The Social Media Generation

In case you were wondering how I decide what to post here, my train of thoughts goes as follows: A thought crosses my mind, then goes away. Then it comes back and I ponder it for a while. Then I decide to tweet about it. Then I realize i can't cover it in a tweet or 3. So I come here. And then after I get my main point across, I say something else that I though about that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. The small audience I have here probably appreciates it more anyway. So here's on of those thoughts. I don't really know the technical length of a "generation." I've never really researched it. But I tend to think of a new generation being about every 5-10 years. Sounds short. But let me explain. Older people will always group someone my age (23) with someone that's 16 and call it "the younger generation." And maybe back in the olden days, these two people would be fairly similar with the exception of maturity. But the newest springs of technology, I believe, have shortened that span of people than can all be grouped together.

This all leads up to what I like to call the social media generation. Although I constantly divulge myself in social media platforms (some say it's easier to reach me via twitter than text or phone) I don't consider myself to be included in the one that I am referring too. The social networking generation includes those that grew up with social networking. As in, when they knew what internet was, they knew what Facebook was. Although I'm not what you would call an old fart, I remember the 56k dial-up modems when they first became commercial. beeeeeee...bu bu bee bu bu bu bee.....weeeeeuuhhhhwweeeuhhhhhwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeerrrrwiiier. That was my best impression of a dialup modem. If you remember them, you got me. Back to the blog. I went through the internet being created. I remember when cable modems came out. The day we got ours, I got on Napster and downloaded every Blink 182 song and thought it was the most incredible thing in the world. So since I've seen this all evolve, I think I have a different perspective than someone who is born into this. For one, before internet and social media, we actually had to make up things to do. People wonder why childhood obesity is a problem. It's the internet. It's the social media sites that let you create an alter ego. I didn't have that. I played baseball. I played cops and robbers. I pretended a box was a fort. I beat up Toph. I rode my bike. I didn't have 250 friends. I had about 5. Nobody knew what I was doing unless they called the house phone to check in. And just think. If you update twitter or facebook, hundreds of people immediately know what you are doing. At any time, they can check your interests, look at pictures, and find other information. The whole point of the last few sentences...this is relatively new. 15 years ago, I had a dialup modem and was happy to play checkers against a stranger.

And I'm not saying that this new internet surge is a problem. I actually think it's incredible. What I am saying, is that it is going to be really interesting when this generation hits the real world. I don't really know what to expect. Except for newer, even greater technology. The technology we have now came from people that were lucky to have a black and white TV. With Google, Wikipedia, and other information sources in the palm of one's hand from the age they understand how to work it...the possibilities are crazy to think about. What will happen the next few years? When the social media generation starts making decisions. When they start coming up with new ideas. I hope they hurry up and invent a time machine. I said some things once that were pretty dumb.

Ending question that has nothing to do with this post except the last sentence. If you could go back in time and take out one thing and replace it, what would it be? This thing wouldn't affect the present life, there would only be a different memory in it's place. I would go back to when my ex-girlfriend said she didn't love me anymore. And I would laugh instead of cry. And then I would make a fart sound with my mouth and walk away. Not the kind you make with your tongue, but with your lips. The one that goes....pphhhhhrrrrrr. And now that I have that visual, that is actually what happened from now on. Maybe I don't need a time machine. Since we're on the subject, think about this. If you had your whole life in front of you and you could remake your decisions without seeing the final outcome, do you think your life would really be better? It's like one of those choose your own ending Goosebumps books. What if you didn't date that one person? What if you did date that one person? What if you chose to go to another college? What if you didn't go to college? What if you played football? Where would you be? I would probably be fat in one of my other lives.

Oops. I am nowhere near the topic I started with.