"Show me how to use the face book!"

My generation has grown up in tandem with the advent of consumer technology. We have memorized by heart the musical score accompanying our frustrated experiences with dial-up internet. We know that the three little pigs should have built their houses out of the most indestructible material known to mankind – old Nokia phones. We know exactly what the "save" icon represents, and we know why going backwards in a movie is called "rewinding". Now that we've grown up, we are experts at carefully designing our Facebook profiles to make it look as though we have any part of our lives in order. We are characterized by our compulsive need to check our phones in case we might have missed any non-existent messages. We have mastered the craft of condensing, consolidating, and compartmentalizing our lives into our online presences. Some people say we're narcissistic, others say that we have destroyed the sanctity of human interaction. I see it as us being a more "technologically-inclined" generation.

And my technologically-inclined generation's most defining and universal experience by far is the agonizing process of having to explain all of this to our (sometimes) not-so-technologically-inclined parents.

The infuriating dance of guiding someone through a seemingly simple task is made ten times worse when that person is a close friend or a family member. Dealing with clients in a professional environment is one thing, but dealing with parents whom you love and respect dearly – but who cannot, for some reason, wrap their heads around the difference between a left-click and a right click – is quite another. I love you, but I am so frustrated right now counts as its own emotion.

And trust me – it has next to nothing to do with technical know-how. Confusion about the ways in which people now structure their lives, represent themselves, and communicate with each other, is not by any means exclusive to Luddites. To children and young adults, using technology on a day-to-day basis is second nature. A lot of us have no clue about the infrastructure and principles underlying the Internet; however, we can effortlessly find a song or movie online (um, legally, of course), coordinate events with our friends through Facebook, and – the ultimate survival skill – connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

"Tech support", to us, is not necessarily "turn it off and then on again – sir, is it plugged in? Yes, it needs to be plugged in first". Instead, it denotes the process of explaining an entire lifestyle to someone to whom it is totally foreign. It's important to remember that, especially when your patience is being tested by someone painstakingly typing "google" into the search bar at 80 minutes per word and then clicking on the link to Google within the search results so that they can get to Google by this unnecessarily convoluted route when they could have just typed "how do I use Facebook" into the search bar in the first place – but I digress. The point is that, as frustrated as we may be by being 24-hour on-call tech support for our families, I think it's only fair to show them the same patience that they have when teaching us about parts of the world and the human condition with which we have very little experience.

So every time a relative sends me a chain email that I haven't seen since 2004, I smile a little, because I remember how excited I was to read the cute story in it the first time – and then I forward it as well, because there is absolutely no way that I am risking having seven years of bad luck. Chain emails don't lie.