Facebook was made for and by the same people who like Jimmy Fallon.  It was created for the Internet Generation, Generation i.  Us Gen Xers were definitely not welcomed into this special club.  So for the past several years Gen Xers have felt like trespassers whenever we used Facebook.  It is like when immigrants take over a city, the locals have resentment for the new guests and wish these guests would go somewhere else.  Gen i-ers would tell us “Aren’t you too old to use Facebook?”

Google has always been Gen X’s friend. Google has evened out the playing field and made us just as smart as the Gen i’s and given us the historical knowledge of  the baby boomers.  Baby boomers can’t use the line “that was before your time”  and Gen i cannot tell us ”you won’t know how to do it” since we can just Google it  and besides we had EDLIN so we know how to do anything.

For the last few years we have been using Facebook, making friends with anybody and everybody just so our amount of friends wouldn’t look pathetic.  We liked Facebook but we had concerns about security and of course we had concerns that Farmville was taking up too much of our time.  Every time Facebook would announce a change in their privacy policy, it seemed we were getting a cavity search; rubber gloves and all.  We wanted a better way but didn’t understand the fascination with twitter and figured Facebook was as close as we were getting to Web 2.0.

Many in the Gen X world do not understand social media websites.  The idea of real people on the other end of the computer frightens us that’s why we started using computers in the first place so we could be AdonisGod621 instead of Sheldon.  The anonymity of the internet is what began our fascination with the web.  In the land of BBSes we used our aliases and carried them into the World Wide Web.  We used chats and became 7 foot 1 Scandanavian Powerhouses chatting with 36-24-36 bikini models who happened to be y-chromosomed too.  All that was fine and then social media ruined it; we were back to being ourselves.

So we find ourselves at a crossroads where we have a choice between Google+ and Facebook.  We have tried Google Wave and said “That’s not Facebook.”  Then we tried Google Buzz and said “No I am good.  Facebook is fine.”  Finally with Google+ we can show Facebook that the lack of concern with our privacy has forced us to go with a friend who has never used our information against us.  With Google+ we can start over with our friends circles and select who we want to know what about us rather than telling the whole world.  Now we can talk behind a specific person or circle’s back, just like real life.

I haven’t abandoned Facebook yet (damn Farmville) but it is nice to see I have a great alternative now.

By the way The brand new Google+ App can be found here.