If you look back over the years, early networking technology gave humanity the chance to communicate effectively and easily, with merely the push of a few simple buttons and the lift of a handle. I am of course talking about the telephone. Back in those days, telephones were necessary items for a household to have. They simply made life easier. People didn't have to wait as long for information to come to them (sorry postman, your job just became outdated), and although there was still a human involved at the switchboard, it was the speed and the up-to-date feel that everybody loved. And I mean everybody. All generations looked at the telephone as being "for the better". Wars were won with the use of the telephone. Everybody loved that. The telephone gave the chance for everybody to move forward at the same pace.
So why then are not all generations looking at social networking, which in its own way has become the telephone of today, with as much excitement and desire as they did for the telephone? Perhaps, in Grandma's own special way, she's trying to tell you, through all the disregard and "back in my day" comments, that this new technological world is just moving at too fast a pace for her poor mobility scooter to keep up with. Not every generation is able to move forward at that same pace that the telephone did. I mean, the telephone really was a device that no one understood how to use. Everyone was learning at roughly the same time.
But with social networking sites, it's the teens who were at the forefront of the learning curve, leading the way instead of watching what mum and dad were doing and going from there. And I guess, the further that we get ahead with our advanced social networking understandings the further Gran and Gramps get left behind.
And here's something to make the situation even more dire for the more mature social networkers: as I understand it, you can now buy shares in Facebook and with the release this week of the financial results for the first quarter of public trading, a lot of eyes are looking at Facebook to see what it will do next. Which, rumours have it, apparently means making their own phone.
The "Buffy" phone (I don't understand where the name comes from either) would totally centre around social networking. Now, I get that you 'must' see what your next-door-neighbour's-sister's-cat'sbest-friend is up to, but really?! To need a device that is totally centred around YOU and YOUR connections to people is a bit much. I mean, is nothing sacred any more?
As Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for technology research centre Gartner sees, "The reality is that most consumers are perfectly happy with an app on their current phone. We believe that a deeper integration of Facebook on the current operating systems iOS, Android and Windows Phone will deliver a much wider addressable market to Facebook than not a dedicated phone. And what is social about if not the mass market?" (BBC, 2012)
So maybe what we need to look at is this: we live in an age where a single company came, in someways, have supreme domination over all of our lives. Maybe Gran and all her rants actually have a point. We have come a long way from the days of telephones. Yet, at that time, the Bell company reigned supreme. Is there some possibility that we are stuck in an endless loop, continually to fall inferior to some dominating technology company? How long will it be until the days of robot domination whence we all succumb to our evil automaton overlords and cry, "have mercy on our souls!"?
Now there's a picture, hey?
For further readings: Facebook: The Challenges Ahead for the Social Network (BBC report, 2012)
Image available: http://jamiemcintyre.com/facebook-shares-pushed-100billion-market/
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