0 Wikipedia and Partial-Gen-X-Paralysis

Oh don;t I feel on top of the world this morning. It has been 14 hours since posting a new paragraph on a wikipedia article and no one has changed it, deleted it, or said "Yankee! Where do you get off writing anything about the south?

In my heart, I feel that this is wrong thinking. What makes globally collaborative environment work is change, and discussion, and disagreement. So why am I so attached to having my contributions remain intact and unscathed? Is it my generation--Generation X?

The Pew Research Center shows that my generation "is the most likely group to bank, shop and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online."

But look at how many blogs we create. On the whole Gen Xers are online consumers rather than producers. We are mostly lurkers and shoppers. Are there exceptions? Sure. I am convinced that most of the historians on Wikipedia are older. Most of the blogs I follow are written by Gex Xers. However, most of the Gen X bloggers are doing so as professionals for work rather than out of some internal need to share their knowledge and worldview with the globe.

Still, I fear that I will make a mistake online, be publicly ridiculed, and have a permanent record of the whole episode for everyone to Google in perpetuity. There, I said it. So is this a generational thing too?

Apparently not. A quick Google search on "Gen X and Gen Y," or "Gen X and Gen Y workplace" will yeild all sorts of Generation Wars articles. But it is also unmistakable that there are key words to describe Gen X, and collaborative and open are not among them. Gex Xers have been identified as competitive, distrustful, and overall non-collaborative. We are loners at work and lurkers online. The generation wars foot soldiers in the blogosphere do not disagree on descriptive words. They disagree on their values. For example, is collaboration or competition better?

So what does this have to do with me. Well, it offers perspective. I love web 2.0 stuff. Over the past 2 years I have become I am a regular blogger; I have a vibrant FaceBook life. I tweet, bookmark, and upload videos and pictures to social media sites. I like to think I am a hip Gex Xer (though the fact that I use the word hip gives me away.) Still, I am worried about the implications of putting so much personal information online. And I certainly don't want to look like a fool.

But instead of berating myself about it, I simply acknowledge that the cultural context of my upbringing affects my behaviors today. With that, I simply muster my courage and sally forth, making my mark in the virtual world.

References:

• Triangle Direct Media Update of Internet Usage by Generation
• Pew Research Centers Generations Online in 2009
• L'Atelier Gen Y is Web 2.0, Gen X Web 1.2?
• Read Write Web Forget Gen Y: Gex X is MakingReal Change
• Generation Y, The Millennial Generation 
• Uptown Uncorked Working with Gen Y, Gen X and Boomers