The Evaluation of ICT's Effect on Generation Gap (A Case Study: Families of Garmsar Province)

Subject Areas : Sociological Studies of Youth

Soroush Fathi ^{1 *} , Nayyer Pirahari ²

1 - I.A.U of Garmsar
2 - I.A.U of Garmsar

Received: 2011-12-12 Accepted : 2011-12-12 Published : 2011-12-01

Keywords: age, Family, distance, inter-generation gap, information and communication technology(ICT), academic discord,

Abstract :

Throughout the history of human being, the generations' inter-relations were of special concern. The social sciences researchers have always tried to introduce the changing patterns of relations between the elder and the youth groups, they presented two consensus and conflict theories regarding different historical periods. One important matter in humans' life is always communication. Young generations whom are getting familiar with new thoughts and their level of knowledge and information is growing step by step regarding the global property of communications and are moving forward with a high velocity during which they are outstanding previous generations. The aim of this study is acknowledging the amount and kind of information and communication technology usage by families and its effect on generation gap(parent). The method of study is predicative and surveying and a research-made questionnaire and also taking notes were utilized. Regarding the great population of study, a sample was drawn with the usage of a multi-staged cluster sampling technique. 215 from the parents were chosen randomly. For analyzing the data and information, descriptive and inferential statistics were used with regard to variable and hypotheses. The theoretical framework is consisted of Bangstion's view of generation gap, Riseman's information and communication technologies (ICT) perspective, Toffler and Castells. Research findings showed that there was a significant relationship between parents and children regarding the amount of acknowledging, desire and usage of information and communication technologies and also, parents were using them in amateur manner. With a significant level of 0.99 there was a direct and positive relationship between information and communication technologies and generation gap. Information and communication technologies, beside other variables were effective in generating a generation gap. Also, there was a significant relationship between age distance and academic discord.