How this Millennial Gets Along with Snapchat-Obsessed Gen Z

Photo from @BogdanApetrii on Medium

At any given moment, my younger brother has been playing on his phone for what seems like hours, occasionally tapping out a storm with his thumbs. Over the Christmas break, I remember snapping at him a few times: "Dude, you use your phone WAY too much!"

My brother is a really, really fast text messager. He bangs out messages swiftly, makes Snapchat his priority, and does a better job typing his homework assignments on his phone than on his computer. Nine years younger than I am, Mitchell is from a different technological generation. Whereas I remember the internet appearing in my home when I was seven, the internet and mobile phones were ubiquitous as he became a living, breathing human. I still remember a time before “all of this”.

The differences between my millennial generation (born 1988-1996) versus my brother’s Gen Z generation (born after 2000) has been well documented, but it is still weird for me to acknowledge that our natural technical literacy is virtually (hah) different.

High school for me was switching from late night chats on AIM to late night chats on GChat. I'd stay typing away on my laptop late into the night and maybe checking my flip phone once in awhile - my parents and other "old people" just didn't get it, nor did they really want to. My literacy in laptops matches Mitchell’s in mobile. It’s funny to me when he doesn't quite know how to navigate printing while I can't always figure out app storage.

The difference between our technical literacy became extremely apparent when I took him out to brunch once and we started talking about how Justin Timberlake’s character, Sean Parker, in The Social Network had been the founder of Napster. A curious look came upon Mitchell’s face, and I had to ask him:

“Dude, do you even know what Napster is?”

Nope.

So I tried to explain it to him. It became apparent that even describing the prerequisites to Napster was relatively impossible: imagine a time when you couldn't stream music because internet speeds were too slow, and ownership of music was a big problem if you didn't pay for it, such a big deal that downloading whatever music file you wanted (in just 10 short minutes!) was considered an illegal luxury. You could even save those files and burn them to a CD!

Mitchell didn't quite get it and why Napster had been such a big deal.

As silly as I am, and as open as I am about joking about all the “things the kids are doing these days”, I never want to be “that old person” who is totally out of touch with how those on the cutting edge are seeing the world, especially in tech. And right now, “those kids” are the ones who are on the cutting edge, snarked out by the adults and elders who feel that the world was so much better before, for whatever reason. We grow up really disliking people with that attitude - that is, until we become those people.

I may never be as fast at typing on my phone as my brother. I may not have as many Snapchat contacts, I may never quite get used to the level of mobile multitasking he has, and I wont yet know how this could potentially put me at a social disadvantage. But I don't plan on becoming a Luddite who is out of touch with the leading edge. After all, curiosity and interest in the leading edge is what keeps your life and career interesting.

I'm a big sister, so I'll have to continue giving my brother crap for being on his phone too much. Of course I may snap at Mitchell, but I still make sure to Snapchat him every once in awhile, too.

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