A few days ago, my little sister hit 5k tweets on her personal Twitter account. She’s 13, almost 14 and I can genuinely say that I was there with her for almost if not all of those tweets she made. Having not so tech savvy parents, the responsibility of of monitoring her online presence fell to me, so I of course followed her to keep an eye on who she’s interacting with.
She’ll probably read this and cringe, but given there are loads of weirdo’s out their on the inter web and my pretty young sister is a country kid, we of course want to do as all families do, ensure that she’s safe online and ensure no one is trolling her of giving her beef.
There is a 21 year age difference between us, and I often forget that there is because we have a number of things in common, and more so because I don’t act my real age. Hey whatever works right. Receiving continuous notifications and alerts relating to your sisters online activity is at times both funny, and annoying and I’m sure she feels the same way too. I try not to cramp her style too much, and like to think I’m the cooler sibling. I’m sure she’ll say otherwise.
So what has my 13, almost 14 year old sister taught me, from having to stalk her social media use.. Here are just a few
1. Her gen re -tweet and share everything. I mean like everything.. The good, the interesting, the lol’s and all these Q &A style things. They’re super forthcoming with information and are largely supportive of their peers
2. She knows may more about the world and current events than I do. Granted she has more time on her hands, as my head is often in the thick of all that’s going on with my clients. The internet means even a little girl (she hates when we call her that) can connect, get involved and govern social change and items that are important to her.
3. The term Idk is used A LOT! ( I don’t know for anyone playing along at home)
4. Gifs.. Use ALL THE GIFS you can possible all of the time!
5. That she has a really good blog which you can read here – Which just reaffirms we’re awesome and both incredibly talented creatives.
6. That I either spend too little time on Twitter, or her too much. IDK??
I’m not going to post this anywhere my parents will read this, because let’s be real they’ll probably see her being online as a negative thing, because they’re kinda old and not cool like us.
What it did teach me also, is that there are similarities between our generations (likely because I work in the tech and creative space) but other things we either don’t know about until we discuss them (on both sides of the coin). I’ve had in mind for ages, her doing some writing or some blogging of some kind for me, but she’s always been “too busy”. Granted she dances a hell of a lot during the week, is part of 2 musicals and has study and stuff too. But we agreed, and in conjunction with my littlest brother (12 going on 13) that us getting together and putting together a blog/ video/ podcast or “something” with that in mind, would be incredibly cool.
So watch this space, us Symo siblings have combined and we’ll be getting together our first installment to bring you, what I’m sure will be a very funny and insightful generation gap chat.
If you’re interested, you can follow said sister here on Twitter/ @TwirlingArrows