf411%7Cd0015075-b375-4586-bf59-e14840ed3425

7.

Carolyn Jones, “Social Media Has Some Significant Upsides for Teenage Girls, Survey Finds,” EdSource, March 30, 2023.

https://edsource.org/2023/social-media-has-some-surprising-upsides-for-teenage-girls-study-finds/687726

.

8.

Thomas Wilde, “Why Avatar‐Based Social Gaming App Rec Room Doesn't Consider Itself a ‘Metaverse’ Company,”

GeekWire

(December 29, 2022).

https://www.geekwire.com/2022/why-avatar-based-social-gaming-app-rec-room-doesnt-consider-itself-a-metaverse-company/

.

9.

Megan Leonhardt, “Meet a Millennial Who Is Turning 40, Starting Yet Another New Career and Has $47,000 in Debt. ‘I've Worked Very Hard and It Didn't Pay off. It Feels Very Unfair,’”

Fortune

(February 20, 2022).

https://fortune.com/2022/02/20/millennial-turning-40-starting-new-career-carrying-debt/#:~:text=Overall%2C%20the%20average%20millennial%20carries,debt%20averages%20%24255%2C527%20per%20person

.

10.

“‘Entitled’ Gen Z Is the Most Difficult Generation in the Workplace: Poll,”

New York Post

on Twitter, April 21, 2023.

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1649538595877691392

.

11.

Lisa Costa and Michael Torres, “Case Study: How and Why the United States Space Force Is Building a Digital Twin,” presentation at The Economist Metaverse Summit, San Jose, California, October 26, 2022.

12.

BrainyQuote, “Pearl S. Buck Quotes,” n.d.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pearl_s_buck_161681

.

2What Is Reality, Anyway?

Where older generations may make a distinction between digital worlds and the “real” world, meaning the physical world, VNs are much more likely to consider what happens in digital arenas to be just as real as that which happens in the physical world. After all, it's on digital platforms that they do most of their communication with friends and learn about the world. Whether a VN is talking to their friend in person or as an avatar in a virtual space, the relationship and the emotions are real, and that's what matters.

In 2021, ahead of the release of The Matrix Resurrections, which was coming out a full 22 years after the first appearance of The Matrix in 1999, star Keanu Reeves found himself explaining the plot to a group of teenagers who had been born after the original movie was made.

He outlined the basic plot, then got to the twist at the center of the Matrix franchise. “There's this guy who's in a kind of virtual world. And he finds out that there's a real world, and he's really questioning what's real and what's not real.”

For those of us who first saw the Matrix movies when they came out, we remember how horrifying and deeply unsettling it was to discover that everything the characters Neo and Trinity were experiencing as “the real world” was a simulation, an elaborate digital trick pulled on their sensory system by forces beyond their control.

Instead of being blown away, one girl just looked at him and asked him, “Why?” Reeves was unsettled. “I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And she was like, ‘Who cares if it's real?’”1

Virtual Natives have been so surrounded by digital representations of, well, everything all their lives that they have developed a view of reality that blurs the line between the physical and digital worlds.

Instead of seeing that “reality” lies only on the physical side of the line, as previous generations may tend to do, their definition of reality is that of a continuum, which encompasses both the physical world and the myriad digital spaces that they have participated in all their lives. Digital, physical – they're both real, and the experiences that VNs have in both are real, and the relationships that they form in both are real, and the places that they go in both are real. And it's just not a big deal. Sorry, Keanu.

The Time and Space Discontinuum

Mason was in eighth grade. Bored during his class, he turned to his friend Sunil and said, “Hey, wanna watch a movie together after school?” “Sure,” Sunil said, “do you have Netflix?” Mason responded, “Yeah, meet you after school at 3:30, and we'll pick something out then, okay?”

So far, so normal. But what was actually happening is probably not the scenario you were expecting. The year was 2021, and Mason and Sunil were each at home in their own rooms, attending their classes online during distance learning. Mason and Sunil – who don't even go to the same school – each had their browsers open to their current class, as they were supposed to, but also had Discord open, in which they were chatting to each other whenever the educational side of things got a little slow.

They were effectively passing notes to each other in class. It's just that in the 2021 version of passing notes, they were speaking out loud, not writing (making sure they were on mute in their school window, of course), and they were going to different classes at different schools at the time.

When they met up after school to watch their chosen movie, Sunil didn't come over to Mason's house, but instead they met up again in Discord. Mason has Netflix access, which Sunil doesn't, so after they chose their movie, Mason started playing it, then shared his screen in Discord with Sunil. They were able to watch the show together, talking and laughing with each other, just as if they were sitting next to each other on a sofa in the same living room. They even had popcorn.

This scenario, which Mason played out almost every day of his distance learning, was the main reason that Mason was deeply disappointed when in‐person learning resumed as he entered ninth grade. Even though he was excited about going to high school, and physically going there, he was quite bummed that “I won't be able to talk to Sunil during my classes anymore. Going to school won't be as much fun without my best friend.” Mason didn't see the resumption of physical schooling as a superior way of connecting to other people when compared with his digital afternoons with Sunil; for the two boys, their time spent together in Discord had just as much value and validity as time spent physically together would have held.