Bob Vila beat me to Twitter.

Every time I walk by the “Cyber Cafes” here at Northland, most of the students are on Facebook. So was surprised to read today that of American adults, just 26% are using online social networking to stay connected with friends. Making up that 26%:

• Over 65: 3% 
• 50-65 year olds: 9%
• 36-49 year olds: 21%
• 23-35 year olds: 49%
• 18-22 year olds: 75% 

So there’s an obvious generation gap forming around those who are plugged in to online social networking and those who aren’t.

I’m someplace in the middle of that divide, and I’m very aware of it.

About half of my “real world” friends are Facebooking, Tweeting, and texting away. The other half don’t want anything to do with any of it. They’re curmudgeons, 40 years ahead of their time (Is there an appointed age when curmudgeonism becomes appropriate? If there is, 74 seems like a good number).

My Gen X compatriots grew up in a time before internet access (I was in college when web browsing hit big. I searched with Altavista — the google of 1997).

The only thing we could do for fun in the high school Mac lab was play Oregon Trail.

I clearly remember using a cell phone for the first time, too. It was also in college. Being on the phone … in a car … was a trip. My buddy made me keep the call short. He said it was his dad’s phone, and it cost 2 bucks a minute.

Now, it’s not uncommon to see 10 year olds on bikes chatting it up on cell phones. Who are they talking to?! Other kids on bikes, I guess.

So what accounts for the digital divide between age groups? Are my disconnected friends afraid of the new social networking tools? Too busy with work and their own kids to learn something new? Do they dismiss things like Twitter as being silly without really investigating their uses beyond following Bob Vila? (Twitter recommended that I follow Bob V. when I activated my account. I guess they thought I could stand to learn a thing or two about crown molding … Which I could).

We are quickly becoming a nation of those who are mastering the tools of social media and those who don’t know the first thing about them. And if the digital divide deepens, it’s going to be a major barrier to communication between people of different generations.

Social media is here to stay. We may not all be Digital Natives, but we do need to become fluent in social media as a second language.