Your Inner Mean Girl.

Sometimes I honestly think you need to have a license before you are allowed online. That's right, I think we need to treat the internet like public roadways. Just like when you get into a car you become a threat to any other driver's physical being, when you get online you have the potential to be a threat to some other user's emotional wellbeing.

The 2004 film Mean Girls is pretty much the most generalized, stereotypical portrayal of american high schools to ever hit cinema screens. But it is also probably the most truthful. There are many lessons and slants you can take on the film's content but probably the most evident is the facade that high school students will put on just to get you to like them, and then how they really feel. To cause harm, all a high school girl really needs are her words. But technology has provided tools to turn even the nicest girl into a reputation assassin. Enter Cady Heron/Lindsay Lohan. 

Cady Heron is the main character. Cady grew up in an African village where her parents worked to provide better medical care and education. They moved back to the US so that Cady could attend public high school to prepare for college. Cady, not equipped with the social map required to navigate the school halls, gets sucked into the world of cliques and is tricked into being a spy for the outcasts and is sent into the world of popular girls. In the span of 97 minutes Cady loses the line between spy life and real life, reaches her social climax and rock bottom, wins prom queen, and then restores social harmony to the high school. 

Now to a certain extent the storyline was dramatized by hollywood for effect. High Schools aren't the blatant first world equivalent to an African lion feeding frenzy, but when you're fake Myspace facade is up, they can certainly feel that way. That's what Sherry Turkle's interviewees in Chapter 13 are talking about. The need to be liked, the want to be wanted is overwhelming and sometimes the only plausible way to find out the truth from someone else is to be fake because you know that you're not being upfront with your true feelings either. 

Turkle also brings up the aspect of online privacy & safety. Basically when you're online and find yourself looking through a profile and you've never had a personal interaction with it's owner you're stalking. We're all human therefore we're all curious. I don't know anybody who has the self control to not investigate an interesting person who leaves a comment on your friend's picture. Turkle interviews a  17 year old who says stalking is "the worst. Normal, but creepy." I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm not proud of those little curious moments that get the best of me but everybody does it!

True life: A good amount of us would probably admit to wanting this shirt. 

Just the other day I was chatting with the Mom of the kids I watch and she made the comment, "How did our parents ever raise us without Smart Phones." At first I almost felt defeated like the way we care for today's kids is less adequate than how our parents parented. But then I self-soothed by telling myself, "I would have never been able to go to that meeting if I hadn't kept them entertained with Temple Run 2!!" And let's face it: Kids don't know the difference. They live in a world where smart phones and iPads are their reality. They don't remember being told to play outside all day and don't come back in until dinner. All kids remember is the iPhone 3Gs. What a dinosaur!! 

Watching this really makes me want to ask the question, "Is Bridger really a baby tech genius or is he just predestined to enter into a world of tablets and apps?" For kids, the new generation, they speak a hybrid language of their geographical dialect mixed with technology. Never once has the 5 year old that I keep asked me a question about his iPad. But my Grandparents can barely turn their new laptop on. Sidenote: If you don't watch any of these video PLEASE watch this next one. 

The generational gap between the oldies (Senior citizens) and the newbies (Babies/Kids) is one of the biggest we've ever seen. Made to seem even larger because there is no smooth transition between the two. Hanging out with a church youth group is an experience in itself. I'm 21 and being around 16 year olds has made me feel straight up old. How they communicate is insanely different than how I communicated when I was in their shoes 5 years ago. Instagrams and tweets are more commonplace than texts. It's how they establish what they are doing and who they are with. It's even the language in which they flirt. In 20 years, the classic love stories our Grandparents tell will be obsolete and all the great romances will begin with a "poke." Personally, I'm a slightly proud that my love story does not include tweets and IMs and is more reminiscent of an old RomCom.