大象传媒 Scotland - 大象传媒 Scotland - The 13-year-old digital champion who met her total opposite, yet still managed to find common ground 鈥� about phone overuse!

The 13-year-old digital champion who met her total opposite, yet still managed to find common ground 鈥� about phone overuse!

12 September 2018

Charlotte is 13 years old. She’s also and a ‘coding rising star’.

“I’m very active in coding,” she says. “I use technology a lot.”

Charlotte is part of a generation of young people who’ve grown up surrounded by – and comfortable with – all kinds of computing technology. They’ve never known a world without it.

So what happened when she sat face-to-face with Mary, a Savile Row tailoress many years her senior.

“What does coding mean?” she asked Charlotte, but, one sentence into her young counterpart’s answer, interjected with “that’s me lost already. I’m good with my hands, but not with my brain.”

Technology in my generation

A tailoress and a 13-year-old digital champion discuss their attitudes to technology.

“I find it very threatening that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But while Charlotte may have the edge when it comes to programming the digital social networks of the future, Mary describes the connections maintained through their use as “sad”.

“You’re in your room and they’re in theirs. I’d rather touch people, be close to them.

”I see girls at lunchtime [in] restaurants and they’re not talking to one another; they’re on their phones.”

It’s in this area, however, that Charlotte shares common ground with Mary:-

”We should be starting to talk to each other more.

“I think it’s important that we find the balance between social media and going out and seeing people.”