generations vs. computers

I have been thinking again. Muddled thoughts, but they keep recurring, and that means I should write them down before I forget them. The kids will tell you how bad mom's memory is, but I don't remember it ever being any other way. Even as a kid, I'd forget stuff.
Anyway...
My husband and I are Generation X. In fact, I'm about as young as Gen X gets, and then you move on the Gen Y, which is our siblings. Which puts us and our siblings in different generations, and it really shows. I think one of the most stark differences is how we think of the internet and computers in general.
Some of my logic is a bit off here, because my husband has the unfair advantage of access to computers at an early age. But keep in mind that Mr. Apple Computers/Mac/Ipod was busily inventing the future Mac in his garage the same year I was born. Which means there were no personal computers yet. My great Uncle Dick was still working with room-sized ones. For high school graduation, I received a Mac Color Classic, with a nine inch screen. I used this all the way through college and into my first teaching job. When we got married, I had to convert to PC because that's what my husband had. We spent 2000 bucks on a computer in 1999. Since then, I now have a three year old Dell laptop that is doing just fine, thanks, and it cost me $800. Crazy.
Then you look at my sister, Bonnie. She is of the myspace generation. She could totally live online. Her social life is all online, though she does go out and see real people. But facebook and myspace and all that, along with music and movies, was all there for her! Heck, we didn't even have web access in college yet, really, until halfway through college. Now people bring laptops to class.
My point is this: My age group is the fine line between people who are allergic to tech and put up with it as a necessary evil, and those who can't imagine life without it because they literally have never had life without it. I remember life without computers, and I liked it. But I also like life with them! Notice I am blogging. The hard part, I find, is explaining this love of computers to people like my parents, to whom computer operations just don't come easily. They use them if they must, not for fun very often. Youtube isn't operational on their computer, because they only have dial-up. I can see why they don't think internet is fun if they have dial-up! Cuz it's not!
I have been thinking recently that sometimes people will judge each other's intelligence based on whether they know tech lingo. SOMEONE I know is fairly guilty of this. If people don't understand computers, they must be backwards. I mean the kind of people who simply don't own one, out of choice. But I don't think that is fair, because they are thinking, "I have gotten along my whole life without computers, I am 60 or so, why do I need to care? Phones and mailboxes are still around." And I can totally see that.
A little empathy goes a long way in this case. But it sure is interesting to watch both sides from age 31 1/2.