Ahh to Be Old ...

Now I am well aware that at the tender age of 28 I am only old to kids ... some of whom think I am 99, or at least older than their parents, but to the rest of the world I am still young. So today, basking in my youngness I will pause for a minute to look forward to a privilege that seems to come with age ... telling the younger generation what is good for them and what is not. To me perhaps the quintessential example of that right now is Internet social networking. Time and time again I hear people dismissing Facebook and Twitter as ways to waste time and things that act as substitutes for real friends and real relationships. Internet dating and sites like eHarmony and Match.com are often looked down upon as ways to meet a person. Now, I have seen the negative powers of the Internet, the ways it can waste time, the ways that it can hinder rather than enhance communication, however there are benefits to it to and it oftens seems like there is a cadre of older people who are quick to point out the faults and not the benefits. The reality seems to be that as the world and society change, generations have different ways of doing things and the hardest thing is to step into another person's shoes and see it their way. I read an article recently that talke about the need for face-to-face human interaction and that hinted that things like Facebook hindered that. On the one hand, I would agree, simply spending all your time online instead of going out and seeing people is a bad thing, however I don't think that Facebook is meant to be designed as deliberate substitute for face time, it is there because face time is impossible. Last night I posted on Facebook that I was not happy about how my previous week had gone. In the course of an hour I had recieved to affirming comments, from my wife's cousin and from a high school best friend's sister. Now, I have people who are immediately supportive in my life, such as my wife, close friends, etc, but it was nice to have two people I would probably never talk to about something be supportive, it was nice to have more connections. So what is the point of all this ... it is not simply to try and show how great social networking sites are and how right my generation is as compared to previous generations ... I mean both of those go without saying! What it reminds me of is the value of perspective and in particular multiple perspectives. Differing generational views can increase the wisdom of everyone, older people can gain some perspective by hearing from younger peole how new technology is helping relationships and increasing connections. Younger people can learn from older people about how society used to create those connections in different ways. It is easy to get stuck in the unintentional rut of thinking our way is the best way, that we have to be doing it right because that is the way we are doing. Other people can give us perspective from outside the rut and can sometimes see the pitfalls in the rut. The challenge is for everyone to realize that we do not know it all, that we are not completely right on something and to continue to value the different views of others, knowing that their critics increase our understanding of the situation, just as we can help increase theirs. That being said, I still look forward to being older when I can sit in judgement on those younger than me and the foolish ways they live their lives.