Convergence Conversation

Generation X apathy

In true Generation X style, Social Networking has fast become a grudge for me to bear, rather than enjoy as the shining light in an otherwise dark Internet age existence.

Whilst I admit that my attention span could be slightly longer, I think its a fair reflection of anyone in my generation. We find new gadgets such as facebook, shout from the roof tops of their brilliance, ensure our friends join in their hundreds...and then within a short amount of time drop off one by one. MySpace experienced this Generation X fate, and the disillusionment has now reared its ugly head within Facebook.

On first discovering MySpace I deemed it the best thing since well 'the internet'. It wasn’t long before I was dedicating vast swathes of my fairly unproductive university days to adding friends, drawing backgrounds, adding music, and generally making my site look as if I had more time to waste than the next student over. I cant pin point exactly how much time had passed, it may well have been when the harsh strike of exam results and impending job loomed, but MySpace’s light began to diminish. I no longer had the time or energy to chat to rather random people on the other side of the planet about their version of big brother. MySpace was dead to me.

And then I discovered Facebook. Facebook seemed to strike at the right time for the University classes of the naughties. Facebook had developed into a MySpace for young professionals, people who no longer had time to mess about with backgrounds or people they had never met. Facebook was the new bastion of social networking. Mostly Facebook acted as a tool to add friends that you hadn’t seen in years, update them on what you had and they had been doing...and never speak again. The craze to arrange parties and actually carry them out, lasted about 10 minutes for my group of close friends. There were all these new and exciting applications, but they became expendable quicker than MySpace.

Facebook has then fallen to the same demise as MySpace. The criminal...apathy.  I don’t care what people had for their breakfast, or what clothes they have bought, or even if they’re enjoying the sun whilst I’m in the office. This is the main reason why I haven’t flocked south with the masses towards Twitter.

Yet MySpace has reinvented itself, and Facebook continues to grow at an astronomical rate. Social Networking isn’t dead.... it must be something else then? A combination of Generation X apathy, and increasing years is then the cause. No doubt that as social networking via mobile phones becomes more and more popular, I’ll probably jump back on the bandwagon...but it wont be a long journey.

The sad scenario is then...as my generation grows older we will probably use social networking less and less until we no longer understand it, and no longer care at all.

May I introduce Generation Y.