In my household, which has two teenage boys whose internet usage appears fairly normal for their generation, the adults adopted Facebook and used it for more than a year before the kids appeared to know what it was. They clung to their MySpace. And they still don’t use Twitter at all. So, in my experience, teenagers are not always the first to adopt new technologies. How about you?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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My experience is almost completely the opposite of yours. My 17 y/o loves Twitter and spend a little time on Facebook. I don’t think he has ever bothered with MySpace.
Go figure.
.
You ought to meet my grandson. In kindergarten before he could read, the first words he typed were in Google. He loves details, needs to understand mechanics and how all electronic gadgets work. When he does ask me a question how to enlarge a window in a game, he impatiently, after about 2 sec., tells me: “Too late, I’ll do it.” We do limit his time at the pc or other digital tools. A vacation is free of tv or electronics.
Well, I was in my mid-twenties when I adopted Facebook, all those years ago. My mom was the one who invited me.
We started using Facebook to talk with our kids, and now the grandkids who are old enough are on Facebook along with colleage, old high school friends, and so on. Never used MySpace at all although some of our musician friends do. Started using Twitter to gather news about the Occupy movement. A lot of the unknown journalists then on Twitter then have gotten substantial gigs at name media.
Don’t know why the kids prefer Facebook to e-mail. After all, with e-mail your message is private except to the NSA, with Facebook the whole world knows your business. What ever happened to privacy?
I see so many stories where kids were denied jobs because of what they had posted on Facebook and people fired because of what they said about their company on Facebook. I see a future where people only say approved things like the Soviet Union. I’m sure that with today’s Russian laws just posting one’s sexual orientation on Facebook is a crime.
There have been countless examples of people getting fired or having their reputations ruined by e-mail too, so let’s not pretend this is some new phenomenon invented by kids these days.
And I have to say I’m confused by your first sentence. Why do kids prefer Facebook to e-mail? Are you implying that e-mail is in any way equivalent or can serve as any kind of replacement for Facebook?
As for Twitter, why do I want to tweet to the world?
Granted I post here to the world, but only Booman knows who I am. Luckily my Tea Party boss does not or I would be carrying mail on foot in Death Valley now.
I got Facebook when it was only available to college networks, so my parents couldn’t have gotten it before me. Neither could my younger sister. That account had about 2,000 friends when I deleted it bc my parents were stalking me with theirs (about 4-5 years after I had mine). I still have one but under a different name. And only 160 friends. I used twitter for a short period but it was too much work to have them all. I doubt FB makes it too much longer, which is why I laugh at those who invested. Maybe it’ll turn around and they will have the last laugh but I don’t see it. I’m now 25. I never used MySpace.
I should note that my sister is turning 17 and she doesn’t use it much. She skypes and uses tumblr.
Skype is cool. It is so Star Trek.
I agree with you re FB. It is not long for this world. I check in 1/day. I have maybe 100 friends. Of that, 4 post. There are many many ads now. Possibly 1/5 posts on my wall are ads. 2/5 are political groups. 1/10 is a person.
FB has another serious defect. i am a friend with all of my children. For parents, this is good. For kids, who wants their parents keeping track of what they are doing, who they are screwing, what they are smoking, and in what state of undress? FB is gonna be in serious trouble by next year. It will be gone in 2 years.
I’m afraid to tell you this, but your kids aren’t into facebook not because it’s new, but because it’s old.
Facebook skews a bit older. The younger kids these days are doing a lot of texting, but not as much facebook. Twitter had never caught on with younger kids as much as some seem to think, either (or the general public nearly as much as Facebook).
None of the teenagers I’ve recently worked with as a volunteer are on facebook, but their mentors and teachers are.
Actually, the thing I see my kids and most of their friends on now is Instagram.
My oldest son is 26 and lives downtown. He keeps a Facebook account and also Twitter. My youngest son is 20, in college, and he uses Facebook and Tumblr.
I have a Facebook page, but I seldom go there. It just sucks me in and I waste too much time. I use it for posting new artwork or contacting distant family members sometimes, but mostly I forget it.
I read a lot of blogs and some private boards. I’m not interested in Twitter.
My kids are still pretty small but they use Google, as do my wife & I. On the other hand we do not use Facebook or Twitter and neither do the children.
My kids have loved facebook for years, the older one is maybe a little bored with it; the helpmeet and I both pretty much hate it. Also the kids refuse to friend us and we refuse to friend each other. While in person we are not, you know, cold and distant. I’m the only one who uses Twitter, which I have come to really like just lately.
Super-interesting that all these responses seem completely different. No pattern at all.