Gen Z and the Digital Age - What do teachers do when all the knowledge in the world is already at our fingertips?

One afternoon at the beginning of summer term, I came home to do homework only to find that my phone had no service for some reason. My account had seemingly been deactivated. Thank goodness for internet and chat tech support, right? However, while I was chatting my internet decided to stop working. I knew that if I power cycled the modem it would come back on, or so I thought. I waited and waited for the internet to come back on but it didn't. At this point I started to feel totally disconnected from the world. Neither my cell phone nor my internet were working, I had no idea how to fix either one, and no way of contacting anybody. So what did I do? Naturally, I went to the nearest Starbucks to connect to their wifi and try to fix my phone. 

This experience made me realize how dependent I am on technology. I felt totally lost in the world was extremely anxoius for those couple of hours when I felt like I was unable to communicate or connect with the world in any way. I didn't have the knowledge to fix my phone or my internet because I didn't need to have that knowledge. I have become so used to having all the knowledge of the world at my fingertips whenever I need it and when that was no longer the case, I didn't know what to do.

Most, if not all kids today, are the same way. So as teachers we have to make a decision. Do we embrace technology for what it is or do we shun it and teach students how to function in the "real world" rather than the digital? After what we discussed this morning, I think we need to consider that maybe the digital world hase become the real world. For kids today, that is all they know. They feel most comfortable when they are in front of a screen because that is the way they have grown up. Being on the cusp of Gen Z and Millennials, or a Gen Zennial as we sometimes call ourselves, I definitely relate to that feeling. This morning I learned that one of the best things we can do for kids today is try to understand their world. Understand that their world and experiences are so much different from ours and that's not a bad thing. In the classroom, we should embrace the fact that the world is changing and change our teaching to accommodate it.

PS - if anyone is wondering, I did fix my phone. After two hours with tech support, my mom finally said, have you tried restarting it?