Diary of a Gen Z Student: this one's for all you 'back in my day' folk

Since starting to write this column, I’ve been reminded of all the things older people struggle with when it comes to understanding Gen Z: Our dislike of phonecalls, our neologism, how we omit punctuation when we text, our desire for an old-fogey-free night club. The list goes on. Plenty of my readers tell me this.

I provide fodder for the keyboard warriors. They say I know nothing about real life. And maybe they’re right.

I don’t blame them; in fairness, I’ve got some questions when it comes to the social-media practices of my elders. Let’s be honest: If your birth year starts with a 19, we experience social media very differently. Firstly, we certainly use different social-media platforms.

Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat: I’m familiar with those. But when we get in to Facebook and LinkedIn, I lose my footing. You may as well ask me to use a landline, rewind a video tape, play a CD, make something from wattle and daub.

SHARE IF YOU AGREE For me, Facebook falls in to the same category as Myspace and encyclopaedia collections. If you’re still using any of them, you’ve most likely got the phone number of a chiropractor on speed dial. You might use phrases like ‘back in my day’ and ‘before the internet’.

You’re probably the proud owner of a pair of skinny jeans, too. I’ll admit, I made a Facebook account once, to see if I was missing out on anything. But my dalliance didn’t last long.

There were only so many posts by local mammies about missing cats I c.