Here is an interesting New York Times story about technology. Key paragraphs:
Now in their 20s, those in the Net Generation, according to Dr. Rosen, spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently. The iGeneration—conceivably their younger siblings—spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks.
Dr. Rosen said that the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less.
“They’ll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,” he said. “They should be just like their older brothers and sisters, but they are not.”
It's one thing to expect something. It's another thing to get it. Any instructor who panders to the expectations of students is not doing his or her job. Education is about giving students what they need, not what they want.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 