Cases of burnout have been increasing at an alarming rate in recent years among millennials and Gen Zers. Itâs a growing problem in todayâs workplace because of trends like rising workloads, limited staff and resources and long hours.
a recent study by Mind Share Partners, Qualtrics and SAP reveals that half of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have left a job for mental health reasons.
Another recent study, by the American Psychological Association, found the percentage of young adults experiencing certain types of mental health disorders has increased significantly in the past decade. In particular, the percentage of people dealing with suicidal thoughts increased 47 percent from 2008 to 2017.
Jean Twenge, author of iGen, a book about the effect technology has on this generation, says that âthe rise of the smartphone and social media have at least something to do with it.â
But Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College, said that itâs not social media or young peopleâs fractured attention spans that are causing their anxiety; it is school itself.
Britney Spears does have more appeal than most quadratic equations. With thousands of dollars of high-tech digital engineering spent on every word uttered, or in this case, sung, how can the typical college professor compete?
MTV Learners are seeking warp-speed answers to their life issues. They want to know: “What does this information (your course) have to do with me (self-actualization)?” and “What does this information (your course) have to do with my career (my choice of vocation)?”
Be democratic, not autocratic. Instead of management by fiat, try taking regular opinion polls and surveys of your students to determine the specific methods of teaching your course.
Try to eliminate the lecture-test, lecture-test, lecture-test format and substitute other learning models that accentuate the choices of the MTV Learner. Focus on the quality of your syllabus as a giant “master operating agreement” that presents the learning objectives of your course and related policies in a manner that is as clear and as easy to understand as possible. Without sounding too litigious on your syllabus, present the consequences of missed absences, overdue work, incomplete assignments, and the like.
The oldest members of Generation Z are around 22 years old â now entering the workforce and adjusting their social media accordingly. They are holding back from posting political opinions and personal information in favor of posting about professional accomplishments.
only about 1 in 10 teenagers say they share personal, religious or political beliefs on social media, according to a recent survey from Pew Research Center.
70 percent of employers and recruiters say they check social media during the hiring process, according to a survey conducted by CareerBuilder
Generation Z, nicknamed “iGen,” is the post-millennial generation responsible for ‘killing’ Facebook and for the rise of TikTok.
Curricula like Common Sense Education’s digital citizenship program are working to educate the younger generation on how to use social media, something the older generations were never taught.
Some users are regularly cleaning up â “re-curating” â their online profiles. Cleanup apps, like TweetDelete,
Gen Zers also use social media in more ephemeral ways than older generations â Snapchat stories that disappear after 24 hours, or Instagram posts that they archive a couple of months later.
Gen Zers already use a multitude of strategies to make sure their online presence is visible only to who they want: They set their account to private, change their profile name or handle, even make completely separate “fake” accounts.
Early signs suggest Gen Z workers are more competitive and pragmatic, but also more anxious and reserved, than millennials, the generation of 72 million born from 1981 to 1996, according to executives, managers, generational consultants and multidecade studies of young people. Gen Zers are also the most racially diverse generation in American histor
With the generation of baby boomers retiring and unemployment at historic lows, Gen Z is filling immense gaps in the workforce. Employers, plagued by worker shortages, are trying to adapt.
LinkedIn Corp. and Intuit Inc. have eased requirements that certain hires hold bachelorâs degrees to reach young adults who couldnât afford college. At campus recruiting events, EY is raffling off computer tablets because competition for top talent is intense.
Companies are reworking training so it replicates YouTube-style videos that appeal to Gen Z workers reared on smartphones.
âThey learn new information much more quickly than their predecessors,â
A few years ago Mr. Stewart noticed that Gen Z hires behaved differently than their predecessors. When the company launched a project to support branch managers, millennials excitedly teamed up and worked together. Gen Z workers wanted individual recognition and extra pay.
Much of Gen Zâs socializing takes place via text messages and social media platformsâa shift that has eroded natural interactions and allowed bullying to play out in front of wider audiences.
The flip side of being digital natives is that Gen Z is even more adept with technology than millennials. Natasha Stough, Americas campus recruiting director at EY in Chicago, was wowed by a young hire who created a bot to answer questions on the companyâs Facebook careers page.
