[toyg]

> Older people, by virtue of having been around longer should be more capable of recognizing the pattern of new innovation

Not necessarily. The current generations of "old people" have always had TV; they have always had books, newspapers and magazines; they have always had cassettes for music (vinyl was the reserve of a rich minority and CDs weren't mainstream until the '90s). They have always had cars, trains, electricity, airplanes. They were already 30+ by the time videogames and PCs came about, which is why they left them to their kids. In fact, they saw the digital revolution happening in the workplace and were taken aback, to the point where, 30 years later, they are still not particularly comfortable with it.

The generations that saw real technological revolutions, innovations changing their way of life in radical ways, were the ones that fought the first and second World War. A lot of them didn't have home telephones or electricity while growing up, often even running water was missing; they didn't have cars, trains were expensive, and the thought of flying was just ludicrous. They bought the first radios and TVs and marveled at silent movies. Those generations could recognise change; the current oldies mostly saw marginal improvements, all considered. They spent most of their time actually dealing with social changes, rather than technological; which is why they are responding to the current wave of changes with a barrage of social prescriptions (i.e. silly new laws) -- they can see the social change happening, although they don't really understand the technological underpinnings of it.