A digital divide: the over 40 and under 40 view of technology.

• Author: Bradley, Susan
• Position: Bridging the Gap

You probably recognize that sound if you're over 40: the: sound of a typewriter. One with keys that sometimes get stuck if you type too fast. If you're under 40, however, you probably have never installed typewriter ribbons or used while correction liquid. If you're under 40, the idea of manually calculating depreciation and using a pencil to write it on a ledger paper is considered inefficient and cumbersome. But that's how far we've come with technology.

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Once upon a time technology consisted of typewriters and calculators. Then it advanced to include the IBM selectric ball. Then came the real technology: a computer.

The Generation Gap

My firm bought its first IBM 8088 computer in 1986, a month after I arrived at the firm. Since then we grew from having one computer that we all shared (and signed up to use), to one computer that had a modem and used diskettes to share information. Now; we have the ability to access information and work from nearly anywhere, from our traditional offices to local coffee shops to the comfort of our own homes.

I didn't grow up with computers. I didn't have cell phones, e-mail, text messages, tweets or blogs. I grew up Walter Cronkite, not Huffington Post, and reading books, not Kindles. I took the CPA Exam with pencil and paper--and no calculator.

So, while we still post debits on the left and credits on the right, what does the future hold related to technology for those entering the accounting profession?

Digital Divide--An Expanded Definition

For many years the term digital divide referred to the gap between those with and without access to digital and information technology. But lately the term has been expanded to include the gap between people's ability--and comfort--using the new tech tools available.

Generally speaking, researchers have found a correlation between age and trust in computing. For example, those more seasoned professionals typically don't trust such things as cloud computing (technologies and servers are hosted by vendors in datacenters and accessed over the internet). The younger professionals, however, are not as restrictive in their view of where their data should be. As long as the icon on the computer works and the access to their data is reasonable, the location of where the data is irrelevant to them.

Moving the location of the data to make it is more accessible over the internet also brings up the next difference in regards to the digital divide. Those...