Today’s Boston Globe contained an article with some good news for those who don’t “get it” about
technology. In case you’re unsure if you’re a dinosaur here are some signs:
- you have an AOL address
- you don’t tweet
- you send emails instead of texts
- you think getting poked is offensive gesture.
Good news – You may be hopelessly behind, but if you’re older you may get a pass on not engaging in every trend.
Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor, says, “(A)cting too digitally young is . . .problematic. (J)ust as 50-year-olds shouldn’t really try to dress like 20-year-olds (although they do), should we all try to text like 20-year-olds[?]’ In our culture, we all wear blue jeans. It has become universal. But ripped jeans at fifty? Perhaps one needs to leave certain styles to the young.”
My husband recently said, “I’m not ready to give up using punctuation and writing in paragraphs.” I’m with him. Does that mean we’re just long-winded, old, or, perhaps, that our attention spans are longer than 9 seconds?
I use twitter, but don’t share thoughts, opinions, and observations during a presentation. First, how can I listen and learn if I’m trying to condense important principals to 140 characters? I see it happen nearly everywhere and I’m boggled. I’m sorry, it just seems rude! But, then again, I’m way north of 40 so I’m using my old-fart pass for that one.
Other ways I plan to use my pass:
- I’m going to stop worrying about becoming Mayor of Chipotle’s Grill.
- I will not care if Myspace tanks.
- I’ll let early adopters deal with tradeoffs of being first in line.
- I’ll stop being embarrassed by my netbook: I’ll get a Xoom when they finish the damn thing.
For technology laggards who want to regain some self-esteem but don’t understand Facebook or how to SMS, go to whatis.com or wikipedia.com and at least look it up. Sorry, pops, you don’t get a pass for being that clueless.