Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 08, 2009

I get on Facebook about once a week for an average of 10 minutes each session.

I know people who spend 6 or more hours per day on there every day.

I know how Mike is feeling.

Why I don’t do Facebook.

Same here….

Ditto…..

Facebook is so 140 characters ago .

I just use it to find old friends…….

I am on facebook since a few months ago and still don’t find it satisfactory.

Ah, Doctor Toon - comments I can live with - and nobody will ever know unless out yourself.

I’m with you Portzebie. I joined at the request of a good friend, but I honestly dont see what all the fuss is about.

Better to bury your face in a book.

I’m curious what the ages are of everyone who’s posted so far, I’m 52. Not a scientific note, but it would seem for the 10-30 year old’s social media is far more important than it is for me/us.

Kids can hang in their rooms, logged in for hours on school nights, keeping out of mom and dad’s hair. What was our distraction when we were growing up, television?

What is this, CliffsNotes for the comics?

MySpace, Facebook, Twitter!!! It’s all a bunch of Jive toys for kids. To paraphrase Maurice Chevalier : I’m glad I’m not young anymore.

How charming to see such consensus on a comment thread here. I’m glad to hear that people are just as capable of driving each other up walls while using their real identities, as they are with nom d’plumes.

Was creating war zones the intent of the inventors of social networking? It does drive site traffic, after all. I wonder how much of such comprises feuding and forwarding doctored cat photos.

It’s like inventing French cuisine and never using it to make anything except French fries.

I joined Facebook six months ago at the urging of several students. Anyone who wants to be my “friend” is allowed to; they can talk to each other. I very rarely look at it myself.

I suppose one might conclude Facebook has improved her talent for reading parents’ minds.

Tried Facebook a while, almost never checked in, (I’d rather read a book), got off a year ago…no regrets. I’m soon to be 56.

MsLizVt, my daughter keeps trying to get me to sign up for Face Book. I have no interest in doing so. Age is 62.

MsLizvt, I’m 47. We completed our chores daily. We played outside we: ran, rode bikes, played games like hide-and-go-seek or stuff we made up, we caught tadploes and explored woods and hills and paths to who-knew-where, we played sports or joined scouts or some other club. We made plans before we went out for which we got permission from our parents ahead of time. We came home for regular family meals or when the street lights went out. We didn’t know name brand clothes, or make-up, or boy/girlfriends in elementary school. Mostly, we formed friendships with real people in our neighborhoods vs. meeting virtual people a world apart. We knew and liked spending time with our extended families. As for TV,we watched cartoons on Saturday morning, and The Wide World of Disney on Sunday nights. It was a VERY different world. Even if kids today were inclined to toward some of our experiences, it might not be safe for them. Your question really got me thinking. Sorry about the length!

Terri, Paul Harvey called. He wants his reality-distorting nostalgia back.

I’m quickly learning there are few experiences more belittling than being a 24 year old who reads the comments under Doonesbury each day, especially when technology plays a role in the strip. I don’t know what us bleeep kids were thinking, having the audacity to be born after 1975 and act like we’re not living in the 50s. Never mind the irony of all this correspondence taking place over the internet…

Cackles, While everyone appreciates your youth, your sarcasm can remain elsewhere. Doonesbury came out when we were kids. This is a forum where we can enjoy reflection. If you do not like what you see, get over it. Children should be seen and not heard.

Cackles, every generation has to decide for themselves what they want to be. But that doesn’t mean they are not missing anything. I really think a lot of young people of today are missing out on the real life out there, meaning trees and wind and flowers and stuff. Or being somewhere alone, without the need or even the possibility of contacting anyone, and without anybody knowing where you are, just being alone with your thoughts. I think that’s something worth experiencing, and I get the impression less and less people have had that experience. Makes me sad. (sorry for grammar mistakes, English is not my first language…)

Thanks, nagut. I understand where you’re coming from, and I actually agree with you. Truth be told, my own childhood was probably much the same as your own, I just had access to modern technology in addition to all the hiking and neighborhood play. Computers and the internet didn’t replace a “regular” childhood, they simply supplemented it.

That’s what makes the willful ignorance and derision of new technology displayed here (not in the strip itself, but in the comments) so grating. It may not be true for children and teens today, but most of my generation did all the things our parents did as kids. We didn’t miss the boat on sports and playing outside. We enjoyed them just as much as they did, we just enjoyed the new stuff too. But because of every generation’s seemingly compulsive need to find fault with the activities of the one(s) that came after them, we’re treated to this kind of self-righteous condescension all the time.

As an aside, I never cease to be amused by excerpts from historical figures bemoaning the obvious degeneracy of “kids today,” and how it will undoubtedly lead to the fall of civilization as we know it. All the way back to Plato, and I’m sure his dad gave him an ear-full as well.

I have both a MySpace and a Facebook account. I use both daily to keep in touch with folks in other places, especially with respect to when any of us “emigres” will be returning to New Orleans. I’m 51 years young.

Cackles,

I am 60 years old and been working with computers for more than 30 years (mainframes however, not PC). I don’t know that most of the folks here are trying to denigrate technology or those that use them. It is for them, as for me, just not that interesting or useful.

To draw what is probably a poor parallel, I don’t get piercings and tatoos but if young people want to do it, I don’t care. Just don’t ask me to join in. It isn’t that different in it’s own way when the guys of my generation started wearing their hair real long. Parent went nuts but it was what we wanted to do.

Please don’t think we are knocking your generation. Indeed, it is the techno whizzes of your group that may open up new and as yet unimaginable wonders to my generation.

And by the way, I just spent this past weekend learning how to run a seminar group online for a distant learning program using the Blackboard product. I’m not a complete technology “poop.”