My dad loves to discuss what he sees as the generational divides between my younger brother (Gen Y), me (Gen X), and he and my mom (baby boomers). I always get so annoyed whenever Dad tries to label any of us and when I listen to his argument (he's an attorney and a much abler arguer than I) that we are the same as all others of our generation. I'd like to believe you can't just draw large stereotypes. However, there are times when I wonder if some of what he suggests might be right. The point I am leading up to is this: my dad keeps claiming that my generation is one that thinks, "how will that benefit/affect me? What does it mean for me." Over and over I hear from him that mine is a selfish generation.

Sometimes (like now, when I consider how many first person pronouns I use and wonder if that is indicative of my selfishness) I think about web 2.0 and what we are learning/discovering/exploring. I revel in the notion of tailoring my interests and creating my own virtual pages (whether its a blog, iGoogle, RSS reader, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) I love the idea of something that allows me to leave my imprint (a comment, a photo, a profile, etc). And I wonder if it isn't somehow related to a generational selfishness. Is that how web 2.0 began? because selfishly motivated people like me wanted to leave their mark (in the form of comments) and only wished to see items that interested them, in effect shunning everything else that didn't (at first blush) appear relevant to them?

But then, in some ways, it is refreshing when patrons of my parents generation come to the reading room wanting someone to listen to them talk about their family, who they are, and where they're from. And the I think maybe all generations have an element of selfishness, but each has different means of projecting it.