Adults Encroach Upon Youth Turf Online
Date : 01 23 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
As technology starts to develop at a quicker and quicker pace, a generational digital divide has started to form between the children, who are growing up amidst all of this new technology, and their parents, who are left to play catch up. So, though most adults are now familiar with technologies like email (which has been around for decades now), more are starting to use instant messaging and social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. We're not referring to the so-called "online predators" that have been the subject of numerous tv specials. As mom and dad embrace these technologies, today's youths complain that grown-ups are encroaching upon their "turf" and would prefer that they stay on their side of the generational digital divide. Online youths have been quick to embrace the sites like Facebook as somewhat of a social theater where they where they publicly canoodle with crushes, post pictures of the previous night's escapades, and comment openly on each others' profiles. Now, as adults get hip to the internet, these once private worlds are now at risk of being invaded. Back when these adults were kids, there was never really a fear of their parents invading their parties, or crashing their proms, so now some youths feel it necessary to keep a "grown-up friendly" online presence, thereby ruining the appeal of such sites. It might behoove Facebook to introduce more selective sharing levels, lest their most avid users start to lose interest in actually using the site. That said, this problem of over-sharing is not unique to youths -- for quite some time now, adults have been getting into trouble over their online profiles as well.
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