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Young Vs. Old

I’ve been thinking a lot more lately about social media and the implications of this type of communication, and I’ve noticed that usage of Facebook, Twitter, and other types of network communication tools are pretty much sharply divided between two groups. And for the sake of having simple names for these groups (and because I like to rile people up), I’m going to call these two groups ‘Young People’ and ‘Old People’.

And here’s the difference. Old People see network communication as noise. They see a crowd of people, all of whom are shouting into their own personal megaphones. It was easier to understand a topic when only one person (or media outlet) had the megaphone, and everyone else had to sit quietly and listen. It’s calmer that way. And more orderly. And in their opinion, that’s a good thing. Social media and networking are a bother, and require effort and attention that old-style media did not.  Almost every leader of business, industry, media, and politics is an Old Person.

The Young People, however, don’t view social networking as a crowd of people with megaphones. They (or I should say ‘We’, because I count myself as one of them) see these tools as a platform for conversation. Instead of passively being told what the news is, we get to create it, and form our own dialogs and methods of interaction with words, and photos, and video, and even music and art. Young People see the social media experience as a tool for sharing thoughts, ideas, and facts, and are dissatisfied with sitting passively and having all this media broadcast at them, like TV, radio, and most other media has been doing for many decades in the past. We see social media as an opportunity, not as an effort.

And so where does the line get drawn? Who gets to be ‘Old People’ and who gets to be ‘Young People’? Well, that’s the beautiful part, and it has nothing to do with Facebook, Twitter, social networks, computers, or any other thing. It’s a very simple matter of where your dreams take you. Old People want to live in the past. Young People want to live in the future. And you get to decide, for the rest of your life, which group you’re going to be in.