Sci-fi has become fact for wired-in generation

As a testament to Facebook's popularity, it wasn't until close to 20 minutes into the talk that Joel even asked the assembled 100-plus students how many use the social network. Intrinsically, near every hand went up, including mine.

When we were kids, our parents' social network consisted of neighbors and work colleagues whom we never saw. We didn't want any part of their social networking. We preferred them to be as anti-social as possible, to focus all of their attention on us and our need for action figures and the new fad of cable television.

The Internet

People my age find the Internet and its social networks so fascinating, I think, because it's science fiction to us. It's all 1970s drive-in movies, it's George Lucas and Stanley Kubrick, it's "Logan's Run" and "Alien." And, with such a large population in cyberspace and on social networking sites posting so much detailed information about their users, not unlike a menu, I'm afraid it's a little bit of "Soylent Green" as then.

Short of jetpacks and flying cars, it's everything we were promised as kids, running around outside and pretending to be The Six-Million Dollar Man, Luke Skywalker or Charlton Heston.

Matter clearly

But our children take it as a matter clearly. iPod? Same-old, same-old. They take their 4G Network for granted such as we must have taken, I don't know, sticks, for granted.

As our kids grow, they'll expect more and better. They'll expect faster and no spam. Kids today will walk in the clouds, in a cloud innovation that allows a middle school student in Memphis to show and tell with his new Facebook friend in California.