you’re someone who knows someone who knows someone I once knew

I admit it: I am officially fully sucked into Myspace. I now have my husband nearly sucked into it, too. It was actually a really delayed reaction kind of thing for me, because I had a Myspace page for almost 2 years before it finally clicked and pulled me in. I think that graduating college and having a little more free time was probably the explanation for the sudden increase in interest, especially since my husband said that if he was done with school and working for home, he'd likely waste as much time on it as I have.

Being over 30, I am clearly not fully a member of the Myspace Generation. Good example: my husband looked up all of the graduates from his high school to see if he could find any of the people he wanted to be in contact with again. He searched for a 3-year period, and there were only 88 people - and that's out of nearly 1000 students! But first he had checked it without putting on the filter for the year, and there were nearly a thousand, most of whom were between the ages of 16-21. Most of my friends - even those in my same age bracket - have Myspace pages, but overall my friends are a self-selected group of internet-savvy people. I would say that we're definitely the minority in our age group, because most of the over-30 year olds that I know do not have Myspace and are not even remotely interested.

It's funny, because I don't normally get hung up on the ages of people, and I have friends who are 10 years younger than me and 10 years older than me. Most of the time it doesn't matter. But it seems that technology is one of the greatest divides among these 10-year cohorts. Just as I am way more internet- and tech-savvy that most people I know in their early 40s, I feel nearly technologically illiterate compared to those 10 years younger than me. They don't remember life when there was no blogosphere, no way to download music from the internet, when there wasn't even a way for the average person to take a picture and upload it instantly to a computer. I remember when there were no cell phones - and then of course when the only cell phones available were the size of a brick and expensive. There was no GPS in cars, or chips able to be implanted in people or pets. No instant messaging. My cell phone is much smaller than my wallet, and it can take pictures, send emails, access the internet, play games and download music.

It's not that any of this makes me feel old. Though I do occasionally feel wistful for the freedom of my younger years, I also know that 33 is not even remotely old in the context of a modern lifespan. But it amazes me to think of how much technology separates generations now. I know that to some degree, every generation has experienced this since the Industrial Revolution. But it seems like it's going much faster than it used to. For example, from the post-WWII "Baby Boom" era, to the mid 60s, were there anywhere near as many technological advances as there have been in the past 10 years? That's not a rhetorical question - I really don't know the answer. There are some things that are the same between generations and it's only the slang that changes. (The slang is one of the aspects that would most bug me if I were single and actively trying to date someone 10 years younger than me - I would go crazy being called 'ma' or 'mami' by anyone other than my actual child. I don't understand calling someone your "boo." A lot of the internet lingo/1337-speak is funny and easy to catch on to, but I still can't make myself write in text-message speak.)

What will the changes be that my kids will experience 10 years from now that will separate them from the cohort between us? And perhaps the more important, philosophical question to ponder is: how long can this rate of technological advancement consider? It can't be indefinite, so what happens once it has to end - and what will make it end?