Technology and different generations
How is the impact of technology on different generations?
In our first chat, we invited two people from different generations to debate the impact of technology on society. One of them is Moacir Marafon, one of the Founding Partners and President of the Board of Softplan. To provide a counterpoint, we also welcomed Thiago Mathias Simon, a Junior Developer who, at just 19 years old, joined the company through a training program that is the result of a partnership between Softplan, Senai SC and ACATE. The host of this conversation is Guilherme Brasil, who from today onwards will lead monthly debates that will expand his vision on how current resources have transformed people's lives. The conversation was very fruitful and we will talk about its main points in this article.
The relationship of each guest with technology
Each of the chat guests experienced the technology issue in a different way, since they were born in completely different generations.
Marafon had his first contact with technology in an introduction to computing class in the Civil Engineering course. When he graduated from college, he bought a Casio calculator programmed with 1700 bytes of memory, where he wrote programs and recorded calculations. As Marafon entered the world of technology, he fell in love with it and wanted to discover it even more. Soon after, he went to work for the State Government and found a minicomputer with a Basic Commercial programming language. As a self-taught person, Marafon developed his experience as a programmer and became enchanted with this area. Therefore, he decided to return to the Federal University of Santa Catarina and was part of the first postgraduate class of the Computer Science course. When he finished, his dream of becoming an entrepreneur in the world of technology became stronger and he ended up meeting two partners who, together, created the Softplan.
Unlike Marafon, Thiago was born in a digitalized context, in which there were already computers at home. As a result, he had close contact with technology from a very early age. At the age of nine, for example, Thiago already took a computer operator class via EAD (distance learning). In high school, the young man began the technical course in Systems Development, which was his first effective contact with programming. Today, at just 19 years old, he works at Softplan. It can be concluded that technology was present at every moment of his life. Thiago states that, nowadays, it is difficult to imagine going somewhere without having a cell phone by your side.
Does the generational difference interfere with the advancement of technology?
During the conversation, we were privileged to have the perspective of different generations to analyze this question. Marafon, who belongs to the beginning of the X generation (born between 1960 and 1980), exposed remarkable characteristics of his time. It entered the market during one of the biggest economic crises in Brazil, in which people experienced great difficulty in working in the area of their graduations. For him, generation X is characterized by giving a lot of value to employment and stability. Consequently, he was not advised to take chances, as changes could be dangerous. But Marafon believes that his generation can take these characteristics and, together with younger generations, generate successful technological creations.
Thiago, who is part of generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010), believes that the generational difference interferes with the advancement of technology, but not necessarily in a negative way. He sees technology as something indispensable. A company that does not have a virtual space to position itself ends up having difficulties communicating and connecting with its audience, especially young people. Technology is evolving precisely because of generational differences, in which each individual with their experience presents different and innovative ideas that complement each other.
When discussing this topic and analyzing the speed of advances in technology, Guilherme, host of the podcast, briefly expressed his opinion in the following sentence: ''This coexistence of several generations puts a brake on the speed, which is already exorbitant, of technological evolution.' '
Regionalization of technology use
Increasingly, there is an increase in the number of people connecting to the internet in Brazil. For a country that has visible social inequalities, this is pleasant news to analyze. Certainly, there are still areas where there is no internet access. In general, the country has ensured the accessibility of the digital world with a fast speed.
The ICT Households survey, carried out by the Regional Center for Studies for the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), shows that internet use in Brazil grew in 2020, going from 74% to 81% of the population, which represents 152 millions of people. The increase was representative, but the 29% that still don't have access cannot be forgotten. Therefore, it is the responsibility of governments to make the digital world closer to society as a whole.
The President of the Council of Softplan He explained, as an example, his experience with the situation of regionalization in the use of technology. His family members live in the interior of Santa Catarina, where the issue of internet access is, nowadays, being overcome. Children, from a very early age, already know how to use smartphones and computers. Something positive, since this is a result of the democratization of internet access.
The richness of coexistence between different generations
When different types of generations work together, there are certainly benefits for a given company and, in addition, it can lead to advances in technology. Analyzing different perspectives is fundamental, as there is always another way of doing something or seeing the solution to a problem.
The debate between generations is very fruitful. When thinking about younger professionals, ideas such as creativity, energy, agility, practicality are almost always related. Combining these characteristics with an older generation, which is more experienced, there is no way the result can go wrong.
Did you like the content? listen to the full chat. In it we talk about other issues related to what we brought in this article.
