Dude, what's Grandpa's screen name?

Word on the finnfam grapevine is that Grandpa Jack is now on IM. If you don't know what that means, well, that means that my dad is hipper than you are. But you probably knew that already. I first got word of this development the other night as my nephew and I drove to Papa Del's to grab a pizza for dinner. Ben seemed to think it was pretty cool, but I'll admit that my first response to this information was horror. "Good Lord," I proclaimed, "I'm not even on IM!" -- as if I am somehow the measure of the technological cutting edge. Hardly. I'm only just getting around to this blog thing, for example, and everybody knows that blogs are so 2002.

Being the good journalism major that I am (or was), I e-mailed to confirm. Yes, Dad said, it's true, and he generously offered, "Want to be on my Buddy List?" Oh my. Now, let me be clear about this: it's not the technology thing that freaks me out. After all, back in the day Dad was boss man when the St. Paul newspaper computerized the newsroom. And at home, my parents were always early adopters. We had what surely was the first personal computer on the block, an Apple IIe (complete with two, count 'em, two floppy drives). We embraced early VCRs, too, buying one of those 86-pound metal monstrosities back in 1980. Today, Mom and Dad are both whizzes at e-mail, digital cameras, even online bill paying.

It's not the technology, but what the technology represents. In my universe, IM is a kid thing. It's what my students do when they should be reading for my class or writing papers. It's how teenagers communicate; it's how they court. It's what my nieces and nephews do to stay in touch, even though some of them live only blocks from one another. Imagining my dad IM-ing is like imagining my dad in baggy pants and a black stocking cap, zooming up and down a ramp at the skate park. Cool in one sense but, well, alarming.

Many commentators claim that e-mail, text messaging and instant messaging are ruining the quality of public discourse because our children are learning to write in weird, abbreviated acronyms rather than in clear and thoughtful prose. Such a decline should be something that Dad deplores. After all, he belongs to a group of retired journalists and teachers who meet monthly to discuss uses and abuses of the English language. Even using the term "IM-ing" is anathema to these folks who decry the "verbing of America." But then I got to thinking. Maybe this is really his subversive way of raising the quality of our public discourse, one teenaged grandchild at a time. I can see him now, Cool Grandpa Jack, vigilantly word-policing the IM landscape, encouraging the kids to "eschew obfuscation,"  admonishing them to "omit needless words," or cryptically invoking Strunk and White: "Be obscure clearly."

Go for it, Dad. Be as cool as you wanna be. And sign me up for the Buddy List.

Comments

[Sara]

At least he's not on MySpace.com (or is he?). And FaceBook probably isn't an option. But still...yer dad's pretty hip.

slatta

[Jim Finnegan]

To let you know how hip he is, I just completed a video conference with him on Sunday. It got me so excited I ordered a I-sight camera for my Power Book. If he wants to stay hip I want to see him multi-task video-games, homework, and IMing at the same time. I get tired watching my kids do it. Hey Pop, how come I'm not on your buddy list?

[caraf]

He can do this, I'm sure of it! He's always been able to read a book, switch between three TV shows and carry on a conversation all at once!