Net Results/Karlin Lillington: If you are 16 years old, or 25, probably all your peers have an email address and an internet connection, or can get access to the Net somewhere.
If you are over 30, the picture begins to change. The line on the graph of the Net-obsessed begins to drop downwards, and by the time you hit 40, 50, 60 - well, some are online, some are offline, and anyway, you've lost track of most of your old school and college friends anyway.
That's undoubtedly why all those networking sites like Ryze.com or meet your old school buddies sites like Friendsreunited.com do a roaring trade in the under-30 age bracket. They view mixing and meeting and reconnecting through the internet as part of day-to-day life.
Get a bit older, and you probably don't get it, this online rush to meet and greet. I definitely qualify as over-30 (let's politely leave it there). I've tried some of those sites and must admit I don't get it.
For example,I set up a Ryze account and find it of zero benefit. A few friends are on it and we linked to each other. So far (eight months), no one has wanted to network formally.
Mostly, people ask to add you to their circle of friends on their own Ryze profile. Needless to say, these are usually people you don't know, who are clearly trying to make themselves look a lot better connected than they are.
I also have poked around on some of those old schoolfriends sites where you can check out how many people are registered for your school, for a certain year. For my year, the listings are always few - again because I fall into that age group that mostly missed the launch of the internet boat.
Even though I grew up in Silicon Valley, few traces exist online of my generation of schoolfriends. They just don't seem to be online or leave digital footprints that can be tracked by Google - even the ones with unusual names.
By contrast, I am very easy to find. I have two unusual names, and have lived much of my adult life with links into the internet world.
But sometimes the Net works in mysterious ways. Recently I was reading the Guardian's excellent Online Blog (www.onlineblog.com) and found a link to a site run by a man with a familiar name: Randy Cassingham. I went to school at age 12 with a Randy Cassingham. It's not exactly a highly unusual name but it's not that common a name either.
It turns out this particular Randy Cassingham is a syndicated columnist based in Colorado. He sends out an email newsletter called This Is True (www.thisistrue.com), filled with weird but true news snippets people like to share.
Everyone seems to love it, going by press commentary. Heck, I like This Is True and had come across references to it before. But I'd had no idea it was produced by someone whose name was so familiar.
His pictures also looked vaguely recognisable (if you try to imagine what a 12 year old might look like as an adult). So I emailed him, one of those stupid emails where you have to say this may sound really odd but did you go to grade school in the Bay Area way back when?
Randy replied right away. Yep, it was him. And, ahem, I'd emailed him once already back in 1999 asking the same thing. Sheesh, no wonder I can't find old acquaintances online - even when I do manage to track someone down, I forget about it and have to find them again.
Turns out he's tried to track down a few of our schoolmates as well and has drawn the same blank. We just seem to be the invisible Net generation.
But it was great fun reconnecting with Randy - and subscribing to the newsletter. Highly recommended if you are in need of a little weird news. And as we stumble through tribunals, LUAS traffic jams, port tunnel fiascos and the Irish EU Presidency, who doesn't need a little weirdness?
