More on Kids Today

[prog]

I finally read that NYMag feature that postulates that youngsters' views on privacy, and specifically on self-documentation, is one side of the most significant generation gap since Elvis was on Ed Sullivan. It's an interesting read.

I said "Hey, me and most of my 30-n-older friends do that" at a couple of specific examples, but really this is because we've been online for 15+ years and therefore are unusually savvy for our demographic. The whole mainstream lifestyle described here was never ours, though, and a lot of it does seem pretty damn alien.

It's really hard to say how my own childhood and teenage years would have been different if I was online from the crib onwards. I want to say "Probably just as miserable" but really I'm not so sure. My own personal turnaround came when I got my first modem at the start of 12th grade, and just through local BBSes my life improved immensely through my ability to connect with kids like me in other schools who I would have never met otherwise.

Comments

[jadelennox]

I'd say that most of my 30+ friends are a hella lot more paranoid about revealing personal identification online than those who are <25. It wouldn't take too much detectiving to get a good guess at who jadelennox is, but it would take work. And I am also more careful about what I say online, partly so I won't provoke people into maliciously doing that detectiving.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm in the in-between category too.

Whenever people of about my age (pushing 40) post the standard paranoid rant about how careful you should be with your online identity, to the point of making yourself unidentifiable in real life, it makes me nervous because I gave that possibility up a decade and a half ago. I've always used my real name, and anyone--employers, family, you name it--can trace anything I say or do online to me, and that's the way it's always been. Early on, it was sort of my thing--other people could use pseudonyms; I wanted to be forced to stand by what I said.

People my age and older find it strange, and in some cases have told me it sounds "sad", that I met my wife on the Internet. I don't see how it's sad, but it's possible they're thinking we met on some online personals site with sleazy banner ads, or imagining that we had a long-term online-only relationship before we met, neither of which are the case (and neither of which I think are inherently that sad either, though they may not work for you).

It's worked out pretty well for me on the whole. That lack of pseudonymity has affected my behavior, probably for the better. I've said a few things over the years that embarrassed me later or got me in trouble with people, but any employer or acquaintance who would be driven away by my Internet activity is probably someone I do not want to deal with.

That said, there are things I don't do. I don't air NDA'd trade secrets or work gossip, even in friends-only LJ entries. I'm pretty reticent about my post-school professional life in general, which is hard sometimes because I have an interesting job and sometimes I get excited about it, but I figure it's better to err on the side of caution there. After being burned a few times, I am also reluctant to talk much about other real-life people I know. I post about my baby daughter, but I hope I'm respectful of her dignity as a person and that she won't be embarrassed by all this later.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Knowing where the boundary lay between self-documentation and Interneterizing about others is a sign of maturity, because when you're wee you don't even know that there is such a boundary. When the young slop over it constantly and suffer the consequences and don't understand why, they call it drama. Eventually each figures out where that line is and pays it heed. (Or not.)

I wish more people felt as you did about the baby-blogging. As long as your judgement is tempered by the assumption that her 7th grade classmates will have instant access to everything you post today, I think you're all right.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...And as other people have said, I wonder how much of this is generational and how much is just part of being young. Kids in school don't always have to worry about the disapproval of employers, lenders and insurers. Maybe it's both--the generational shift happened because kids got a chance to be young and reckless in this kind of environment.