Meet the "Technologically Trendy Kids"(科技潮童)

In Hong Kong,“潮童”, a popular term in cyber space whch can be literally translated as “Trendy Kids”, is not about kids who are very trendy and dress up fashionably. Instead, it is often regarded as a disapproving term describing a group of teens who urge to prove themselves trendy and smart, sometimes being very childish, ignorant and disturbing, causing trouble to others. Today, as the power of the internet is becoming more and more pervasive to our life, here we comes second wave of trendy kids booming. They are similarly very childish, ignorant and disturbing, which always cause trouble to us. The only difference is this time they shows no interest in dressing up or going shopping in Mongkok. What they care is how they are able to be online.

Although the senior citizens in your family never stop complaining their children are too additive to the internet, finally the parents cannot resist the pleasure of digging up treasures there and join them. The problem is that they are not the generation growing up with digital device who can work it just liking breathing. We are ocaasionally stuck up with the deivce, but we manage to fix it like go googling, posting questions in a forum or send a MSN message. We all know how to take care of our cyber life. Compared to experienced users like us, they are curious and innocent juniors in front of a computer. They ask questions like, “The pop up window said I have won a big prize. Do they mean it?” “It asks me to install a software. Should I click “Yes”?” What’s the differnce between being a registered and a non-registered one?” “It ask me to agree the terms and condition before going into the site. What’s that?” These scenes repeat over and over. Yesterday you showed them how to edit bookmarks in the browser. Today they might ask for a demonstraton again. With a such passionate user but knowing nothing, it turns you to a 24 –hour technical support of the family.

But sometimes their stubbornness really makes you cry. My dad, a senior citizen who finds himself uncomfortable if he has not enjoyed enough his Chinese Opera videos in Youtube and other video sites. One day, he discovered a treasure providing some rare oldies, only with a little technical problem that the videos played audio tracks, with no motions and pictures. Luckily he found his way out to switch from IE to Chrome. But as a big fan of IE, he did not want to simply accustom himself to a new browser. He kept asking me why the web site was not compatible to IE and how I could fix it. As a an amateor IT support in a usual household, the only meaningful piece of advice was ask him to give up IE, which was the last thing he would agree to do. After hours of trying over and over, the reality he faced forced him to stop.

From the experience of dealing with my dad, the “Technologically Trendy Kids” drives you crazy because everything is new to them arising their curiosity. When you give a new device to them or install a new software in the PC, there will be another tons of questions. They are not quite as us who feel comfortable to dynamic changes in digital world. So I think they welcome devices highly comprehensive and very intuitive. And if you are patient enough, with good tolerance to repeatedly raised questions, it may be a new blue sea out there for you.