All the Lonely People...

...where do they all come from? Well, Beatles, not from Generation M!

Before I start with my thoughts about this week's reading, I feel the need to express that I am slightly nervous right now. You know, since my audience this week has increased exponentially due to an email Pat sent to the entire program. (Thanks, Monte!) If you're here for the first time, welcome. Feel free to stay awhile. I won't charge for restroom usage, and I also won't criticize your horrid choice of music. Moving on...

As one of the younger SMACers, I went to middle, high school, and undergrad with fellow Generation M'ers. My classmates built relationships both in person and via IM, email, text messages, social networking sites, and all those other gizmos and gadgets that were popular between 1999 and May 2010 (which I guess could be simplified to "now." Or "now enough.") While I rarely used my cell phone (to this day, I hate text messaging with a passion), I did utilize IM programs and social networking sites. While I see their value in maintaining relationships, since they allow me to keep in frequent contact with friends I may not get to see on a daily basis, I honestly much prefer to talk to people face-to-face. I love voices. I love facial expressions. I love the third dimension!

I never understood how some people prefer to IM friends who are only across the street or make small talk with friends for hours via text messaging when a phone call would have made that conversation move at a much faster pace. To me, IMing and texting makes friends seem almost mechanical. These forms of communication rob them of their voice, their facial expressions, and their third dimension! My friends are people, not machines! (Note: I have yet to pour buckets of water on my friends to test this theory.)

I also feel that the overuse of modern technology makes people in this generation unfriendly. Gone are the days when people randomly initiated conversations with strangers, as these days, everybody is too occupied with their iPods/phones/personal gaming systems/laptops to give strangers a second glance. It's sad; that was one of my favorite parts about summer camp back in middle school. Or how about when you're talking to somebody in person and they are simultaneously texting somebody else? Although the article says that most people in Generation M would not find such a behavior rude, most of the people around my age that I know, including me, would say otherwise. The odd thing is that, to me, such a behavior is perfectly fine when I'm sitting in the same room as somebody else and both of us have laptops and are supposedly doing homework. Hmm...

Can you imagine how this abundance of technology will carry over into the next generation? Fifteen-year-old girls will be writing in their public weblogs about their first kiss that took place via a webcam with a boy 800 miles away and texting her eight best friends about it immediately afterward. I don't know about you, but that just doesn't sound romantic to me. Especially the thought of cleaning the spit off of the camera afterward.

What about the abundance of personal information that members of Generation M choose to share online? It's true, we do have a lot of resources at our disposal that make the sharing of this information easy. Just about anybody can have access to the Internet and therefore social networking sites. Most people have a digital camera for taking pictures, which frequently end up shared on social networking sites, and recording movies, which can easily be uploaded to public video-sharing sites like YouTube. Most computers even come with a movie-editing program of some sort, which makes creating movies easy and fun. (Not that I've had experiences making silly movies with friends and putting them on YouTube...)

I agree with Klapperstuck and Kearns that most teens post these things on the Internet because they believe that only their friends will see them. I mean, there are so many movies on YouTube and so many blogs and personal profiles on the Internet, why would a stranger be specifically interested in yours? To these teens, I say this: there are some very bored and very perverted strangers out there. And also consider the possibility of other people you know seeing this information. Would you want your parents seeing what you're posting on the Internet? What about your teachers (if you think they don't Google their names to find out what students are saying about them, you are sadly mistaken)? If your answer to either of these questions is "no," that information probably shouldn't be on a public site.

I'm sorry that I have no cartoon for you today. I know my entry from last time and Pat's email probably got your hopes up, but I feel that a cartoon does not suit this entry as well as it did last week. Never fear! You can write out your frustrations in an email and send it to me. Maybe Shari will let that count as your reform project.