Facebook- A Generation Gap

One of the things that I find interesting about blogging is how a seemingly innocuous post can lead to another or a series of posts. When I wrote Let's Marry For Money I didn't have any intention of riffing off of it again. It was supposed to be one and done.

But people plan and god laughs so here is the skinny on how this all happened. CNN linked back to the post which sent a slew of traffic here. I noticed the traffic and went to CNN and saw that a few other people had blogged about the story and decided to check out what they had said.

So I stumbled onto a blog called Kiss and Type where I came across a post that grabbed my attention with the remark below:

I personally wouldn't get involved with someone who didn't have a facebook page. To me it is a huge red-flag. My immediate thought is, "what does this person have to hide?".

It caught my eye because for a long time I didn't bother with Facebook or Twitter or a number of other social media devices. It wasn't because I had anything to hide but because I didn't see the value proposition in them. They didn't offer anything to me other than another thing that would serve as a time suck and since my time is/was so limited I was hesitant to get involved in them.

For a moment I was bit nonplussed by all of this and I found myself shaking my head. It seemed so obvious to me that this was a silly line of thought on her part. But when I stopped to think about it I realized that there are some dramatic differences between us.

She is 24 and single.

I am 40, married and have two kids.

On a side note in our youth obsessed culture I have to acknowledge that I don't like the way that it looks. I may be 40, but I don't feel 40. I still see myself as a twenty something year old guy, but I digress.

Anyhoo, it occurred to me that maybe there is a Facebook generation gap. Now I am cool with there being a generation gap between my kids and I, that makes sense, it is natural.

But am I really old enough to say that there is a generation gap with the twenty somethings of the world? Well I guess that the answer is, sort of.

If I wanted to list my old man credentials I could point out that I was born just prior to man walking on the moon, no smoking sections were the equivalent of being environmentally friendly and people who thought that Pet Rocks and Lava Lamps were cool. Ok, I still like Lava Lamps, but I digress.

We didn't have call waiting, answering machines, cell phones, a PDA referred to affection between two people and hip hop was something that frogs did. In fact we didn't have roller coasters, when we wanted excitement we just flung ourselves off the top of a cliff and bounced our way down the side of the mountain.

I grew up in a world in which cleveland hadn't won a sports championship and was made fun of. Ok, some things haven't changed. Sorry Ezzie. ;)

What can I say, it really does feel strange, but if Facebook disappeared I wouldn't notice. And I certainly wouldn't be surprised to hear that someone didn't have a Facebook page because about a third of my friends still don't.

It is a different world out there now.