Online Social Networking Changes How Kids View Computer Skills

The word blog is now in Webster's dictionary, my Mom is on Facebook, and Twitter was just on Oprah. Social media has arrived and there is no doubt it has changed the world. But I think social media changed things in a different way then you might think.... by removing the social stigma of computers.

Technology fascinates me, it always has. When I was 2 I reached over and turned the car off while we were doing 60 on the highway- just to see what would happen. This was back before 1. Carseats and 2. You couldn't turn cars off while you were driving.

This fascination with technology was never a conflict until about age 13. It was then that I taught myself to program using a book I bought at the mall. The initial reaction I got from friends and brothers was "Computer Geek"... so I hid the book under my bed. Being labeled a computer geek was like social suicide in Jr. High and High School... or at least it was for the girls I was infatuated with and those are the only opinions that seemed to matter at the time. Some kids hide Playboys, I hid computer books. I was a closet programmer.

Fast forward to 2003 and the launch of MySpace. Now every High School kid had an online presence. All of the sudden the opposite is true, you weren't cool unless you could do enough simple programming to hack your profile page filling it with the latest bands or fashion trends.

Anyone who does nothing but sit in front of a computer is going to be ostracized, but the important things is that in this new social media world kids can be programmers and still be cool. In fact the kids who can program might even have a social edge on the other kids due to the reliance of teens on online social tools.

This social acceptance of computers and programming at a young age is going to lead to a whole new era of technologists. Ones that are smarter and have had more experience at a younger age. By my calculations, the first of the High School MySpace programmers are going to start graduating from college this year. The next few years we're going to see applications and devices take a huge leap forward fueled by these socially uninhibited programmers.

Oh, and if you know any of these MySpace hackers, chances are they worked with .NET (pronounced "dot net" which is the web platform MySpace is based on) which happens to be the same platform TheBlogFrog is based on so have them give me a call. We can change the world together.

Moral of the story: do what you love even if it's not cool, because you may just be ahead of your time.