Why do older people have a hard time using technology?

We didn’t have access to computers until the 1970s and 80s, and people my age were in their thirties or forties by then. We had already missed the really absorbent stage of brain development. But we were still able to figure out how to make a computer out of an old black and white TV and a tape recorder. You youngsters who can do this today, raise your hand. I’ll wait.

So it’s entirely possible that today’s technology will change fast enough to leave a lot of today’s young, smug geeks behind. Just as it did those of us who were once at the leading edge in our cohort.

But to someone my age - 71 - today’s technology is so much easier than what we had for technology, it would be pitiful if the young weren’t as good it.

What is your language's pangram?

Anyone who used a computer at all, knew enough to write a simple program from scratch. Today’s kids can operate programs all day long, year after year even when they know no coding at all. They don’t have to. In the old days we used to write little programs all the time, just to wind each other up. I once wrote a program where someone in my office could answer three questions: How tall are you? What is your favorite drink? What is your favorite baseball team, and the computer would tell you your initials!!!! Of course I had plugged in the answers and initials for everyone in the office in an if-then kind of format. But the less technical colleagues thought the computer was magical when they saw this. Good fun.

One summer in the late 1970s, I worked at the Texas Instruments gold assay lab. Some serious nerds worked with me and they played a trick, and had me inputting some data to a program someone wrote for fun. After about two or three minutes of inputting data, the monitor flashed DATA OVERFLOW!!! Then there was the sound of running water and a water level-line crept up the screen like a sink overflowing. When it reached the top of the screen, there were sparks, flashing lights and ZAPs and the whole screen suddenly went black. I broke the system?!?!

It’s a deceiving idea, that younger folks are more tech savvy and older folks are lost in technology. It’s kind of like thinking that primitive people weren’t good at fire-starting because they didn’t know how to operate a Bic lighter. Or maybe it’s the reverse: today’s youth are better at starting fires, than was primitive man, because of the Bic lighter. Either way, the credit goes to the lighter, not the cleverness of the youngster.

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Further, we had no drop-down multiple-choice menus and automatic log-ins. We couldn’t even get started if we didn’t know DOS or Basic. I think it was C:Logon and that would bring you to an empty green screen. You had to know more DOS programming or you went no further. Everything was case-sensitive and all software was custom. No in-house or on-line tech support either.

And it may change. Today’s young people may someday become inept at the next iteration of technology. Young people today grew up with the kind of technology we are using today; drop-down menus and some symbols that have become some kind of a standard. And they started when they were so young, it was easy to learn this stuff.

In a panic I turned around. Behind me, giggling into their hands, were a bunch of PhDs and assorted geeks who thought this was the highlight of the week.

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