1. Nobody will not take kindly to your tweeting on your iPhone or Blackberry at the table.
2. Sure Aunt Bertha always loves to tell her crazy stories about being a radical in the ’60s but get her to sign a release before you post them on YouTube.
3. Your blog will not miss you if you don’t post to it for two days.
4. Your pastor does not think it’s funny when you ask why God is not on Facebook.
5. Your spouse does not like it when you’re tweeting during the football game, unless you’re bringing chips and dip in the other hand.
6. Sure, you love to tell your favorite story about the blogger you had a brief, yet highly vitriolic flame war with over trackback links and how they work, but honestly don’t you think telling it for three years in a row after your third glass of wine is enough?
7. Don’t drink and tweet.
8. Don’t drink and blog.
9. Don’t drink and drive.
10. Enjoy a day with real people, try to take a walk outside and feel real grass on your feet and be in bright sunlight. You won’t melt, I promise.
With thanks to Nettie Hartsock.

A decade ago, I wrote a piece about baby boomers and the internet called, It’s Never Too Late to Become Computer Savvy. I saw that our generation was adapting to technology at a steady pace. Many of us, I concluded, sought low cost, low pressure training to help us put computers in our daily lives.

Researching how boomers like myself adapted to technology, I found a Georgia Institute of Technology study that referred to “the fastest growing group of computer users.” Even back then, 15 percent of the over-55 group were already active online. Of those, 58 percent surfed one to four hours a day (compared to only 42 percent of younger users). Another 30 percent were online more than five hours a day. Men surfed more than women. One third of boomer users replaced TV with computer activities. Now, almost 60 percent of 50-64 year-olds are active online. Mature women are the fastest growing surfer segment.

Today, boomers write, surf, chat, date, purchase, and investigate facts — all online. Advertisers devote web sites to the art of marketing to baby boomers. They know we are technically savvy. Here are some places they find us:

1. Ageless Project – a compendium of blogs by older writers, no teens allowed.
2. CraigsList.org – boomers are flocking to shop smart – find anything you’re looking for, no auctions, just person to person.
3. Numerous online dating sites. In my happily married state, I’m out of touch, but I met my husband though an online site a dozen years ago.
4. DemystifyingDigital.com’s Digital Grandparent > for technical tips in everyday language.
5. Podcasts for Boomers – listen, or participate in the latest social media technology.

Becoming comfortable on the internet, invented not by Al Gore but by Sir Time Berners Lee, himself a boomer, has enabled us to suck technology into every aspect of life. Once, boomers and those born just before us shied away from computers, MP3 players, cell phones, and other stuff driven by silicon. But we’re in the thick of it now.

As we travel, we embrace mobile broadband. Boomers are major purchasers of music and multi-media players. Seniors used to ask their grandkids to show them the ropes of new gadgets; now, we boomers are likely to help our own grandchildren figure out how to download music, legally, and not risk getting into trouble.

Maybe the biggest nod to our technical prowess and its impact on the world goes to our place in the job market. In 2008, it’s tough to find a baby boomer, man or woman, who can’t handle a PC or a Mac. But you’ll also find a lot of us operating at proficient to expert status. We are designing web sites, creating techno gadgets, writing the manuals, and providing training for younger users and corporate America.

A friend told me his company calls boomers the “tender” generation because we “tender” show up at work (it’s a stretch, but say it out loud). We “tender” do a thorough job. We “tender” have deep experience. Those tendencies and our ability and eagerness to adapt to technology are giving us unlimited opportunities for career changes, post-retirement jobs, and consulting work.

Corporate America is feeling collectively anxious about the knowledge gap that’s coming by 2010, when a big chunk of the experienced workforce retires. Where would they get experienced technical expertise? We boomers are stepping in, suggesting job sharing, telecommuting, flex scheduling.

These days, we don’t nervously look for digestible technical training. We stand out — writers, teachers, designers, and consumers of the technology that makes our world tick. If you, by chance, know a boomer still reticent to take a spin down that info superhighway, email him or her a link to any web search containing, “baby boomer.” The results are pretty much a shot of technical self-esteem for all of us.

Regarding the web’s effect on traditional entertainment content, NPD found that boomers who engage in activities such as networking or video streaming are also more likely to buy DVDs and CDs and go out to the movies. On average, boomers who stream video are 15% more likely than their non-streaming counterparts to buy a CD, DVD, or movie tickets, NPD said.

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