December 8, 2009, 
Tagged Unfortunately, I find myself in the impossibility of figuring out how the teenagers now-a-days think like around the world, either in Romania or in Denmark. I am mostly referring to the way they interact, socialize and create impressions about another one of their age.
I remember when I was in the 6th grade and one of my classmates had a black and white (actually, black and orange) screened Alcatel 301. We were all playing on it, creating stupid ringtones on its software. And yes, some of us did consider him cool for having a mobile phone! Then I got to high school and everyone had a mobile phone. Come to think about it, when I got in high school, nobody really gave a crap about which mobile phone you had but then again, the iphone was not launched at that point.
Now I got to college and mobile phones are the least of anyone’s worries. Except receiving messages from extremely beautiful girls, my mobile phone is only used as an alarm for waking up in the mornings and evenings. However, the only gadget we can actually compare in class are the laptops and nobody seems to give a crap about them anyway! I mean, I do have this feeling that people owning a Toshiba are noobs but I am trying to change my mind… 
I’ll just go back to the teenagers now. I honestly have no idea how they think like and how it is like to be a teenager. 5, 6 or 7 years ago we didn’t have any social media network on our hands (well, maybe MySpace but nobody really used it in Romania). When you liked someone, you were struggling to find out whether or not they have a boyfriend or girlfriend. You were dying to see them the next day at school since you couldn’t see any photos of them on hi5 and it also makes me sad to imagine how teens ask for the messenger id of the people they like.
Therefore, I would like to ask for anyone who has some info about this: how is it like to be a teenager, today? How often do you use the internet to contact your “friends” and how often do you actually interact through some old fashion methods?
I own a Toshiba
valy, you are the exception that confirms the rule!
Interesting article you have here
. I can’t talk too much about the teenagers nowadays, but I have a friend that’s 17 and I talk to her about almost everything that happens to her.. and I can tell you that they really give a crap about what mobile phone, car, clothes you have. They’ re very interested in material things, gossipping and hi5 
). Mainly hi5 rules their life.
) . She speaks every day with them..but she doesn’t actually know who they are in real life. I find it stupid, but she told me that this is really fun in her group… I still can’t understand what’s fun in this 
)…
She told me that she has friends that don’t go out usually..they just sit in front of the computer all day..and the only 3 things they use are: winamp, hi5 and messenger. And about the dating part…she actually has 3 “boyfriends”only on messnger and 1 that she met on hi5
I told her that I still write letters to a friend in Germany and she laughed for 10 minutes straight, because she couldn’t imagine not using e-mail.
oh, if only I had known it is so easy to have a 17 year old girlfriend, lol
it’s sad, Alexa, it’s sad. spending your time on hi5 is losing some time that you will never ever get back. Honestly, I have an account on hi5 and I log on to it whenever I want to laugh and cry at the same time, for the same reason.
Sometime last month I sent two postcards to Romania so I would say happy birthday to a friend and to my brother. It was nice that people in the post office were not looking at me in an odd manner. i told other people though and they were all like “What? post cards?”
I so wish I could turn the time back…
I think you’re overreacting. I was fifteen or sixteen when a guy asked me for my Y!M id so he could ask me out online. And that was like 5 years ago.
And when I was in secondary school all my classmates competed who would have the most expensive phone in our school and if you didn’t have a mobile phone or had a rather cheap one, that would’ve been a good reason to be bullied and that used to be over 7 years ago.
Also, two of the guys I used to date while a teenager were disturbed by the fact that I refused to buy a mobile phone and a third one (who you happen to know very well:D) was and still is annoyed by the fact that I never pay attention to my phone.
I have a friend who is a teen in Romania. All she ever thinks about is sex, booze and something a bit more illegal than that. She goes out a lot more than we used to and she does crazier things than we used to, but she (and all her friends as well) thinks IM is lame, she does not have a blog/twitter account/myspace account and barely ever uses her mobile phone.
