4 ms·

Those kids these days with their new fangled gadgets and social media. In my day we walked two miles uphill each way to share pictures of cats with our friends.

zaphod4prez 9y ago
I'm confused about why you're dismissive of this person pointing out a very real and interesting situation...not a unique one, but intergenerational gaps in beliefs/lifestyle/socialization/etc is a pretty fundamental challenge throughout the modern world, and the gap caused by iphone/facebook/whatever is a particularly concerning and current one.
vanilla_nut 9y ago
No need to be dismissive. I'm in my early 20s, and most of my life has seen the use of social media as the core mode of communication. Can you imagine moving back to a world where you could only talk to friends in person after you'd experienced talking to friends over the phone? Or shifting back to phone calls only after you'd gotten used to text messages? Like it or not, a paradigm shift has occurred. Personally I think Facebook has gone too far: they've manipulated people too much, and their platform has become mostly useless for its core feature (social interaction) because they've put too much work into monetization, ads, algorithms, and suggested content. I think there's a lot to be said for what is effectively a collection of personal websites where people can share their life events along with a standardized communication protocol. There are a lot of advantages, like being able to keep up with (slightly) more people and being able to stay in contact with people who live farther away, and who you don't have the money or time to visit in person regularly. But it has to be on a platform that values those things, or it'll go the way of Facebook -- exploitative, and eventually useless.
- davidcbc 9y ago
  The GP was talking about not understanding what all the fuss is about with kids these days and their phones and social media and I'm the one being dismissive? Your comment makes more sense under the GP, not me.

zaphod4prez 9y ago

I'm confused about why you're dismissive of this person pointing out a very real and interesting situation...not a unique one, but intergenerational gaps in beliefs/lifestyle/socialization/etc is a pretty fundamental challenge throughout the modern world, and the gap caused by iphone/facebook/whatever is a particularly concerning and current one.

vanilla_nut 9y ago

No need to be dismissive. I'm in my early 20s, and most of my life has seen the use of social media as the core mode of communication. Can you imagine moving back to a world where you could only talk to friends in person after you'd experienced talking to friends over the phone? Or shifting back to phone calls only after you'd gotten used to text messages? Like it or not, a paradigm shift has occurred. Personally I think Facebook has gone too far: they've manipulated people too much, and their platform has become mostly useless for its core feature (social interaction) because they've put too much work into monetization, ads, algorithms, and suggested content. I think there's a lot to be said for what is effectively a collection of personal websites where people can share their life events along with a standardized communication protocol. There are a lot of advantages, like being able to keep up with (slightly) more people and being able to stay in contact with people who live farther away, and who you don't have the money or time to visit in person regularly. But it has to be on a platform that values those things, or it'll go the way of Facebook -- exploitative, and eventually useless.

davidcbc 9y ago
The GP was talking about not understanding what all the fuss is about with kids these days and their phones and social media and I'm the one being dismissive? Your comment makes more sense under the GP, not me.