As a parent, there is a delicate intellectual illusion we try to maintain with our children for as long as we possibly can—that we actually know what we’re talking about. Oh sure, when they are real little you can get away with pretty much any answer to any question if you say it confidently enough.
When my then 2-year-old daughter met her newborn sister for the first time she asked where the baby came from. Not ready for a biology lesson, I told her we picked her out from a special store where only mommies and daddies shop. A few weeks and several bouts of colic later, we were in a Babies “R” Us when she asked if we could bring her sister back and get a baby that wasn’t broken.
Eventually, as your kids get older their questions become more complicated—and a parent’s ability to fake an answer becomes more difficult. I had to spend a half hour on Google recently in order to help my sixth-grader with her Common Core math homework. Even then, she double checked all our work the next morning with her mother.
Before long, the student becomes the teacher. That is especially true when it comes to technology. As kids today grow up immersed in wireless technology and the internet of things, they are the ones answering questions for their parents and grandparents. There were features on my new iPhone I didn’t even realize it had until my daughter (who has never even owned any Apple devices) spent 15 minutes fiddling with it while we were waiting for a table at a restaurant.
You can certainly credit tower and data center REITs for helping the proliferation and ever-increasing adoption of new technology and making it such a seamless part of society—especially for the younger cohort. If you have ever gone camping in a remote location, you know the look of abject horror the first time a teen realizes she can’t check her Instagram account.
The fifth generation (5G) of wireless systems will continue to enhance how we interact with all of our smart devices. And whatever new capabilities 5G enables, you can be sure they will seem like child’s play compared to the systems that follow soon after. While youth may embrace and adapt to new technology faster than their parent’s generation, at least we will have a better wireless connection to figure out how to help them with their math homework.
Matthew Bechard
Editor in Chief