"People don't email anymore. We text."
That was the statement made recently by a 16-year-old during a class meeting. A list of events needs to be compiled, and we were discussing how to compile suggestions without having to have face-to-face meetings.
"People can just text the class officers."
I couldn't bring myself to point out the obvious - that someone somewhere will still need to WRITE THE SUGGESTIONS DOWN is a fact that seems to escape them.
They are constantly in contact with one another via their electronic leashes. But they don't know how to manage it, what each venue is useful for. Tweets and texting are individual person-to-person messages. Facebook is open to whomever is on your list of friends. Email is for a specific audience, whether one or more, and lots of stuff can be sent along with it. It's here to stay, no matter how hard Mark Zuckerberg tries to make it obsolete.
I bit my tongue from laughing out loud, from saying, "Maybe in your world you don't, but in the Real World, you know, the one you might be allowed to live in some day, you will."
Some day, when you realize college application essays are not Tweetable.
Some day, when your professor doesn't friend you on Facebook to get your status updates that you missed class because you've got the flu.
Some day, when your boss looks at you with that "Hey Gen Y, get over yourself" stare and reminds you he doesn't have time to personally text you.
Some day, when your wedding planner doesn't answer the phone.
Some day, when your child plays a sport, or goes to school, or has a birthday party.
Some day, you will send emails. Just remember - they can be more than 140 characters.
1 comment:
Wow--we are living parallel lives. We have told our boys a million times that if they know how to speak to people we feel they will really stand out these days is a sea of other people their age. The last 4 weeks of school our two oldest had their electronics taken away. Their grades improved and they didnt need a phone at school--truly.
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