Having studied science and technology policy as well as science and technology studies (yes, sadly, the two are distinct academic fields), understanding and rebutting common assumptions about science and technology is almost a commonplace.  When I taught an undergraduate introductory course in science and technology studies this past summer, my syllabus was full of readings and assignments that hopefully forced my students to do the same.  To do this with any hope of success requires understanding where your audience – whether students or colleagues – is coming from.  You can’t hope to know exactly where they’re coming from when you start (for instance, I thought my students would take easily to the online-only format of the course, and they did not), but a little bit of thought and research are good preparation.

To that end, there is the Mindset List, annually released around the beginning of the academic year to remind professors the mindset of their incoming students (some attempt to open the eyes of incoming students might be useful, but does not appear to be publicized, if it is done).  The current list is for the Class of 2012, most of whom were born in 1990 (when I graduated high school, for what it’s worth).  The List is written by the Public Affairs Director and an English professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin, and has been done annually since 1998.  Tom McBride, the English professor, writes in the Fall 2008 issue of The Common Review about the List as a tangible reminder of aging, but I think the real value is in identifying assumptions worth addressing.

While it’s not noted explicitly, many of the points are often related to science and/or technology.  The list is particularly good in pointing out what young people will *not* be familiar with – which is just as important as what they know.

From this year’s list, the science and technology points:
Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
All have had a relative–or known about a friend’s relative–who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
IBM has never made typewriters.
McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
Authorities have always been building a wall along the Mexican border.
Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
Personal privacy has always been threatened.
Caller ID has always been available on phones.
Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
Soft drink refills have always been free.
Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.

On their face, many of these seem trivial.  But this list is worth reviewing just to make sure that you avoid talking to your audience as though they know something that they don’t, or remember something that you do.  Speaking with a common language of examples and analogies can help strengthen one’s case, but to assume a common language where it doesn’t exist can doom a communication to failure.

Besides helping you to communicate, understanding assumptions can help you understand other perspectives.  Take privacy – something not necessarily a technology issue, but one informed by it.  Because of the technology many young people are familiar with – GPS, facebook, cell phones – the notion of being left alone may be foreign to some of them, perhaps even undesirable.  This is a difference in mindset based in part on differences in technological experience that inform one’s perspective.  We need to keep an eye out for these assumptions – ours and theirs.  The common ones are relatively straightforward – technology isn’t just high-tech, science isn’t just cutting edge, neither need be focused on what’s new and coming, but should include what’s happened and melded into the background.  Other assumptions are harder, and require constant reminders, like the Mindset List.