Over the past couple of days, I’ve been talking about going to the cinema with my son and my parents. And it perfectly illustrates the digital divide between 3 generations of my family. And it can also be summed up in 3 sentences.

• The day before we plan on going to see a film, my parents drove 20 minutes to the nearest cinema. And went inside to book tickets.
• The hour before I planned on taking my son to see a film, I went online to check the local cinema times and available seats. And book and pay online via a credit or debit card.
• My son expects to be able to get a seat for any film almost instantly just by announcing that’s what he wants to do.

It’s easy to mock my parents spending so much time on a relatively trivial task. Then again, they also had the time to incorporate a nice walk, scope out some local eateries, and have a spot of lunch.

My version is more efficient in terms of time. But less pleasaent. And also more susceptible to the risks of online payments. Plus I didn’t get a nice lunch or any fresh air.

Meanwhile my son currently relies on me to fulfill his demands when he’s staying with me. But given the rise of voice assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc), it won’t be long before his expectations may become normal. (And I should make it clear that he’s not ill-mannered, or doesn’t get there’s a finite supply of seats in a cinema – he’s just increasingly used to games, TV, music etc all being available on-demand in the modern era. So sometimes it takes reminding that spaces might be limited on an opening weekend).

The challenge for any business is to decide which age group they need to serve. Or how to cope with all three demands in the best possible way.

That may mean being able to provide in-person service, an amazing website and app, and also making everything as available on-demand via voice search.

Or it could be convincing me that it’s worth making the trip in person. And persuading my son that the experience is worth any waiting required…