I think I'm starting to come to terms with how old I'm actually getting. I'm only 22, but I can already see some generational gaps occurring, even among those only 3-4 years younger than me. One of the more recent things I've noticed is how people are texting. When I was growing up, having an unlimited texting plan was a big deal since it allowed you to always be in contact with your friends. I didn't even get my first phone until I was a sophomore in high school. Now, it seems as though anyone over the age of 10 has a phone with texting, and most of them even have smartphones.
Now, I also grew up when Myspace was still popular and Facebook was just a competitor. Sometimes I still can't believe that was still only just over 5 years ago. I grew up when social networking was still something new, unfamiliar and exciting. It's something that I learned after I had already formed some opinions on life (opinions that might be stupid, but opinions nonetheless). To put this into some sort of perspective, I was 17 when I joined Facebook, and my friends who use Facebook in what I consider a strange way were 13-14 when they joined.
That doesn't seem like a big gap in age, but it's a big difference in mindset. I'm going into my junior year of high school and they are still in middle school. They have a different take on what Facebook is actually useful for. So how does this all tie together? Since these "kids" (I say kids even though I still consider myself one) actually have smartphones and data plans that go with them, having the ability to text from the actual phone network isn't such a big deal anymore.
Who needs a texting plan when you can have a data plan that allows you to not only have the Internet at your fingertips, but by caveat also have Facebook and it's messaging system as well? Why pay an extra $X amount of dollars for something that you can do already? From an economical standpoint, it's just downright stupid.
Now, as my friends will gladly point out, I'm a very cheap person. It's something that I've learned from my parents and it's something I'm thankful for. I may not have ever worked at an actual job for a day in my life, but I can assure you that I can probably manage my money better than most kids my age who have actually been a part of the work force for many years now.
This idea of using Facebook as a texting platform really shouldn't bother me so much. It logically makes sense, but for some reason it just doesn't feel right to me. I think it's because while growing up, texting and Facebook were two separate things that came at different points in my life, and the younger generation grew up with both. It's not strange for them to use one or the other interchangeably. It's all just communication in the end, right?
I feel like I'm just rambling at this point, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: Why do I feel like texting has a different significance from a Facebook message? They're both just text communication in the end, they can both be delivered to your phone these days, and they both serve the same function. I guess it's a rhetorical question in a sense, since I know it's all just a psychological thing at this point.
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