Who is the Social Media Generation?

I have always believed my generation was the generation of social media. Over the summer I have come to realize that maybe that is not so.

I worked as a summer camp counselor at a day camp. The group I was with were ages nine to 13. They were the oldest group and some of them had social media accounts. I would always here them say things like "Hey bro, you see my photo on Instagram?" or "What is your username on snapchat?" My first reaction to when I heard this was that these kids are too young to have these accounts. I did not have a Facebook account until I was a freshman in high school. I know that was just a few years older than these kids but still. Most of the conversations among the kids were about social media sites. All of the social media sites. Some I never even heard of before this summer. This just shows that maybe we are not the social media generation but the one a few years below us.

The one downside to this. From what I saw during the camp is the kids do not have an idea of how to be creative or imaginative. Whenever free time came about, the kids were always saying they were bored and have nothing to do. I know that is how most children are at that age, but we had toys and games that were for their age level and there was an abundance of them. The kids would not play with the toys but just keep asking us counselors if they could bring in their tablets or phones.

Well the kids wishes were granted and we had two days during camp where they could bring in the devices. However the camp made it a fundraiser so the kids had to bring in two dollars so they could play with the devices for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. Well when those one hours came up, the kids would quickly grab their devices and go straight to social media sites. The building we were in did not have WiFi but the kids just used their data they had. During those hours there was not much talking but the once and awhile question of "What is your username so I can add you". It was crazy. When that hour was up though, the rest of the time was them complaining of there being nothing for them to do. They did not want to play camp games or just be kids.

I guess the only good thing you can say about this is that when these kids are older and are getting ready for the big world, they will know more about social media for companies than we ever did. So they could help out the future, but right now those kids need to be playing outside and being a kid!