I don’t think we should be worrying so much about the teens today, they’re fine, I think we should worry more about those who haven’t even reached puberty yet. They don’t play anything else but computer games, they talk to their friends on IM, rather than pay them a visit, do their homework on the Internet (although we all know how unreliable Romanian web pages are when it comes to proper scientific info) rather than read a book or watch a documentary on Discovery, own like two mobile phones at an age when we barely had a toy one, have access to all sorts on info that is available online and that children their age should never be able to see and so on…
You are generalizing (i have no idea if this word really exists). The only reason why you didn’t see such behavior in our generation is because we couldn’t afford it/the technology wasn’t implemented in Romania yet. I really think that the grown-ups you see today comparing things from laptops to their penises size would have acted the same way when they were younger if they only had the possibility.
I bet that there still are teenagers acting almost the way we did, being shy(yeah, i just remembered my god-forsaken nickname), or enjoying their time just like we did. So, yeah i still have some hope for the future.
I tend to think that people our days are worse or better than our ancestors. They just have different means to show that they (or we) are all actually dumb-asses. I rest my case.
ps: I just bought me a new acoustic guitar..a Squire from my scholarship.
ps2:..mine is bigger
I have a Sony Vaio so that makes me the coolest:)
I can tell you about me. I haven’t had internet until the 11th grade (but that was common, even in my highschool) and I used mIRC for 3-4 months or so. Then I met a guy on mIRC (:P) whom I’ve spoken for some while that helped me learning a bit more about computers (mostly extremely necessary soft, like oDC, azureus, games, crack, deamon tools:P…).
Then I installed YM and never used mIRCagain:P. And 1 year after, I made my blog.
And yeah, when asking for id-s was easy: ask the guy or ask a friend of the guy:)))
About the cell phones: I started with Bosch 607 in the 9th grade because almost everybody in my class had a cell phone (mine was among the crappiest, but I had like 60$ on it to talk, lol). Then my parents took me a nokia 3330 (not the usual 3310, even if it was almost the same lol) – again not a very fancy model comparing with the leet:P, but as resistant as a rock!. Then I went into college and received a nokia 6230i (which I currently have), again not among the leet of the time (now I don’t think you can find them in stores, lol, but mircea badea has one too:P). And when I’ll get a job, I will buy myself an iphone… unless I find something better:P
I have 2 cousins (16 and 14) that have had cell phones for 2 years now. The girl is interested in boys and magazines, the boy is interested in computer games (for now). They don’t have internet (not common in that town), but they seem pretty normal to me:)
The next generation will be fine… I would like them to study more….
changed my blog address, btw
wow, just got a chance to read your comments and they are all amazing.
I admit that I may have thought about that generation by using a very small test group but I am happy to see though that you guys agree with me upon some stuff.
I do however have to scan your comments rather than skimming them…
You remember how much we enjoyed winter when we were kids? Well..to be honest i enjoy it just as much now. But..a thing that really amazed me..i didn’t see any kids with sleds, or making a snow-man, or just fighting with snow. Damn, this is sad.
ps..in my comment i meant to say that..i quote myself: “I tend to think that people our days AREN’T!! worse or better than our ancestors.”
ps2:..when are you coming back home?
well(i see that everyone is posting in english, so who am I to break the chain), things did really change, and because of all the technology that’s been implemented, and updated on an almost exponential level, it’s taken it’s toll on the social interactions of everyone. this is affecting everyone, not just the teens, it’s just more obvious at teens. I can clearly recall a time when the only way to go on a date(at the age i’m talking about, school related friend) was to get one way or another, to have a private discussion with the one you like, and ask for a more intimate relationship, then give it a whole lot of time, considering all the effort and planning that went into this single talk, and then, probably get denied because the one you wanted liked and was waiting for someone else, either in the classroom, or in the school.technology and the internet just made everything go faster. now, that would be a good thing, but because of this, it made the social interaction in itself change. i don’t know how many girls i know that went to the park, and take a milion different pictures of themselves in the same pose, over and over again, to just pick one that’s no different to me, but just right for them to post on hi5, or another likewise site. to some extent, or at least to me, most people seem just a wee bit more retarded than i remember i was at their age, and i’m not saying i was a rocket scientist.
ahm, this is quite an exageration, but the general feel of it is like the world is really heading in the direction of the movie Idiocracy, check it if you haven’t seen it.