To lure more Gen Z workers, EY rolled out video technology that allows job candidates to record answers to interview questions and submit them electronically.
LinkedIn, which used to recruit from about a dozen colleges, broadened its efforts to include hundreds of schools and computer coding boot camps to capture a diverse applicant pool that mirrors the changing population.
âShifts in studentsâ learning style will prompt a shift to active construction of knowledge through mediated immersion.â-Chris Dede
The theory of constructivist-based learning, according to Dr. Seymour Papert, âis grounded in the idea that people learn by actively constructing new knowledge, rather than having information âpouredâ into their heads.â
Moreover, constructionism asserts that people learn with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally meaningful artifacts (such as computer programs, animations, 3D modeling, creating spatial environments in virtual reality or building robots).â
Technologies like virtual reality, especially for Gen Z studentsâ, provides avenues that allow them to engage in a social, collaborative, and active learning environment.
Virtual reality, especially when combined with powerful storytelling, allows the student to participate in the story, develop empathy to experiences outside their current realm of understanding and allows them to be fully immersed in their own exploration and learning.
Learn about iGen’s beliefs, preferences, and behaviors
Connect these behaviors to program needs, marketing challenges, technology and workforce implications, and other factors
The iGenerationâthe part of Generation Z that is high school or college ageâhas been estimated at 42 million strong. Due to recent events and the influence of families and social networks, this segment is finding its voice and power much quicker than its predecessors, the Millennials.
Speakers
Jim Fong Chief Research Officer, University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)
+++++++++++++
more on Gen Z in this IMS blog https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=gen+z
The roles of librarians change with changes in user needs and demands and the technology employed. A survey conducted for Research Libraries UK found skill gaps in nine key areas in which subject librarians could be supporting researchersâ needs. Even though many librarians may want to hire new staff with these skills, a survey found that the reality for most will be training existing staff.
Definitions of library services will change. We need to grow the ways users can engage with whatever they value from libraries, whether papyrus rolls, maker spaces or data management instruction.
p. 19
What is the Unique Selling Point (USP) of libraries vis-Ă -vis other information service providers?
p. 21
Librarians should measure the effectiveness of services based on the usersâ perceptions of success. Librarians also should move beyond surveys of how library space is being used and should conduct structured observations and interviews with the people using the space. It is not enough to know that the various spaces, whether physical or virtual, are busy. Librarians need to understand when and how the spaces are being used.
p. 33 What is Enough? Satisficing Information Needs
Role theory explains that: âWhen people occupy social positions their behavior is determined mainly by what is expected of that position rather than by their own individual characteristicsâ (Abercrombie et al., 1994, p. 360).
Rational choice theory is based on the premise that complex social behavior can be understood in terms of elementary individual actions because individual action is the elementary unit of social life. Rational choice theory posits that individuals choose or prefer what is best to achieve their objectives or pursue their interests, acting in their self-interest (Green, 2002). Stated another way, âWhen faced with several courses of action, people usually do what they believe is likely to have the best overall outcomeâ (Scott, 2000).
When individuals satisfice, they compare the benefits of obtaining âmore informationâ against the additional cost and effort of continuing to search (Schmid, 2004)
p. 38
This paper examines the theoretical conceptsârole theory, rational choice, and satisficingâby attempting to explain the parameters within which users navigate the complex information-rich environment and determine what and how much information will meet their needs.
p. 39
The information-seeking and -searching research that explicitly addresses the topic of âwhat is good enoughâ is scant, though several studies make oblique references to the stopping stage, or to the shifting of directions for want of adequate information. Kraft and Lee (1979, p. 50) propose three stopping rules:
1. The satiation rule, âwhere the scan is terminated only when the user becomes satiated by finding all the desired number of relevant documentsâ;
2. The disgust rule, which âallows the scan to be terminated only when the user becomes disgusted by having to examine too many irrelevant documentsâ; and
3. The combination rule, âwhich allows the user to be seen as stopping the scan if he/she is satiated by finding the desired number of relevant documents or disgusted by having to examine too many irrelevant documents, whichever comes first.â
p. 42
Ellis characterizes six different types of information activities: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring and extracting. He emphasizes the information- seeking activities, rather than the nature of the problems or criteria used for determining when to stop the information search process. In a subsequent article, Ellis (1997) observes that even in the final stages of writing, individuals may continue the search for information in an attempt to answer unresolved questions or to look for new literature.
p. 43
Undergraduate and graduate students
Situations creating the need to look for information (meeting assignment requirements):
⢠Writing research reports; and
⢠Preparing presentations.
