Let me explain, modern tech is designed to be super user friendly, so friendly babies can use it. In fact babies do use it, I see babies on iPads all the time watching videos where spider-man impregnates Elsa.

Meanwhile, our parents and grandparents grew up in a time where you had to crank a car to get it started, and if you wanted audio in your movies you had to learn to, or find a guy who could play the piano. Tech was WAY harder to use back in the old timey days.

So grandpa, I supposed to believe you can figure out how a telegram works but you're confused about what the "send" button does on Gmail? Lets be honest you just want attention now don't you!

I can also back this up by the fact a lot of older people do manage to figure out how to use technology when they want it bad enough, like when my dad managed to put 6 gigs of muscle mommy porn on a remote, wifi connected, password protected hard drive so my mom wouldn't find it. Oh but you need my help to figure out how to change your Facebook password hun?

  • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Many boomers like playing helpless for assistance or avoidance. Learned helpless is very real and people just accept it with boomers and tech. They understand their skills are weak, but instead of putting a good-faith effort into learning, they use this to condition themselves to never adjust settings or explore the UI, lest it trigger their fear of something breaking.

    While their ineptitude is certainly exaggerated, there's definitely some truth to it. They went their whole lives not forging intuitions for things we have been using for most of our lives. Modern UIs only really make sense because of long-standing familiarity. Most "intuitive" design is only legacy conditioning. Zoomers would struggle to record a cassette mixtape if given the resources. They just aren't familiar with the process and interface. Boomers' best brain days were in the VCR era, so they take more examples to form an intuition and have trouble extrapolating new experiences to other similar ones, which is why they never seem to have learned how to do anything basic.

    Want to watch the same phenomena unfold in millenials / gen Z?

    Ask them to switch from:

    • Windows to Linux
    • Twitter to Mastodon
    • Reddit to Lemmy
    • Apple products to anything else

    Most of these are within the same realm of difficulty as:

    • signing a PDF
    • creating an email account
    • applying for a job
    • changing your vehicle's oil

    i.e. stuff everyone is capable of, but only do because they have to. Most Linux distros have a GUI installer that is no more difficult that the Windows initial setup process (ok, after booting from USB).

    Suddenly people who mock boomers for being luddites come up with millions of reasons why they can't do it. Some of them might be true, but it's mostly preemptive defense mechanism against learning (fear or the unknown). People who only use their PCs for web apps and email will invent new ways they may eventually use their machine.

    The difference is that their fear of unfamiliarity scares them into wanting someone to walk them through it. They don't want to explore on their own, they want their nephew, some corporation, a customer service rep, or an AT&T salesman to walk them through it.

    This is exactly the same as boomers, but without the social norm being acceptance that they can't figure it out without help.

  • Gorb [they/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    It's easier to ask someone else to do the thinking for you than do it yourself. If you have a readily available computer geek then why learn? Most people I know including myself only put the effort in to learn when all other alternatives are unavailable or if they genuinely enjoy the subject which i can guarantee most boomers don't.

  • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    We really do though my dude I can feel myself getting dumber as time moves forward it's embarrassing

    And I'm not even that old