Modern conversations

This evening, I had the awesome privilege of going to a high school play with my way-cool nephew. And because he thinks I’m way cool, he let me sit with him and his friends.

It was great fun sitting and chatting with these amazing people about all sorts of geeky things, because they’re passionate about things I’m passionate about.

But I think the funnest thing for me was watching their conversations. I enjoyed seeing how animated and excited they were about their ideas. I enjoyed listening to their amazing grasp of the English language, and their excitement in the use of more obscure words and punctuation forms. I enjoyed watching the dynamics of their little group as others joined in on the conversations.

We often talk about how “today’s kids” don’t know how to communicate with each other because of the gadgets and gizmos that have taken over the world. We talk about how social media has destroyed conversations.

But this evening, I saw just how great “today’s kids” are at communication and just how amazing social media is in helping them to create and continue conversations.

Case in point: The photo illustrating this post. My nephew and his friends enjoyed an extremely animated and intelligent conversation that included well-thought-out ideas and concepts that were follow-ons from things they shared with each other on a variety of social networking sites.

I was impressed. I was so happy to see these amazing people being so amazing. I have so much faith in this generation of kids. I really do.

Oh! And the play was pretty awesome, too!