# Do you see yourself down the line as a befuddled old guy? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 8, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254 "2018-03-08T19:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/41 "2018-03-10T01:19:14Z")
Oh, there we go a simple explanation. I certainly hope she didn’t lie about STDs. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/42 "2018-03-10T07:43:48Z")
Sometimes I make Abe Simpson look positively cool. But not today… ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/43 "2018-03-10T08:21:06Z")
What’s special about today? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/44 "2018-03-10T08:49:16Z")
I doubt it. Although my motivation to always stay on top of tech has gone down a tad, it has not in practice slowed down my adoption of the latest stuff. Partially because I know that skipping too many generations means it’s that much harder to get back into things (Facebook can still bite me, though). Really, tech has gotten easier over time. After the thirty-fifth rearrangement and renaming of the icons on my phone, I’ve gotten used to the pattern. There really aren’t that many possible ways of doing things. Some kind of hierarchical menu system… keep poking around and I’ll find what I’m looking for. Big deal. Give me a random phone or tablet and I’ll figure things out in ten minutes. Give a kid a random Unix box and they’ll be befuddled for days. So far, the advantage is mine. As for scams… eh, I vaguely worry that eventually someone will find a way through my defenses. It kinda seems like I’ve seen all the variants already–a million variations on the Nigerian scam, etc. Today there was a new one that actually came by snail-mail. So as long as the scammers stick to the classics, I suppose I’m safe. And they probably will stick to the classics, since they’ve been around for decades or centuries and continue to work well on a subset of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/45 "2018-03-10T19:32:50Z")
Waddyamean “Down the line”? I am already there. I got my first computer in 1982 (IBM-PC with DOS 1.0 and one 160K floppy). But I have never gotten any kind of i-phone or texted on my phone which is apparently capable of it. Moreover, I have never worked out how to fill the directory or how to take a photo off of it. On the other hand, I get phone and email scams all the time and just ignore them. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/46 "2018-03-10T21:21:31Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Previous thread: [Why do old people act… old?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=701544) And [a poll](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=701558) inspired by that thread. Oddly, Dopers overwhelmingly rejected the idea that they’d wind up befuddled, naive old people with susceptibility to scammers. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/47 "2018-03-11T22:34:15Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I anticipate that my elderly eccentricities will manifest in refusing to interact with anybody at all. I think this will protect me from many forms of scam. I’m living my life according to this model. I’ll be 78 in about two weeks and so far it’s working perfectly. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2018, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254/48 "2018-03-12T04:55:51Z")
No: I plan on eventually becoming a Dangerous Little Old Lady. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-yourself-down-the-line-as-a-befuddled-old-guy/810254.md?page=2)