The bandwagon cruises

My Pen Mates,

There's been a flurry of online activity between old friends lately. Classmates from high school back in Malasiqui have established a venue in yahoo groups, and either the novelty of the medium or the excitement of instant correspondence, have opened the floodgate of nostalgia among us mid-forties crowd.

This is different in the sense that it practically removes the time delay between exchanges. Whereas not even a decade ago, letters needed to be posted or phones were more commonly employed, today simultaneous correspondence among a group of people spread throughout the world is at everyone's fingertip. The exchanges are more frequent, the topics more unstructured, and there's this free flow of ideas one would normally associate with a conversation in a living room. Occasionally, one would acknowledge the greatness of the technology and how it has made this reconnection a bliss for reminiscence and recapturing those youthful years.

Yet I don't imagine this appreciation to be universal across the age demographic. A couple of weeks into this bandwagon ride, I started to wonder why everyone in the group seem to adopt the technology not necessarily with ease but seemingly with excitement. Looking at friends who are just slightly older, they seem not much motivated to engage to the extent that my group is. Younger ones employ other means like texting or developing individual web pages. So why this group email discussions? There are faster ways like IM or even chatroom meetings, but somehow our group has settled into this real time email exchanges when a chat room is more ideal for it.

My thinking is that we are far enough removed from those fun years (that's the constant topic of these discussions), but not too far that we get lazy to discuss it. Older people may have more reasons to regret than reminisce, while younger ones still haven't reached the age when they need to. We are, I believe in that sweet spot in the human/technology interface where we don't need to have the best, latest, cutting edge means to communicate, but use what seem simple to us, to gain access to our friends. We don't like IM's and chatrooms because they seem too urgent and demands immediate attention. We want to reply when we want to, at our leisure, or when we get to work or home. We really don't want a conversation per se; we want an outlet for our thoughts or share a memory when it occurs. Any older and the dynamic changes; the fingers may not be as nimble, the technology itself may not be as welcome or accessible, and the general inclination may be directed toward other interests (outdoors, gardening, bowling, grandkids-- and the like). The younger ones simply don't have enough past to reminisce, while we want to reminisce now before we start forgetting the past! I truly believe that we are caught in the cusps of a beautiful convergence, allowing us to bridge distance and mine memories while we are still able and much willing.

Grace and I are enjoying the ride. And everyone better get on board or stay on board and share the fun__ before the wagon wheels fall off!

Mon