Friday, July 3, 2009

Generation Gap. Part II

Further to the 'apps' method of figuring out which side of the generation divide you are on -

Apprentice Writer is much struck with further dividing lines.

Gentle Reader - do you TWIT? E-READ? CELL?

AW suspects her own "No" answer may need to be reassessed soon. Her Very Good Reasons why she has not embraced these tidal-wave technologies:

Twitter: avoiding due to fear of yet another addictive time-suck
E-read: dedicated e-reader is low on 'most urgent purchase' list and threatens to be hard on the eyes
Cellular phone as message centre: AW's cellphone is of the very basic variety, used for actual speech (yes, it's true - cellphones can be used for talking to another person, not just texting/surfing/games/movies/camera!)

Yet signs of being left behind, like an LP in a cassette world (wait; that's too old) -
like a walkman in a discman world (still too old) -
like napster in an itunes world (getting better) -
have conspired to poke a hole in AW's "comfortable-with-my-level-of-technology-thank-you-very-much' bubble. To wit:

- big author news is broken on Twitter rather than the blogosphere,
- reader contests are held exclusively on Twitter,
- some bloggers seem on a trajectory of decreased time blogging and increased time tweeting
- Twitter shows itself far above a shallow time-killer by profoundly affecting the way people protest totalitarian regimes
- the longstanding slow simmer between romance writers published in print vs. e-presses reaches a full boil with a recent statement from the president of Romance Writers of America and perceived-to-be exclusionary policies for the 'big' industry awards
- Dorchester issued an open call for unpublished authors to submit serial chapters in a contest with a publishing contract as prize, with reader voting to take place via cellphone.

The writing is on the wall.

4 comments:

Thomma Lyn said...

For a long time, I resisted Twitter, but I started tweeting a few months ago, and it's been growing on me. And like you, I was impressed by its use in protesting the Iran elections.

I still don't own an e-reader but that will likely change soon. I just don't want something proprietary, and I'm hanging back to see what develops, and for the costs to keep going down.

I guess I'm the most resistant when it comes to cell phones. Mine is used very sparingly. Just never gelled with cell phones for some reason. Probably because I'm an introvert and I prefer writing to talking. :)

Thomma Lyn said...

...and, I should add, I've never gotten into texting on cell phones. Why not just send an email? Or a tweet? Yeah, maybe there's a bit of a generation gap going on, lol!

Julia Phillips Smith said...

I'm with both of you. I'm very lo-tech.

I have no cell phone and will not be getting one.

I joined Twitter as part of the Blog Improvement Project Social Media Carnival. I figured Twitter was useless without a cell phone or Blackberry, but it has turned out to be somewhat useful to me. I agree, M, that many of my favorite bloggers are now Tweeting instead of blogging. But I don't follow the on-going conversations on Twitter and still have no plans to do so. I pop on and off, and that's good enough for me. The latest news will make its way to me eventually.

M. said...

I feel relieved not to be the only person not jumping on these bandwagons at full speed! Of the three, I'm sensing the Twitter thing seems to have the most legs at the moment. The ereaders are so expensive and seem to have all kinds of model-specific flaws and limitations. Not to mention - once you get one, you pretty much have to buy a lot of ebooks to justify it's purchase. Which would be just too tempting.