Old dogs and new tricks

Dad has a blog! Mum is on Facebook! There is a lot said about our "X-gen"s being digital natives and "powering down" when they go to school, but there is another group that are fast catching up and may even pass the bright young things in the digital world. The kids will always win with ownership of the latest gadgets - the spending power of tweens, teens and young adults far outweighs the average self funded retiree or pensioner (or even the married couple with kids), but it is in the use of the technologies that I see the difference. Kids have access to a brilliant array of online tools, they have the time to use them and are not scared of technology. There are some brilliant things happening, there is no doubt, but for a lot of the Xgens their time is spent giggling over YouTube, IMing such inane conversations as
Tween 1 : Wassup?
Tween 2 : NM
Tween 1: K updating statuses on Facebook OMG I just love this show or tweeting such riveting details as Just ate a bag of popcorn. Unfortunately it is status updates and tweets of this caliber that have left a lot of older users a little cold about social networking sites and the like, but just as many are finding it is a great way to catch up with old friends and young relatives. I often hear statements like, I just found a cousin I hgadn't spoken to in 30 years on Facebook! And it's not just 14 year olds rushing home because they have a virtual crop of strawberries to harvest on "My farm".
It's the use of other technologies that I find exciting and it seems to me that it is the older user who has the available time to really explore the joys of blogging, online tools for photo editing and storage, family trees, reading, podcasts, shopping and selling online, learning new skills, making new friends and networks. If they tweet, it is more likely to be a little more intersting to the casual reader than what hair colour they plan to try tomorrow. I'm proud of my two "older" digital tourists and judging by the stamps they keep adding to their digital passports, the digital natives better watch out, they may end up feeling like the aliens in their own land!