Middle-Aged Tweets

People often postulate that technology fads such as Facebook and Twitter are ruining America’s youth. Well, they’re certainly ruining its older generations, says The New Republic. “Adults love to obsess about how the perils of modernity are ruining the younger generations. (They can’t help themselves. It’s how they keep their minds off all the gray hair, crows feet, and erectile dysfunction that stalk the land of the middle aged.) Nowadays, a favorite fixation is whether youth can be taught to responsibly navigate our wired world. Can immature minds grasp the privacy issues that become more complicated with each new networking tool? How can we make teens understand the foolishness of putting drunken, naked spring break pics on Facebook for the entire world (and future potential employers) to ogle? Is social networking creating a generation of scorching narcissists? Will sexting turn our youth into a pack of mindless, drooling sociopaths? I’m sorry, but from where I sit, it ain’t the young’uns having notable trouble setting barriers and using technology with any level of discretion, reserve, or common sense. Rather, every time you turn around, an ostensible grown-up has done something monumentally stupid like sexting his mistress, sending filthy instant messages to strapping young House pages, or tweeting about his congressional delegation’s classified landing in Iraq.”