Nine Shift

Breaking news! Proof young people are driving less

Nine Shift has done it again! We have discovered new government data proving that young people are driving less.

   New data from the Federal Highway Administration shows that people aged 21-30 are driving 37% less as a percentage of all drivers than people aged 21-30 did fifteen years ago. 

   In 1995 those age 21-30 drove 20.8 percent of all the miles driven in the United States.  By 2001 that percentage had dropped slightly to 18.3 percent, but by 2009 the number has plunged to just 13.1 percent of all miles driven in the United States.  “The percent driven by this group has declined rather dramatically,” said Susan Liss of the National Highway Transportation Survey, the agency that did the study.

   The data comes from a new Department of Transportation study released last month on driving in 2009, a study which was also done for 2001 and 1995.

   “Based on this data it is evident that young are driving fewer miles than in 1995,” adds Laura Taylor, a statistician at Duke University, who also looked at the data. 

   What this means is that autos are in decline, as Gen Y switches from cars to trains. Want to know more? See our posts on "Other Causes Discounted" Feb 17 and "When Boomers Start to Drive Less" on Feb 18 below. Tell us your thoughts here: : :

Is America making a comeback?

Is the passage of big healthcare legislation a sign that America is making a comeback? Tell us your thoughts.

The war between the Industrial Age of the last century and Information Age of this century is in full gear.
*We’ve got the battle between cars and trains;
* The fight over extending high speed Internet access to rural areas, and upgrading speed to really high speed;
* And of course health care. All areas where America lags badly in the world.
  Is the recent passage of health care legislation a sign that America is making a comeback, catching up to other nations in the 21st Century?  Tell us what you think!

Face-to-face communication and the Internet

For everyone worried about human communication in the Internet Age, go see "Up in the Air."

Every time I give a speech, an audience member says she or he "worries" that the web is destroying good old fashioned human face-to-face communication.

"Up in the Air" starts out trying to defend F2F from inferior and uncaring impersonal online communication. But then it gets sticky. Turns out human communication in the year of our Lord 2010 is actually up-in-the-air. What did you think about the movie?

Personal admission: I had no idea what "Up in the Air" was really about after seeing it. I thought it was a good movie about relationships and flying. My brilliant co-author Julie had to tell me what the movie was really about.

What happens when women are in the majority

We now know the answer: marriage crisis !

Willie picked up The Economist with the cover headline "What happens when women are the majority in the work place."  I stole the issue from him.

We predicted the marriage crisis two years ago. Now a story in The New York Times on the marriage crisis is bouncing all over the web, according to one of my favorite Gen Y bloggers, 24 year old Rob Pitingolo.

But this is simple math! If two out of every three college graduates are women (they are) and most all want to marry college educated men (most all do), then half of the women will not find an eligible mate and have to settle for a high school graduate.

Would not gender equity (our position) benefit both females and males? Where do the feminists stand on this issue? We are waiting feminists......  

Are you saving daylight?

Does Daylight Savings Time make any sense for the growing number of telecommuters? What do you think?

Sunday morning I listened to one of my favorite radio stations, WWOZ in New Orleans. The announcer had great DST songs all morning, but bemoaned the time change because down south it is cooler in the morning than the evening and she can't get gardening and other chores done before going to work.

I was thinking, "just go into the office an hour late" but that probably won't work. But for us millions of telecommuters, daylight savings time is practically meaningless. We can get up, do work, or not, as the sun dictates, not the 9-5 office hours. What do you think? Will Daylight Savings Time disappear in the 21st Century as more people telecommute? 

New national education standards huge step backwards

New education standards for K-12 students are gender biased and fail to understand that individuals learn at different rates and speeds.

The standards, which are based on "grade level," pretend that every child at a certain age can know the same amount of material.  Educators in the U.K. have begun to implement "stage not age" education, but in the U.S. these standards try to preserve the factory model of schooling.

The standards are also gender biased, failing to take into account the dual facts that a) males have less ability than females in language (both written and verbal); and that b) boys mature more slowly, especially in the language areas, than girls.  The grade-level standards say everyone, even students with disabilities, must perform at the same level at the same age.

Even rural one-room school teachers of 100 years ago knew that boys mature about two years behind girls, and had girls mentor boys in English. We predict the standards, trying to preserve the obsolete factory model school of the last century, will fall into disrepute around 2015.

The gracious masters of our schools have allowed you and I a few days to comment on the grand scheme. You can do so at corestandards.org  and then click on "Survey."

"We no longer accept cash"

Do you think more businesses will stop accepting cash?

Let us know your thoughts.  We were on an airplane again, and just last month the airline has stopped accepting cash for onboard snacks and drinks. Credit cards only.  Is this a trend? Tell us your thoughts.

Boys not wanting to drive: All-time most popular post

We continue to get comments on our post "How come more boys don't want to drive?," four years after we did the post in 2006.

It's our all-time most commented-upon post ever. Someone commented just a few weeks ago.  And it's one of the biggest things people over 40 still don't get about the 21st Century.

New evidence and data continue to support the fact young people are driving less and are switching to trains. You can see the post here. Make your comment!

Wired Mag Clueless on the 21st Century

We felt awful for the students listening to Wired Mag editor Chris Anderson, who is clueless about the 21st century.

We heard him speak a few weeks ago at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), one of the foremost digital art and media colleges in the country.  Everything about the event was wonderful (especially the kids), except for the speaker.

   Students appropriately met his comments with stunned silence and critical questions, which he referred to euphemistically as "push back". Just two of the points Anderson doesn't get:

1.The new economy is intangible, not tangible.
   Anderson tells SCAD students, all of whom will work with intangible media (digital video, sound, animation, simulation, photography, games, etc.), that the future is with manufacturing stuff, not intangibles.
   One student questioned this orientation given "limited resources," meaning we are destroying the environment with an over abundance of mostly unnecessary physical goods.

2.Cars are not the future.
   The height of customized production, according to Anderson, is customizing cars. Again, stunned silence from the students. Anderson has no clue young people see cars as destroying the environment, as well as being too expensive, slow, unsafe and wasting 2-3 hours of time a day.

   The kids, including or even especially SCAD students, are on the right track. They deserve more understanding and support from Wired.