A Generational Disconnect

(phot by Hugo Lijzen on Unsplash)

I have recently become a retired person. Clinging to my last vestiges of youth, I won’t call myself a senior for another year. For the last few years, I have been very active on Twitter as part of my social engagement and book promotion. Since Elon Musk has taken over, people have been leaving Twitter in droves and many writers said they were moving over to the Hive platform (as well as other apps). So, I thought I would try it out.

What I have found on Hive has startled me. I feel very old and alone there. The median age is thirty and most people are self-professed nerds, geeks, gamers, and illustrators. They are quick-witted and cutting edge in their cultural references, many of which are lost on me. I find myself googling acronyms like INFJ, as young people commonly identify themselves using the Myers-Briggs personality indicators. (It means introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging.)

 Then there is the vast array of sexual orientations posted as part of their bios. Everyone is so open. One young man posted a long rant about how he and his partner were committed but not monogamous, until they had their second child and decided to stop bringing third parties into their bedroom. Users also share their mental health challenges as if they were a badge of honor, with labels after their name, such as autistic, ADD, OCD, anxious, depressed, bipolar etc. This is so foreign to me, having grown up in a repressed generation with parents who tried to hold their problems deep inside and then pour booze on them to try to forget.  

This generation is highly visual, with clever memes and gifs for everything. I’m not sure where they find them all. They also post selfies constantly and often spend hours applying makeup and costumes for this purpose. This seems slightly self-absorbed to me, who was often told, as a teenager by my mother, to stop looking in the mirror and just get on with things. I am still shocked when I see half-naked posts of people who obviously like to flaunt their bodies publicly.

So yes, I feel old and I don’t think Hive will be a place where I can fit in. I feel like I’m in the zoo staring at the animals trying to understand their behavior. I think I’ll stay on Twitter and try to maintain my online relationships with the writers who stuck it out there.

Do you use social media actively or do you feel out of the loop? Please share a comment below.