Generational Gaps
Emily Nussbaum has an interesting article in New York Magazine (Link) in which she discusses the extreme generation gap specifically with regards to how people raised with technology and computer networks view privacy.
One part that I thoroughly enjoyed was a quote from Clay Shirky (a brilliant man who seems to have given up on his website - http://www.shirky.com):
Shirky describes this generational shift in terms of pidgin versus Creole. “Do you know that distinction? Pidgin is what gets spoken when people patch things together from different languages, so it serves well enough to communicate. But Creole is what the children speak, the children of pidgin speakers. They impose rules and structure, which makes the Creole language completely coherent and expressive, on par with any language. What we are witnessing is the Creolization of media.”
That’s a cool metaphor, I respond. “I actually don’t think it’s a metaphor,” he says. “I think there may actually be real neurological changes involved.”
If I am very honest with myself, I cannot place myself in either camp. I spend too much time online and treat in much the same way my younger cousins do, but ultimately there is always a discomfort that perhaps I’ve said too much…
It is amazing to me how much things have changed and how different my experience with the internet is compared to both my father and one of my younger cousins. In many ways, I live the internet: I work as a web developer, I have two different blogs, I’ve been instant messaging for almost a decade. My father also works in the internet, but his experience is much more unnatural, kind of. He makes purchases, researches various conundrums, and communicates via email and IM. My cousin has a livejournal, a myspace, a facebook. To her, the internet is a place to treat as if it was another physical location.
I find the different levels interesting. Dad’s usage makes it a knowledge platform first and foremost. When it comes to communication, he treats in a one to one or one to few manner. The internet for him is a text-based cellphone and light-weight encyclopedia.
My cousin uses it like it is the physical world. She didn’t seem uncomfortable when I mentioned finding her livejournal and was amused by my attempts to make her feel so. It wasn’t that she had anything really bad on it; I just view a mixing of my offline world and inline world (especially when family is involved) as ultimately a situation to avoid. To her, it is a natural thing, because they are the same thing. I would bet that she doesn’t make a distinction between an online discussion and a discussion in the “real world.”
My usage is similar to hers except that I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to share and what should remain to myself. A few times on other online forums, the two worlds have collided. The result was usually painless externally, but it would take a good deal of time to let the discomfort fade before I felt free enough to post what I actually wanted to stay.
In many ways, I suspect that my cousin’s attitude might actually be better than mine. I generally don’t shy away from controversial subjects, and the only result of my online discussions have been positive. I’ve met (online) people that I never would have gotten to know otherwise. I’ve gotten job offers because of material I’ve written. Even the noise that can come with playing in such a public forum has constructive value. Aside from a few uncomfortable discussions with my parents, who just don’t understand why I do what I do, I have never suffered from what I love to do.
In the end, the world has and is changing. It will change us, but not as much as we think. I’d imagine that I will pretty much stay the same way I am: a participant in internet culture, but always feeling like I’m missing part of the message. My cousin will probably always be a willing participant that doesn’t understand why people like me “hold back.” And, i doubt I will ever see my father blogging; I’m sure he doesn’t see the value in it.
My first online forum experience was in high school and it was before I heard about this thing called the internet (I dialed into a BBS). It was probably too little too late for me to ever be entirely comfortable with the wide world of the world wide web. I am glad that I have the comfort I do, for I cannot imagine not having this wonderful forum to share my ideals.
The article did a good job of not judging the practice; it was almost anthropological in a sense. In honor of that, I think it must be mentioned explicitly: I don’t think the generation gap referred in the article is one of shifting values, although that is always happening, but one of how our relationship with technology is shaped by our exposure. As in most cases, the change is not good or bad; it is change, pure and simple. And it is inevitable.