Criteria used for stopping the information search (fulfilling assignment requirements):
1. Quantitative criteria:
â Required number of citations was gathered;
â Required number of pages was reached;
â All the research questions were answered; and
â Time available for preparing.
2. Qualitative criteria:
â Accuracy of information;
â Same information repeated in several sources;
â Sufficient information was gathered; and
â Concept understood.
Criteria used for stopping the information search (fulfilling assignment requirements):
1. Quantitative criteria:
â Required number of citations was gathered;
â Required number of pages was reached;
â All the research questions were answered; and
â Time available for preparing.
2. Qualitative criteria:
â Accuracy of information;
â Same information repeated in several sources;
â Sufficient information was gathered; and
â Concept understood.
p. 44
Faculty
Situations creating the need to look for information (meeting teaching needs):
⢠Preparing lectures and presentations;
⢠Delivering lectures and presentations;
⢠Designing and conducting workshops;
⢠Meeting scholarly and research needs; and
⢠Writing journal articles, books and grant proposals.
Criteria used for stopping the information search (fulfilling teaching needs):
1. Quantitative criteria:
â Time available for: preparing lectures and presentations; delivering lectures
â And presentations; and designing and conducting workshops; and
â Fulfilling scholarly and research needs.
2. Qualitative criteria:
â Every possible synonym and every combination were searched;
â Representative sample of research was identified;
â Current or cutting-edge research was found;
â Same information was repeated;
â Exhaustive collection of information sources was discovered;
â Colleaguesâ feedback was addressed;
â Journal reviewersâ comments were addressed; and
â Publisherâs requirements were met.
1. Quantitative criteria for stopping:
â Requirements are met;
â Time constraints are limited; and
â Coverage of material for publication is verified by colleagues or reviewers.
2. Qualitative criteria for stopping:
â Trustworthy information was located;
â A representative sample of sources was gathered;
â Current information was located;
â Cutting-edge material was located;
â Exhaustive search was performed; and
â Exhaustive collection of information sources was discovered.
p. 53
âScreenagersâ and Live Chat Reference: Living Up to the Promise
p. 81
Sense-Making and Synchronicity: Information-Seeking Behaviors of Millennials and Baby Boomers
p. 84 Millennials specific generational features pertinent to libraries and information-seeking include the following:
Rushkoff (1996) described the non-linearity of the thinking patterns of those he terms âchildren of chaos,â coining the term âscreenagersâ to describe those who grew up surrounded by television and computers (p. 3).
p. 85
Rational choice theory describes a purposive action whereby individuals judge the costs and benefits of achieving a desired goal (Allingham 1999; Cook and Levi 1990; Coleman and Fararo 1992). Humans, as rational actors, are capable of recognizing and desiring a certain outcome, and of taking action to achieve it. This suggests that information seekers rationally evaluate the benefits of informationâs usefulness and credibility, versus the costs in time and effort to find and access it.
Role theory offers a person-in-context framework within the information-seeking situation which situates behaviors in the context of a social system (Mead 1934; Marks 1996). Abercrombie, et al. (1994, p. 360) state, âWhen people occupy social positions their behavior is determined mainly by what is expected of that position rather than by their own individual characteristics.â Thus the roles of information-seekers in the academic environment influence the expectations for performance and outcomes. For example, faculty would be expected to look for information differently than undergraduate students. Faculty members are considered researchers and experts in their disciplines, while undergraduate students are novices and protĂŠgĂŠs, roles that place them differently within the organizational structure of the academy (Blumer, 2004; Biddle, 1979; Mead, 1934; Marks, 1996; Marks, 1977).