It’s been a long time since there was a true generation gap, perhaps 50 years—you have to go back to the early years of rock and roll, when old people still talked about “jungle rhythms.” Everything associated with that music and its greasy, shaggy culture felt baffling and divisive, from the crude slang to the dirty thoughts it was rumored to trigger in little girls. That musical divide has all but disappeared. But in the past ten years, a new set of values has sneaked in to take its place, erecting another barrier between young and old. And as it did in the fifties, the older generation has responded with a disgusted, dismissive squawk.
Read Say Everything from New York Magazine’s Emily Nussbaum. Discussion at MetaFilter.
On topic:
- The Myths Of Growing Up Online from the MIT Technology Review
- Growing Up Online from Science News
- At AlwaysOn, talking ’bout the IM generation from News.com
- ‘Gen We’: Today’s kids and parents happy to consume, create media and tech from ZDNet
- Majority of teens stay private online from News.com
- Poll: Pre-teens own Congress on Net expertise from Ars Technica
- Pre-Teens and the Web: An Overview of Popular Websites, Trends and Online Activities from the Read/Write Web
Previously from WNM:
- Teens and ‘Shareculture’
- The “Out there” crowd. A profile of online community attitudes
- Teens and New Media: IM = I and Me
- Generation(I)M, taking “On Demand” to another level
- The user-centered web is ruled by teenagers
- The”Networked Generation” is reshaping media
Sadly, Web 2.0 is a great tool that has an incredible potential for abuse. From blog posts with sloppy fact checking, to slander, and the intentional dissemination of lies (think Wikipedia’s problems), and ultimately as a surveillance tool… Big Brother can build an awfully good profile based on people’s del.icio.us bookmarks, LibraryThing collections, Wikipedia edits, YouTube favorites, and Facebook profiles, etc… We should be concerned.