America’s future economy is a funny thing.
On one hand, some confidently expect an information age, characterized by technological expansion, knowledge economics and the unlimited rewards of progress.
The fuzziness of these ideas is either a worry or a testament to the unexpected nature of leaps in innovation.
Chastened by the current economic climate, there is also a tendency in some to believe that the future will not necessarily be better, that adjustments and austerity may be the order of the future.
In this paradigm the old will be new again — sustainability and localization and concrete skills will be the way of the future.
In the first future, there is at least some evidence to suggest that we will be ready. Studies from the Kaufmann Foundation and others show entrepreneurship is on the rise during the recession, and universities have been preparing students for the “coming information economy” almost since the phrase began to gain popularity.
New college graduates are largely prepared for a world where Twitter, Facebook and blogs are part of the workplace experience.
In this future, graduates may initially struggle to find a place.
Creative and entrepreneurial professionals may do better than those who expect a job in their parents’ industries, or to work the same place their whole lives. But on the whole, economic life will go on as it always has.
But if the second scenario is accurate, and the economy will be fundamentally different post-recession, as at least some analysts are willing to posit, we are woefully unprepared in some of the most basic of ways.
In MacLean’s recent article “Why your teenager can’t use a hammer,” several trends come to light.
One is that today’s teens and young adults spend their time using technology that demands much less of them than technology of the past. Our phones, cars, computers and appliances ask us only to plug them in and use them.
Another is that in addition to this, and partly because of this, even the most simple of tools and trades are now beyond the majority of teens and young adults’ abilities.
Some analysts believe that this is a result of a fundamental rewiring of the mind caused by the recent shift from a tool-based to a button-based world.
Mechanical professions may suffer, as lifelong tinkerers are replaced in the workforce by texters. The cycle of innovation, long dominated by those same tinkerers, may slow in spite of the aid of computers. Localized economies may be handicapped by a lack of local skill.
If the world has changed, and the information economy takes longer to arrive than we expect, we may wish we knew how to work with our hands.
Reach Will at wmunsil@asu.edu
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