I’m a member of the “old” generation, apparently anyone born early enough to think that Star Wars is titled Star Wars, period.
We’re not all alike. Looking back over the decades, I see a line drawn even within the Boomers. People born before 1950 seldom seem to have taken easily to computers, while people born after 1950 adapted well. (That’s not the same as saying that they’re all on Tik Tok today, of course. And that’s a small sampling. Add on qualifiers as you choose.)
Nevertheless, that distinction was noticeable among my friends and the people at work when we got our first computers in 1985. I don’t know why, although I blame it on the Beatles. The pre-1950 crowd stuck with Elvis and folk music and that’s apparently antithetic to computer lore.
I used to try to unfuck my elderly cousin’s computer for her. She had an antique that was running on a version of Windows that was not only no longer supported, but needed to be intubated just to stay alive. I finally gave her my gaming computer and a decent printer so she’d stop calling me every other week.
Huh, if old people don’t know shit from computers, how come my kids are always asking me how to fix their computer issues? I argue that from some standpoints I AM a digital native–my father worked for IBM so I was aware of computers back when they took up entire floors and had no screens or keyboards, learned programming on 8088 and 8080 8 bit processors and have been upgrading and learning new shit ever since. My kids stubbornly remained technotards who use computers but don’t understand a lick of how they work so my revenge is making sure my grandkids fucking well know how to manage their technology and how it works in the greater world around us.
Then again I’m a pinko progressive so maybe that’s the dividing line. New things don’t scare or affront me and if I can adapt to my city becoming Homeless Shooting Range Central With Attendant Zombie RV Meth Labs as a major business sector I can definitely figure out how my Android phones work. Of course, being employed by T-Mobile for quite a few years and being a very early adopter of the smartphone probably worked in my favor.
I don’t think age is nearly as much of a factor as people make it out to be. I mean, my 85 year old mother refuses to deal with computers or even cell phones but then again she managed converting not one but two enterprise level companies from paper to computer accounting systems–she CAN use them, she just doesn’t WANT to. A little frustrating when I want to share cute animal videos with her but there you have it.
Punched cards! Thank dog I started when they were beginning to go out. I liked to listen to the old guys tell stories about programs that required two-tiered shopping type carts to move the cards to the card reader to run.
I actually had to use a punch card machine, but it was also in a class. I remember when we got the first TSO terminals. There were about 8 in a room (the TSO room) for about 15-16 programmers, and you had to limit your time to be fair to the others. I “liberated” the official sign from our TSO room that asked that people limit their sessions (when we each got our own individual TSO terminal on our desks!).
My sister always ask me for help…for her Chromebook. I don’t mind doing it, but she refuses to even try to figure it out on its own. I get tired.
I asked my kid if he wanted me to ask my contacts in his field about his job-hunting. He laughed “Next, I suppose you’re going to tell me to print my resume on a good rag bond paper…”
Sigh, I tried… but I’ll admit, all my perspectives are decades out of date.
Moi aussi. I’m 67 and have been working with computers since the mid 70s, doing hardware and software support at various stages. I’ve had an Apple ][e, the first Mac, several PCs, you name it (I mostly use an iMac now). I have installed Windows 1.0, NetWare 2.15c, various Dos versions, and numerous Linux versions; never did any programming though. Teens and 20s come to me for help and advice!
My father, on the other hand, was so thrown by the update from Windows 95 to 98 that he stopped using his computer altogether.
That might have been true 20-30 years ago but I don’t think it’s true today. Granted they may get confused about things like the cloud, apps, social media they’re not a part of. But computers have been commonplace for more than two decades now. Even my mother, who is in her mid 60s, has a smart phone. I’m not really convinced older people are scared when we invoke those technological buzzwords.
On the flip side, at work I often assist retired employees with accessing our HR information systems. This allows them to access paystubs, W-2 forms, and some other information they might need. And, well, despite having used computers at my company for the better part of 30 years, holy shit do some of them not understand the most basic of instructions like how to enter their username and password. Hmmm…I’m going to have to reconsider your thesis.
It’s all gotten so complicated. It was so much simpler in the Before Times, when all that was needed to commandeer the brains of our mindless population was to dump some fluoride in the water supply.
(FORTRAN II programmer here since 1968. 4900796 forever!)
The picture is well-known and available on-line. The term “bug” for a glitch in a machine was far from new at the time. But it was the first real bug! (A moth, actually.)
Interesting. My brother, born in 1942, was into Elvis and jazz, and ignorant of computers. I was born in late '45, and came of age in the '60s, and everything that implies, including The Beatles and computers. For the rest of our lives, there was a cultural divide separating us.
I remember one of the allegations was that she used BleachBit to delete files from her server. A great many people, including the Orange Ignoramus, thought that she literally poured a bottle of Clorox over a computer. You don’t have to be especially old to get sucked into conspiracies, but you do have to be especially stupid to get sucked into that one.
Please note that there are no educational courses in most consumer electronics.
If you do not have a large circle of friends who use “Device A”, you have little opportunity to understand “Device A”.
Dumbphones are continuing to enjoy a revival. Google searches for them jumped by 89% between 2018 and 2021, according to a report by software firm SEMrush.