It’s almost funny. I grew up in NY…Queens to be exact. I had a terrible Brooklyn accent and loved riding on the subway. That’s a great thing about being a kid – not having the same fears that grown-ups have. Go out or stay out late at night. Hang out on street corners or in schoolyards or parks. I’m not going to fall on the old cop-out that “things were different in my day.” Things are always different for every generation. Every age is a different age. I cannot begin to compare myself to kids running around today. Things are, in fact, different.    

I was catching up on news on NYDailyNews.com, as I do just about every day, and I came across a “Latest News” headline: Gangs in New York Twitter trash-talk, plan fights. Now there’s a scary thought.

Gone are the days of thinking that gang-bangers weren’t tech savvy. Then again, I guess it isn’t such a far-fetched idea. Gang leaders get to be gang leaders because they know how to manipulate others into doing the dirty work. If a lower ranking gang member gets gunned down, it’s sad to say that there are more to take his or her place.

It’s not about race or gender or religion or ethnicity. It’s about money and power.

And now, with the use of Twitter (or Facebook or MySpace or any other social networking site), gang-bangers have a new high tech way of setting up their meetings, fights, and drive-by’s.

I’ve watched alot of shows, like Locked Up on National Geographic, and Gangland on The History Channel and communication among these thugs just keeps getting smarter and smarter. Shot callers in prison are able to order hits on marks on the street. How? Well, they can still write letters to family and friends on the outside. They have sophisticated codes they use; special language they use – things that to someone like you or me make absolutely no sense and then BANG someone’s dead. So why not have the guys on the street come up with 140-character codes for setting up whatever needs to go down?

Maybe one saving grace is that maybe a larger percentage of gang tweeters are younger and more careless with their tweets making it easier for law enforcement to catch on quicker to what’s going on. With only 140 characters it will only be a matter of time until quicker and easier codes are thought up. Being proud of being in a gang would also lead to loose lips about a Facebook or MySpace profile. Who knows? Maybe all of this high tech gibberish will be short-lived? Doubt it.

We have pedophiles stalking children on social networking sites and chatrooms. We have psychopaths that post videos or photos of crimes they’ve committed. We have peeping toms that can hack into our computers and steal our identities.

And now we have gangs using the same technologies to setup their turf wars and drug deals.

Yes. These are very different times indeed.