Growing Old In The Internet Generation

Over the last few years there have been 3 things worrying me in the back of my mind:

1. Will I stop being cool when I get old?
2. Will I lose my hair when I get old?
3. Will I lose touch with new technologies when I get old?

I think its a safe bet to say I will never stop being cool, so forget that. Loosing my hair is inevitable (thanks Dad), however there are drugs and a number of rad hats to fix this. So this just leaves our last problem…

Over the years I was known as the tech kid. Not only was I more up to date than Vista Service Pack 1 (Oh wait..) but I could explain it all to you in a language that didn’t sound like a mixture of cling-on and C++. And if I didn’t know it? I would have had it learned before the next time we met.

However over the last few weeks at the ripe old age of 20 I have noticed myself slowing down. With paying bills, cleaning my own house, collecting records that shaped my childhood and trying to finish my friggin degree (stop laughing Jon), the bright lights and shiny icons of a new web tool or the latest OS X update don’t seem to get me as excited as they used to.

They say eventually you become, or at least have traits of what your parents are, and looking at my Dad I can see the pending doom. Once the ultimate nerds nerd, owning one of the first personal computers in South Africa he too was also on the constant quest for the coolest and fastest tech equipment. Now not to say my Dad has lost any of this, he still keeps up to date with everything going on and even out guns me on the latest release of whatever, but I have noticed him slipping into what I like to call the “I-don’t-really-care-that-much-about-the-newest-release” syndrome. A couple weeks after gifting him a brand new iPod Touch, I noticed it still sitting in his car, not really doing much. When I asked him about this he simply said “I don’t like or get iTunes, I like having all my mp3′s in a folder and my current mp3 software (Winamp… cringe)”.

I then started to notice this in myself. With half our office now sporting brand new iPhones (I’m not even on the 3G model yet), there is constant talk about what cool apps can do this or that. From emulating a light saber to making a monkey run in a ball around a track, there is everything. As cool as all of this is, all I could think was, “You paid money for this?”

A prime example of my slipping into this syndrome was with the release of Google’s Chrome browser.

Firstly, I didn’t even know about it until a few hours before its release which shocked me. Secondly, I just didn’t really care. Sure, I downloaded the beta. Sure, I even booted up VMWare Fusion and gave it a whirl. But after 10 minutes in, all I could think was that Firefox and Safari do everything I want, and none of these supposed new things really had me Googling up hacks or articles on it. Maybe this is just what growing old is about? I will have to confer with more senior members of staff.

Don’t get me wrong, I will always stay current with whatever is going on in the industry and blogesphere and probably out nerd the best, but I put this up as a warning. Internet superstar kids beware – you will eventually become a victim of the “I-don’t-really-care-that-much-about-the-newest-release” syndrome. I do however offer some advice for those of you who are currently at this point, or long past it:

1) Load up your RSS reader with all of the latest and greatest blogs (you’ll find they all link to each other some how). Even if you don’t read everything in there, you can at least glance at the headlines and pretend you’ve heard about it when confronted by fellow nerds.

2) Latch onto a more enthusiastic and up to date nerd (I, for example, have chosen Calvin) and leech all information from them. In fact, keep them close at hand so that when you do find yourself in a tight spot at the latest Web Meet Up you have your wing man to save your ass.

3) Get an iPhone and have the Google search icon front and center on your screen. That way when you hear the internet elite throwing around terms you’ve never heard before, you can do a quick Google search while pretending to update your Twitter status and carry on the conversation like you’ve been coding Ruby on Rails your whole life.

Take these lessons and go forward with confidence. Next time you see me I’ll be balding and sporting a nice tartan cardigan.