Can Parents & Teens be

BFFs in a Tech-Friendly World?

I heard a funny ad on the radio this morning with a 90+ year old woman talking to her grown daughter in texting language. It made me remember youth group at our church last night during which I talked with some late-teen/early-20s folks from our church about facebook and myspace. In the middle of that conversation an 11 year old asked me if I'd seen his myspace page yet. (Of course he's too young to have one, but that's besides the point - isn't it). I also remember a recent meeting during which someone asked "What's a BFF?" Coming home to down my second cup of coffee I began reading today's Tribune & ran across the great front-page article "Tech creates parent-teen disconnect" in which it's suggested to parents to "bridge the gap by getting up to speed on the techonology teens use."

Makes me wonder about my own kids, who haven't yet started texting, and then about the changing nature of communication. We seem to have more and more to say in more and more formats (phones, email, cell phones, blackberries, texting, blogs....) and yet there seems in general to be more and more confusion in terms of interpersonal communication and relationships & community buidling. I don't think it's just a young in body vs. young at heart contrast. It has to be bigger. I think it has to do with worldview more than age, with the larger transformation of our society, culture, and world economy. We can wish to go back to yesteryear when everything was so rosy, safer and easy. But those rose-colored glasses don't yet have the power to teleport us backwards in time. Makes me wonder a lot of things about relationships, community organizing, education - and church communities. I wonder if we're even aware of what's already changed and happening around us today? Seems like we're not, after this tribune article.

If you need a texting tutorial, or initiation, here's a helpful site (Lingo2Word) HERE.

GL txtN