"I'm thirty-seven, I'm not old" **

Youngsters not happy oldies going online

The older generations are moving in on the hi-tech, online world and the under-30s are not impressed.

Scott Seigal was awakened one morning by a mobile phone text message. It was from his girlfriend's mother. His friends' parents have posted greetings on his MySpace page for all the world to see. And his 72-year-old grandmother sends him online instant messages every day so they can better stay in touch while he is at university. "It's nice that adults know some things,'' says Seigal, 18. He especially likes instant messaging with his grandmother because he is "not a huge talker on the phone".

Increasingly, however, he and other young people are feeling uncomfortable about their elders encroaching on what many young adults and teenagers consider their technological space.

Mmm, that would be the World Wide Web wouldn't it? Invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (52) in 1989 at a time when today's under thirties were all under twelve years old. He was able to do this because of the existence of the internet, something which had it's roots back in grandpa's days in the 1950s but, according to most sources, officially started in 1974 when none of the Myspace generation were even born.

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