Are today's parents REALLY that far behind their kids with technology?

Is anyone else as miffed as I am about the continued assertion that kids know more about technology than their parents? That somehow the parents are clueless while the kids run rings around them?

Good friend Beth Blecherman (@techmama) tweeted today about a CNN piece on online safety http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2009/11/05/pn.kids.onli...

I watched the piece and slowly began to boil. I get that there are many online safety issues -- predators and porn, hate speech, kids registering for adult networks and so on. And I appreciate any efforts to educate parents and kids about Internet safety issues.

But I am having a hard time with the refrain that the kids know so much more than their parents.

We said this 15 years ago when the online safety issue first hit public awareness. Then, I believed it was true. Kids did have better opportunities to learn about technology than their parents. Unless they worked in tech, most adults just hadn't had the exposure to computers and the Internet.

But haven't we had time to catch up? Is anyone else as irritated as I am at this portrayal of the parent as the clueless noob?