EightBlack.

I have a confession to make.

Over the past week, I have been having an online discussion with 2 very cute 19 year old girls.

Some might be jealous. Some might be disgusted. My old man might even be proud.

My wife on the other hand would say “as if….”

But let me “defend” myself before you go and report me to the authorities and spoil all my fun.

First off, I didn’t think I was that old (until I started talking with them).

And let me just put the record straight before either of their fathers want to run me over with their 4WD’s.

The 2 girls in question are a part of sponsored team that’s competing in the National Series of The Dutton Rally. We’re a part of that sponsorship with a client of ours. And there are actually quite legitimate reasons for us talking - although I am clearly not cut out for this cyber stuff.

I mean, I just dont get it.

The girls hijacked my computer one day and added me to their MSN contacts.

Now every time I turn on my PC, this annoying little chirp comes in and they say hello. And man, they’re on the thing for freakin’ hours. No wonder parents all over the country are fearful that their kids are going to be sucked into a PC monitor.

Yesterday, I had the 2 of them in stereo, in the one conversation - both winding me up for not keeping up.

And another thing. Here’s a sample of how they write.

“hey simon”
“how r u?
“i ok”
“cmon simon keep up”
“r u at work”
“u r drunk rnt u”

I mean, I actually know both their fathers. One for 20 years. I watched him bust his arse to put 3 kids through private school.

And this is how they have mastered (or butchered) the english language. And you can forget grammar or punctuation. Apparently they were both missing when they taught that subject at their school.

I just can’t write like that. Does my head in.

I actually asked them why their age group is so addicted to instant messaging.

They told me it’s because they can say things online that they couldn’t say in person. Which is a shame, but there’s way too much evidence with all the social networking sites to refute that statement.

I just hope (and now I am sounding like an old geyser) that young kids dont forget (or even learn) the art of real, face to face networking.

I had lunch yesterday with 9 other people - 5 of whom I didn’t know. I got a lot more out of that than sitting online, trying to keep up in a conversation that I couldn’t comprehend nor do I understand very well.

I then asked the girls, “why dont you just pick up the phone and call each other…?

There was this cyber silence. Then they said “why?”.

Because that’s what civil humans do - talk with each other. Face to face. Real time.

I knew they were shaking their “virtual” heads in pity at me.

Instant Messenging, like SMS and text, is here to stay. The level of it might even get worse as technology gets better at integrating things like voice recognition etc.

The challenge for us marketers is learning, and then undertsanding how to leverage and tap into the youth market of today.

Whoops, I have to go - my 5 year old son has just woken up and want’s me to get off his Mac Mini. He’s got 3 friends in 2 different countries all wanting to talk with him on IM.

I’m too old for this shit. LOL

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 7:49 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.