Back from a long journey

So its been a damn long time since I've written a post. In fact, it's coming up on three months. So I'm back now and hopefully I will begin posting at regular intervals again.

I was reading an article in Wired magazine yesterday which made reference to a new social group identified by The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) as "Yeppies":

Yeppies are ambitious but confused and won't commit to anything unless they know it will bring them enduring happiness. The Social Issues Research Centre said "Today's graduates are adopting a 'Browsing' attitude to jobs, homes and relationships. They postpone life altering decisions until they feel they have exhausted all their options."

My initial reaction was, "wow that sounds familiar, and seems to hit home with me and many people I know." This concerned me a bit until I read a rebuttal of sorts from the British culture blog, thefridayproject. I agreed with their assessment that yes, life is different today than it was 30-something years ago, and this phenomenon is affecting people of all ages not just some small segment of society. The classification seems to be three-fold:

1. Careers (Jobs)
2. Shopping (Homes)
3. Relationships

So it made me think...

This "Browsing attitude toward shopping" is the natural side effect of having (more) information easily accessible (the internet stupid). For comparison shopping there really is no better tool than the information available on the internet. We get to do the things that people in the past dreamed about. If only there was a way of finding the person selling the item you want half way across the country. The information that until recently had no way of being known.

If there is a product one is considering buying, in no more than five or ten minutes the fair-market price can be determined with tools like froogle, ebay, amazon, and forums for nearly everything imaginable. Never before in the history of the world has information been more freely and easily available so quickly. Twenty years ago one went to Sears to buy a new appliance, or maybe they comparison shopped in a few mail-order catalogs. They had to make their choice out of two or three sources, and had to figure in the time taken to order the catalogs and have them delivered. Now you simply pop open your web-browser and you are alerted to sales going on half way across the country. The consumer benefits from the immense nationwide competition put in place by the internet. So this browsing attitude is what happens when people of all ages have large amounts of information at their finger-tips.

Likewise, the internet has made it easy to tell if you are getting paid or offered a competitive salary for your work. Various forums exist for many professions as well as sites like: Monster, Craigslist, and Careerbuilder, which allow the user to comparison shop for jobs. The vast information available on the internet has killed the idea of working for one company for the rest of your life when you can constantly be aware of your worth at competing jobs. A possibly more significant factor is companies desire to limit pay and benefits by firing or "downsizing" employees every few years. Either way the internet has allowed job seekers to ensure they are getting fair pay and look for new employment if they are not. So I don't see this as a 'Browsing' attitude to jobs, I see it as a realization of what the post-internet, new corporate age is doing to people of all ages.

The final classification point is relationships. It asserts more people are taking a browsing attitude towards relationships. Well why not? "Now society says you don't have to get married to have sex anymore. Nor is there the pressure to get married that there used to be". I think this is a fine point. As the average student tends to continue on to college instead of finishing at the high school level, major life milestones get pushed back by 4-5 years. To continue my line of reasoning, this can be considered a side effect of more information being available. The information being the societal acceptance of less strict adherence to the "traditional" rules such as, meet someone, get married, have kids. It's acceptable to be unmarried longer than it was in previous generations.

Considering this has made me think about the influence of more information on the attitudes and behavior of society, and I believe it has been a good thing.

Sorry to go deep on you there, but I hope you found my ranting somewhat interesting.