This is exactly how it happens. As we grow older we tend to let a few things slide by choice, and those things grow and produce spin-offs and before you know it you’re three layers of knowledge behind and no easy way to catch up.
Far from being befuddled, a lot of it comes down to choice. I only use as much technology as I have a need for; iMac for the wife’s desk, HP laptop for me, iPad for when we’re traveling. As yet, I have no use for a smart phone, nor do I wish to spend the exorbitant amount of money to own one or pay the ridiculous monthly fees to use one. I’m retired, so don’t need to be up on the latest in office gizmos, nor the technology associated with them. I know a lot of people my age who have smart phones and who are as addicted to them as younger people. I find it sad and pointless.
As to the OP, I didn’t foresee myself being this way, but then none of this technology existed back then, just like none of the technology that will exist 30 years from now will likely be of any use to someone who is now in his 40s.
I am not worried at all. I am sharp as a tack. I take full advantage of all kinds of things on the internet. As a matter of fact, I will be quite wealthy the moment a payment from a friendly Nigerian prince comes through. Should be any day now.
Previous thread: Why do old people act… old?
And I still wonder why old people act old.
I turned 50 a few months ago. Am I acting like a typical 50 year old? I like to think not, but perhaps I’m fooling myself - I dunno. At any rate, I feel like I’m still in my 20s, at least mentally. And I still party and drink beer at family parties. I am not sure when this “old” thing is supposed to kick in…
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.
Meh.
I used to do all my own work on my vehicles. Today you need a pro. I stay current on programming tech and the needs around the house. I can now afford to take my car into get worked on. Not that there is shit that a backyard mechanic can do today. I did buy a code reader for the cars so that I have an idea of what might be up when the check engine light goes on.
As far as Facebook and such, I could certainly DO it. I play live chess online against people from all over the world. And am learning to play guitar from online sources.
Some shit (IMHO) is just that. I certainly don’t need to contact everyone I know every day. If I need to, I already have three ways to do that.
I have an ungodly fear of developing a Tourettes kind of thing, and start saying out loud all of the crude, nasty crap that I currently keep under my breath. Dirty alternate song lyrics particularly come to mind. But yeah, my Mom lost it before her body did. I’m just like her. I’ll take the 93 years, but not being coherent through part of it will suck. But then I won’t know. Right?
I am planning on shouting crap outloud anyway. So I am not afraid of that. As far as knowing you have dementia or not. Til my MIL was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she definately knew something wasn’t ok. She cried and fought us alot. We had to physically take her carkeys, and convince her over and over her care giver was not a criminal who snuck in. She couldnt remember FIL died, we had to break it to her at least 20 times. It was awful.
Um…well…I was thinking that…err…what was the question?
On the tech-savvy part, I’m already there in many ways. I’m in my early sixties and frequently befuddled by how to access stuff on my smartphone, why the icons moved, and frustrated by it’s apparent scheme to alter its function every time I pick it up. I can hand it off to either of my 20-something kids and it’s fixed in a jiffy. I think a lot of this is due to drastic changes in user interfaces (not just graphical). Picking a random year in the past:
-In 1975, I could walk into any house in America, turn on the TV and tune to a channel – effortlessly. Now, I need customized knowledge of the homeowner’s setup to even start.
-In 1975, I could confidently adjust the heating on any car on the road. If I wanted to switch to “vent” a brief glance at where to position the lever/knob, then slide till it clicks. Now, in my vehicle, you find the weird icon on the touchscreen the means “heater/ac”, touch it, then find the colorful shape that (apparently) means “outside air”, then press the other orange square with an arrow coming out, that seems to mean “route to front vents”. My wife’s and kid’s cars have entirely different control flows to accomplish the same task.
-In 1975, when HR wanted a list of dependents, they sent a printed form with a box that clearly says “List of Dependents” and you wrote down the names. Yesterday in the same situation (literally), I get an email with a link. Their link took me to a benefits website with lots of primary colors and pretty shapes swooping by at about once per second. As I scanned this moving coloring book, I finally puzzled out the benefits category choices. They were: “My Health”, “My Wealth”, “My Money”, “My <something>Wallet”, and “My Wellbeing”. You tell me – which one of those is the likely choice for listing dependents? As a befuddled oldster, I had to wander thru each set of categories until finally finding it buried beneath several cutesie-wootsie colorful boxes (all rounded of course, we don’t want to upset the children with scawy sharp corners!).
Don’t even get me started on icons. Seriously - can anyone puzzle out what these tiny shapes mean? Mankind spent centuries developing writing and we’re now discarding it in favor of simple pictographs.
I think a large part of senior citizens’ apparent incompetence dealing with tech is that we’re confused by the user interface, not the device. And if it matters, after the HR task I returned to my job writing UAV flight control software.
This. I know I’ll probably get there, I hope I’m not there yet.
but I supposed so long as I have a cloud to yell at, I’ll be OK.
