[murjinsee]

Thanks for saying this! I work with phones and it's sad to hear people talk about the ever-widening gap technology places between them and their children.

Too many people from younger generations make fun of their parents for being technically illiterate. I spend an hour a week at least bringing my mom up to speed on Google Photos, iOS content management, etc.

It feels good seeing somebody learn how to do things for themselves, and you should hear your parents brag about you for your minor assistance.

[mindcrime]

I work with phones and it's sad to hear people talk about the ever-widening gap technology places between them and their children.

Meh. It's not an age issue. Anybody who's the parent of a contemporary teenager is probably a gen X'er themselves and when we were teenagers people said the same shit. Except back then it was "parents can't program their VCR's but the teenagers can". It was bullocks then and it's bullocks now.

It's an attitude / interest / personality thing (or something like that) not age. Remember, the oldest generations still hanging around include people who built the first computers in existence, and slightly younger ones include the people who created UNIX, VMS, C, etc.

Some people are interested in technology and have a natural inclination to poke around and figure out how shit works, and some don't.

[kuschku]

Indeed. My parents never had to use computers much, and only got a smartphone 2 years ago, but by now they can send GPG encrypted mail, can install apps — and understand why an app requesting permissions it shouldn't need isn't trustworthy, etc.

If you want to, you can always learn.

Most people just don't want to learn.

[ubernostrum]

Sort of parallel to mindcrime's comment: the thing that makes me sad is not necessarily the knowledge gap, but the pride people take in it. "I'm just not a computer person" is too often said happily, when being able to usefully interact with a computer is already a must-have skill for most decent jobs.