Facebook is for Old People and I'm So Excited.

My oldest cousin is fifteen. I can't believe he's fifteen--I feel so ancient by comparison--and he hasn't let me forget how much older I am than him (albeit not necessarily intentionally). 

The easiest way he's not let me forget it: the drastic differences in our social media practises.

My first experiences with social media were the early incarnations of it, way back in The Day: Xanga, LiveJournal, MySpace, and then, of course--once I was about to graduate high school and had a UCI e-mail address, back in the days when you needed a college e-mail address--Facebook. Long before Twitter and Instagram and Pintrest. One of the last times I saw my cousin, he was texting incessantly and using various apps, and his parents were admonishing him for texting in the presence of other people. It was funny to witness because my parents told me the same thing when I was his age, but my generation was the first generation to experience such an admonishment. My aunt and uncle never received any such lecture when they were teenagers. For reference: e-mail exploded when I was in middle or high school, which was at least ten to fifteen years ago. That was back in the days when you asked people "do you have an e-mail address?" and either answer was commonplace. 

In this interaction with my cousin (back when he was fourteen--this is about a year ago), I asked him whether he was on Facebook, and he kindly informed me: 

"Facebook is for moms and old people."

And then proceeded to send his girlfriend a photo on Snapchat.

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