Years ago, I wrote a post called “A Boy Named Milo: Xbox Project Natal and The Matrix“. I also wrote a post called “Our Kids will Make us Feel Old“.
I am here to tell you that it’s all true and I was really wrong in my conclusion. I have been thinking about for a long time now. Long enough since a guy named Marshmallow made a concert in a place called Minecraft, and I started feeling like I was losing my touch as as a digital savvy father.
Back then I wrote:
But as a father, I know that one day their children will make them feel just as old as they made me feel today. And that nothing will make them happier.
And honestly, as a parent, falling behind on tech is not just a lack of connecting with your kids, its disastrous.
Discovery of Digital Worlds… Because I was poor
Years ago, basically poor, and clueless what I was going to do with my life (and married with a kid), we decided to move back to Chicago and to make matters worse, move in with my parents. So imagine, it’s one thing to have no idea what you are going to do with your life. It’s another thing as an adult, husband and father, and have your parents breathing down your neck and all up in your business.
Well, that was me. I was the dude who ran an ether-net cable to his parents dark basement (boiler room in this case), sitting in front of the light of the screen, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
But it’s also the story about how I ended up getting into the industry I work in. It’s also the story how I took my belief and vision of the world, and despite the crap my family gave me, I pushed forward. (I wrote about that too here in the post about my family)
Ready Player… Second Life, was WAY Ahead of It’s Time
Once I did get a job, I kept going trying to learn what else I didn’t know. In fact I was on a steering committee at my company, the Zocalo Group, work to identify new mediums for social advertising. I began experimenting with Second Life. For those of you who don’t know what Second Life is (was), it is a virtual world where people can go and do all sorts of things ranging from socializing, shopping, conducting real life business, advertising, or even having real relationships.
Have you read Ready Player One? It changes your perspective on everything if you did it in that order.
Lamenting the Loss of My Technological Savvyness
And here I am, more than 10 years later, writing this post about this wild technology, that was way ahead of its time, that still hasn’t fully caught on, while simultaneously lamenting the fact that I have no idea what the hell is going on in Minecraft.
I thought I was savvy wen my kid was doing an assignment on Power Point, and I was showing him all these tips. And writing Excel functions for him to do a task quick. “Wow, dad, you are the coolest”.
And yet, today we have all sorts of VR technologies and games. We have augmented reality, proper VR, Oculus. I brought my kids to work to try it once, and my mind was blown more then theirs. And still, I am behind, and don’t fully understand it all.
My son LOVES Minecraft. I hate Minecraft.
Well, hate is a strong word. I can’t get into it for lots of reasons. First, I am a grown ass man. Who the hell has time for that. Second, he is downright addicted to it and extricating him from the damn computer is worse than any tooth procedure I have ever received. Truly, it’s endless, and always ends in a fight. But most importantly, I simply don’t understand it. And in my eyes, that is the biggest issue of them all.
I listen to countless podcasts after podcasts that mention Minecraft. That talk about the values and dangers. It seems to always come up.
I sort of blur them all out as irrelevant.
And yet it took one of the biggest events of the year, a virtual concert, by a real musician, that was the talk of the internet to make me pause and say, “shit I am falling behind on technology. I am losing my touch”.
My kid asked if he could stay up for it and I didn’t even hesitate to say no. What have I become?!?
Responsible Parenting Is Staying Technologically Savvy
Staying “hip to the kids these days” is more than being the cool parent. Frankly, its about being responsible.
Technology is moving so quick, that staying relevant is more than just relating to our kids. It’s a stupid meme that encourages kids to commit suicide. It’s dumb ass YouTube creators that dissect stuffed animals, or other weird crap that you can find online.
It’s about what digital future our kids live in, that we have no concept of.
How terrifying is the digital world that we can’t even see. Snapchat with disappearing messages, and other things that I clearly don’t even know about.
I started writing my thoughts on this back in 2014 in a post I titled, “the secret oddness of the annoymous web” which I never published. 
But when looking for some inspiration for this post, I stumbled across this little bit I wrote which reads:
There are 5 levels of online privacy
Ground Floor: There is your basic social media with various different privacy settings. These are your Facebooks, Twitter, Vine, etc. of the world. You can blast out everything you say to the world, as I usually do, or you can be more private sharing with just friends and family, as many others do. Both are acceptable forms or sharing but keep in mind the basic premise is being social and sharing. When you use these networks, you are
Minus 1:
Then came the snapchat. The world of self destructing messages. I don’t have anything else to really compare it to since there really isn’t anything. Snapchat is about your network, but about quick to the point messages that disapear afer a short while.
This is where we start to enter the Anonymous web. Think here,your 4chans Reddit’s, Chatroulettes, and now Tinder’s and Bang With Friends. Gross stuff I know.
Lets say the next level after that is Chatroulette. The only reason…
And then I sort of flake out and never continued writing. But holy hell I am scared already. And those are the things you know you can’t see. And then there is the F#*ked up S#*t you let them watch and because you aren’t paying attention let them see and there is no record of it. How about digital monitoring apps. parental restrictions.
I don’t use them.
Our Kids Will Make us Feel Old, and it’s unacceptable
My kids will make me feel old in many ways, but from a technology perspective, it’s frankly unacceptable. I submit to the laws of nature that I will age and despite my desire to stay fit, I will slow down and my kids will have to carry me. But while I am raising them, from a technology perspective, I need to do everything I can to stay 5 steps ahead of them.
Because in my old age, that’s going to start getting harder, and they are going to catch up pretty fast.
Blogging consistency Challenge status: Cutting this one close with about an 1:40 to spare but 3 out of 12. 9 to go.