Musings of a Humdrum Life

Stereotypes just dont work!

It may be that my interests coincide with those of young teenagers but I still find it irritating to keep coming across a playground mentality on the internet... The only place where this isnt obvious is Carolyns and I think that is due more to the average age of the members as well as diligent moderators but everywhere else this attitude of "i'm with them and we dont like you" is getting more and more common, especially at this time of year when all the schools are on holiday...

There is also the added bug factor of "wow you're over 30, do you know how to work the computer? my mum doesnt even know how to switch it on".... very very irritating...

Then I started thinking about it and its true, there is a stereotype that parents of teenagers dont know a thing about computers or technology... they might know how to work a pc but at their age I was writing 43 pages of Basic to make simple games... did you know that in those days it took 197 lines of code to make a 5 letter name flash different colours on a screen? and over 3000 to make it move? The kids keep bringing leaflets and things home that explain computers and technology and terminology to parents - all written in simple easy to read formats - now i know that there are lots of people who dont know this stuff but theres not that many... the majority of workplaces use computers, and i would say that the majority of 35-45yr olds know the basics... its just not fashionable to admit it...

My kids get a shock when i tell them what they have been doing on the computer, they dont realise that if you know what to look for there are no secrets - and I know more about the internet than they do.....

anyways, back to the playground mentality, i dont know if its a sign of my advancing age but I find the petty arguing and immature wrangling very annoying... 90% of these cases dont even involve the kids who are getting so het up over it... but when they resort to spamming inboxes and sending hatemail to people who have had an incident with friends of theirs then its getting stupid and they really should get off the pc and spend some time in the real world!

posted by Anita @ 9:17 AM