No Sex Please, I’m Friending

27 per cent of students think Facebook is more important than dating.

The Future of Work: Information Access Expectations. Demands and Behaviour of the World’s Next-Generation Workforce is an interesting report from Cisco that ComputerWeekly is promoting today.

In many ways the top-line findings are what you might expect: access to the web; social media; constant interruptions; smartphones over TV etc. but the scale is surprising (the report surveyed 1,400 university students and 1,400 young professionals across 14 countries).

• 1 in 5 students has not bought a physical book (other than required text books) in more than 2 years.
• 4 out of 5 believe the internet is vitally important and “part of their life’s daily sustenance”
• 40 per cent of students think the internet is more important than dating
• 27 per cent of students think Facebook is more important than dating or friends or music.

The reported scale of online interruption reminded me of Nicholas Carr in The Shallows.

Overall though, the theme of multiple, looser, broader connections made me reflect that – in such a world – we should not be surprised by the growth of freelancing, contracting and other forms of contingent, expertise on demand working.