How Different Age Groups Use Social Media. Dan Viola

But no, it's true. You know, I like to people watch. I like to look at crowds and you know, all right, you can divide any crowd into three distinct age groups without knowing anything about them except how they use social media. Yeah. Teens, 20s, 30s, they like to keep up with their friends using a variety of different apps. Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Find a Tramp, you know, they use them all. They use a lot of them. Looking at this crowd, I think a lot of us are in the next age group. 40s, 50s, 60s. Oh, we keep up with our friends. We're pretty tech savvy because we're on Facebook. Have been for years. Why do we need anything else? Right? How many of you, like my wife and I, we reluctantly joined because he saw on the Today Show or something that in order to be an effective parent in the digital age, this is like 10, 15 years ago. You need to get on Facebook. Make sure your kids are friends with you so you can monitor their online activity and keep them safe. Right? And what do the kids figure out? Within 48 hours, mom and dad are stalking me. So they left. But we stayed. Why? Because all our friends were doing it. Like, honey, I haven't seen this kid since Little League Baseball. Whoa, what's he doing? Now I can keep track of all the important things my friends are doing, no matter where they live, no matter what time of day. Like, look at that chicken parm. How does he do it? Folks, what's wrong with us? Posting pictures of our food? What's worse? Posting every meal that you eat online or clicking your approval on someone else's food that you're never going to see, smell, taste, or touch? No wonder our kids make fun of us. That's two age groups, right? Yeah, there's a third one. My parents are in this one. Believe it or not, they keep up with their friends using social media, too. It's called the obituaries. Yeah. Oh, you don't get that call from your mom? You remember your Little League Baseball coach, Fini Ruggieri? He had a sister, you know. She showed up at a couple of your T-ball games wearing a purple halter top. It didn't look good on her. Well, anyway, she got divorced. Nobody did that back in the 70s. She was lucky enough to meet a nice man. He was in the Air Force and they moved out to Colorado. Well, he retired a lieutenant colonel. And I know this because they moved back to Western New York and she got a stepson and a stepdaughter in that marriage. And I know this because the stepson is engaged to be married and his fiancee has a great aunt. And I ran into her in the produce department at the supermarket today because the bottom drawer in our refrigerator keeps freezing the lettuce and your father won't eat it and he won't get a new refrigerator. So at any rate, did I tell you this woman, her little sister used to babysit for your uncle Jim down the street. And well, she, this woman in the supermarket, she worked at the lawyer's co-op on Dewey Avenue with your grandfather. And there was a girl there named Betsy who could type 100 words per minute, even though she had long fingernails and they were real. They weren't fake back then. I'm like, Mom, get to the point. Well, that was rude. I was. Now, did I tell you that Betsy had 100 words per minute before you interrupted me, Mr. Rude? Well, anyway, this Betsy, I don't know her last name, but she married a guy named Ralph something. And believe it or not, your father and I were surprised that we were invited to the wedding. We didn't think we were going to have a good time, but guess what? The Llamandolas were there too. They sat at our table and we danced and we laughed all night long. We went home and we never saw Ralph and Betsy again. Well, we were looking at the paper today and guess what? Someone named Ralph died in Florida and he was pre-deceased by a wife named Betsy. So they're having a memorial service closer to home. So just in case it's them, we're going to go to the memorial service and we can't make it to our granddaughter's sweet 16 birthday party. I'm wearing black. Goodbye. That's my mom. I love you. Thank you.