Will Apps Kill The Next Generation’s Work Ethic?

This week we saw the popular game Flappy Bird taken away from the masses by the developer who realized he had created a monster.

In a conversation with Gary Vaynerchuck, we discussed his desire to be able to “speed everything up” and we are seeing that with the rise of services such as Uber and TaskRabbit.

All of this has me wondering what apps are doing to us on a level that isn’t apparent yet.

I’m no sociologist and I don’t have an MD after my name, but I wonder if the joke of “there is an app for that” is causing the next generation (and much of the current one) to lose what I grew up knowing as a strong work ethic.

What I mean is that I know there is rarely a short cut that will help me get my work done. Sure, there are ways to be more productive and efficient, but at the end of the day I know that the only way I’m going to get everything done that I want to and achieve the goals I’ve set forth is by working for them.

Growing up in a blue collar family I saw this first hand. My parents worked hard for what we had and early on it was hard coded into my brain that hard work = success.

Now with us all seeking out an app to make things quicker, faster and easier will that work ethic fade away?

In my mind as I thought about this, the Gaping Void drawing above came to mind to illustrate my point. Apps and software have always been there to help us do what we needed to do quicker and easier. Yet, at the end of the day they can only do so much it is up to us to make things happen.

Part of me worries that my kids and their whole generation will instantly assume that they can “just Google it” to any question without ever seeking out their own answers.

Impossible to know for sure, but this is what is bouncing around in my head as I enjoy my morning coffee and check in on Path, Instagram and Twitter.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. What do you think all these very handy apps are doing to our work ethics?