Confession of an Ok Boomer

Janine Santana December 3, 2019

Confession of an OK Boomer.

Am I OK With This? Social Media is mind blowing. Look upon it from the point of view of a “baby boomer”. Within the lifetime of a typical middle-aged person today, let’s say my own boom boom boomer self, communication has evolved from engaging with carefully chosen pen pals via cursive, hand written letters on onion skin paper that traveled via airplanes, jeeps and by foot over days or weeks to electronic instant communication using “emojis”, “gifs” and short, partial phrases viewed from trendy applications on telephone devices held in the palm of my hand. What?! At the very least, I’m astounded at how lightning-fast we closely engage with total strangers around the planet. Gone are the pencils, paper, envelopes, stamps and time spent carefully rendering full letters. Our tools now are electronic light, digitally rendered symbols, videos and a few shortened sentences (think of the limits “Twitter”) bounced in real time off satellites and WiFi radio waves into the palms of our hands. I don’t always feel like enough soul goes into my electronic posts as went into my hand rendered, cursive letters. (Ok, Boomer). At most, I’m delighted to have instant playtime with my somewhat “adulting” friends.

It Gets Weirder

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even online magazines we have electronic chatrooms allowing instant social engagement with total strangers on every subject imaginable. Even very young children are expected to be proficient at electronic communication in order to keep up with school assignments and classroom teams for projects. It’s normal, every day life for them. Cursive writing is no longer taught in the schools of my town. Adults have invented previously unimagined cyber crimes with this relatively new engagement technique, including international disinformation campaigns and spying events. Don’t even get me started on the “Dark Web”. I thought it was Sci-Fi but it is reality now. We accept this information in the daily news if not within the sites of social media itself. A five year old can understand and engage with a phone app faster and more completely than I. Suddenly I’m a Boomer who is not feeling OK.

And Yet…

Is social media encouraging positive or negative engagement amongst people? The answer is that it has encouraged both positive and negative communication. Manipulation and disinformation are rampant within social media sites. I see people dehumanizing and victimizing whole groups of people like it’s a cool trend or as if they’re competing teams in a sport. Without guidance in logical and independent thinking, adults and children are easily led astray into worlds of conspiracy theories, bullying, addictive behaviors online and worse. However, some become more positively engaged than before the indulgence of online social time. Dr. Kevin Howley of DePauw University states: “Young people should leverage their interest in social media to promote learning, creative expression, and civic engagement. Social media connects young people with a world of ideas and a world of possibilities. Students can make productive use of these tools to conduct research, reach out to experts, and ask questions. These tools also permit young people to express themselves, share their work, and get feedback and encouragement. Social media promotes active citizenship.” (1) People who have been the victims of cruelty have had random and anonymous deluges of love and help pour on them because of social media exposure.

I Confess

Every coin has two sides, every 24 hours has dark and light. Personally, I still write letters by hand, march off happily to the post office to mail them and hope to receive one back eventually. I also follow many strangers on Social Media, use gifs and emojis to express myself and belong to a variety of chatrooms and forums within news groups and e-zines. Oh, and I foresee a new generation of people free of back issues…the information kids need in school is stored in light, in radio waves…not in 40 pounds of books.

I’m Ok with this.

Please protect your eyes and “surf” the web responsibly. Enjoy this MEDIA miracle: You Tube’s posting of a Boomer Composition (The Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Richard Ashcrofts’ tune Bitter Sweet Symphony) as expressed by The Verve. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=opEOYvNfCp4

(1) Howley, Kevin, PhD. “10 Examples of the Positive Impact of Social Media” https://smartsocial.com/positiveimpact- of-social-media/ Accessed December 3, 2019.

Photo by Julia Kuzenkov