Hell no, my grandpa is 88 and not befuddled at all…if anything he causes other people to be befuddled by his aggressively perfectionist personality. He grew up around gangsters and racketeers in Brooklyn, then he was trained by the Army and sent to Korea to staff a POW camp where he had to deal with putting down a harrowing riot during which an American general was kidnapped, then upon returning to the US he became a skilled tradesman and made a very good living operating various complex machines and making very savvy investments which paid off big time and allowed him and my grandmother to live a very comfortable retirement, indulging his passion for traveling and gambling (complex games like craps, mind you, not stupid slot machines and shit,) as well as spend about $850,000 at Toys R’Us when I was a kid. My Grandpa was also an early adopter of personal computers and regularly uses Skype to communicate with the family…so, fuck no, he’s not befuddled and if I inherited his personality (which I’m often told that I did), I won’t be either.
Also, a few years ago my grandparents got a scam phone call telling them that their grandson (me) had gotten in trouble with the law and was being detained and needed bail money or something…some kind of really dirty, audacious scheme that apparently is a way that older people get conned out of their money. They knew immediately that it was bullshit, called me to verify that I was indeed safe at home and not sitting in a holding cell with a 300-pound man who would violate their handsome young grandson at any moment if they didn’t cough up their credit card number, and then we had a good laugh about it. They do not fall for bullshit, they have taught me all my life to not be a sucker…befuddled they ain’t.
I do realize that some old people just do get to a point where they’re susceptible to being taken advantage of, and I take this very seriously and have NO tolerance for anyone who is out to scam the elderly. In my professional life I crossed paths with a contractor who was a real son of a bitch, a guy who specialized in doing “repairs” for seniors selling their homes so they could move to assisted living…cutting corners all over the place, using substandard materials and horrifically sloppy workmanship, and “forgetting” to fix things and playing dumb when I tried to call him out on it. I reported his dishonorable ass to every authority that I could reach out to, including the larger company that his firm is a subsidiary of, and hopefully he’s blackballed from the industry.
I’m sure I’ll be even more clueless re: technology than I currently am at 57. That’s fine, as I prefer “tangible” things. I anticipate I’ll just learn enough to maintain the minimal media contact I desire. And a whole lot will go on that I have no interest in and am unaware of.
Re: scams, I pretty much expect nothing from nobody, so if someone tries to sell me something I didn’t ask for, I assume I’ll be able to say “No.” I’m fortunate enough that my savings are sufficient and my wants modest enough that I don’t need any “investments” I don’t understand. And I can afford to buy new and obtain service from reputable entities.
The day I am too incompetent to do so will be a good sign I’d better start thinking of how to shuffle off this mortal coil.
I have noticed a slowing of my mental faculties lately and am hoping it gets no worse. Not much, but a forgetting of things that I know I know. When watching They Died with their Boots On the other night, discussing Errol Flynn’s squeeze: “Oh, she was in Gone with the Wind. You know, the one who married Ashley and got Scarlett all riled up… dammit!” Twenty minutes later, “Melanie and Olivia de Havilland!”
I suppose it’s genetic. When I was young my father had the habit of reading the paper from front to back, literally. He would read the front page first, the second page next, and so on, remembering and picking up the thread of a story continued on page seven when he got to it. When he got to his sixties he mourned that he couldn’t do that any more; he had to turn to the back of the paper to continue properly.
Ironically, my older kid has barely any technical skills beyond the basics required to install an app or watch a video. On the other hand, I just built another computer a few weeks ago which included a bit of research on all the new technology since my last build a few years ago. My mom asked him for help with her WiFi the other week and he was hopeless (the solution I gave her – which worked – was "unplug it for a minute and plug it back in; apparently no one else thought of this). I would feel comfortable looking up directions root my phone, he wouldn’t begin to know what “root your phone” means.
So here’s hoping I either stay technologically savvy or else my younger kid does better because I don’t see a time when my older one is programming the VCR for me. On the other hand, maybe 5 years back I got taken by a blacktopping scam so we all have chinks in our armor.
I think that, in addition to normal ageing issues, it depends largely on one’s younger life. My mom, for instance, relied on my dad for home and auto maintenance, bill paying, home/auto insurance selection and issues, etc. She never lived on her own, literally going from high school and living with her parents to married and living with my dad. Now that he is gone, she is in her 70’s and “befuddled” by many of these things because she had very little experience dealing with them. My wife will likely be befuddled about car maintenance when I’m gone, because someone else has always handled that for her. I’m sure that there will be things that befuddle me as I grow older, I just don’t know now what they may be.
Yes. Now get your damn ball and get the Hell of my lawn!
Oh, perfect timing. Guess what? They found the car! It took two weeks, but still.
Um… I’m not sure what to say except be very careful who you let into your home. I don’t think this was your average girl, though. Don’t trust your emotional instincts about people over what only time can teach you about their motives. That’s what I learned. We let our guard down.
Not sure how to share details in a meaningful way, though. Just… If you’re a swinger, meet at a hotel or otherwise neutral location? I suppose.
I am so excited to see the car again. 