Once again, the kids have a gripe against us. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gens X and Y. In fact, some of my own favorite adult children are Gen X and Yers. :) In fact, I think it’s amazing how on the same page we are about so many issues. We are much closer to one another than I was to my parents. We call, we email, we instant message. In many ways, it feels like we are cool friends, sharing the lingo, and being hip together. :)
For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog
So imagine what a pail of cold water was poured on me when I read an article in the July 18 issue of Ad Age, headlined: “Boomers Most Prolific Emoticon Users”, subtitled “Generation Finds Another Way to Annoy.” :(
Turns out that a study by online media company Zango reports that people 45-54 are the highest downloaders of emoticons, half saying they use them regularly.
Here I thought I was bonding with my kids, liberally doohickeying my communications with smiley faces wearing sunglasses and winking. And instead, I was simply showing my age. :(
Here’s the paragraph in the article that really hurt:
“Despite being all angst with ‘life issues’ ranging from intimations of mortality to disappointing children to how to get good seats for the Police reunion to crashing the social-security system, baby boomers apparently have more than enough time to trick out their desktops, e-mail and IMs.”
Ouch. :(!!!
Now I’m questioning the meaning of life. You see, I am one of the die-hard people who still subscribe to AOL (yes—pay real money for my personal email service.) This is mostly out of inertia, since it works for me, and I’m so busy, I haven’t had what the writer of the article for Ad Age refers to as “more than enough time” to figure out what it takes to transfer over to the free AOL. (Which would probably not take all that much.) But hey, I like feeling like I’m part of the AOL in-group. And you know one of the ways they make me feel special? For the past several weeks, every time I log on, they automatically teach me a new emoticon symbol. :0
Now, I realize that they probably figured out that only the Internet dinosaurs are still using the pay-as-you-go AOL, and this is their true in-crowd way of poking fun at us. :(
I’m still closer to my kids than my parents were to me. But I’m swearing off of emoticons, for good! :)
Carol Orsborn