By Staff
Having just mastered Facebook, I'm a little perplexed that Facebook has become irrelevant and I should instead be using Twitter.
Of course, by the time I figure out how Twitter works, the hipper folks will have moved on to something else and I'll be left "tweeting" to myself.
Technology now moves so quickly that if you're over 25 and know how to do something, it has already become irrelevant.
As best as I can figure it, we're moving towards a society where technological trends have the staying power of one-hit-wonder bands. And in that world, the kids are downloading Flo Rida ring tones while I'm still listening to a tape of "Rock Me Amadeus."
The only common denominator of these emerging methods of communication seems to be that each new development uses less words and becomes more public.
We started with letters and phone calls. We then moved to e-mail and text messages.
We followed that with Facebook posts of a few sentences and are now publicly Twittering no more than 140 characters.
We're only a few years away from simply standing naked in the street with a few words written on our bodies.
No emotion will be private and no action too mundane to tell everyone about.
Privacy and verbosity have become pass. Instead of sharing in detail with our closest friends, we now tell everybody everything as long as it fits into one, badly written, poorly abbreviated sentence.
Everyone has become the author of his or her own personal Prince song and, well, U Can C What That Leads 2.
The younger users of this technology, specifically the high school kids, seem unaware that putting your private emotions on the Internet is kind of like hanging your butt out the car window and driving down the street.
Whereas my high school romances, friendships and other intrigues were at least semi-private, now everyone has chosen to go through their awkward years under a spotlight.
Instead of filling up a notebook kept under the bed or making bad mix tapes that at most two people would hear, today's teenagers post their proverbial notebooks and mix tapes where everyone can see them.
My own personal stash of notebooks produces cringes when I think of the overblown emotion contained within – emotion that can only be appropriately accompanied by a Depeche Mode/REM mix tape – but at least it's a private shame.
Of course, posting about your personal life can only embarrass you, whereas some of the stuff being posted might actually make your life harder.
Employers, even the really staid ones with HR people, now routinely check Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as background on potential hires.
If Googling someone produces drunken videos, shots of you with a bong in your hand or not enough clothes on, well, you might not be getting that position in corporate America.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to keep the pictures of me doing embarrassing and/or illegal things away from any potential future bosses.
Facebook, Twitter and whatever comes next have their place, but there's a major difference between letting everyone you have ever met know the basic facts of your life and exposing yourself in front of the world. I try quite hard to be entertaining on Facebook and am happy to share, but some things simply should not be put in a status update.