They’re in their 60’s, finally convinced them.
They say things like “This is the same…”
and I’m like
“Ya because that’s Firefox, the only program you use…”
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
They’re in their 60’s, finally convinced them.
They say things like “This is the same…”
and I’m like
“Ya because that’s Firefox, the only program you use…”
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
We must live in entirely different realities then. I’m 50, and I find myself being the goto guy for anything tech for anyone between 15 and 40 in my environment. It just so happens that most tech savvy people in my environment are between 45 and 65 years old.
What country is this?
What, in 2024, makes you think anyone’s environment is relegated to any one country? But if you must know, it’s a large part of the US, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Pakistan, Egypt, Mozambique, and about 15 other countries. There are some very technically skilled folks between 25 - 35 years old, but the percentage of that group pales in comparison.
You might be misunderstanding what I’m saying. I haven’t said that there aren’t any in the 40+ crowd that are tech savvy, just the overwhelming majority arent.
It’s not me who’s just spouting this, I’m paraphrasing a study that was done that found these results:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
I did read the study before responding. You are talking about the abilities for computer use for age ranges. The study talks about the range between 16 and 65 years old, yet does not segregate into shorter age ranges, it generalizes in that broad range. However, you do mention smaller age ranges, and I countered that, in my experience, your assessment is inaccurate.
I said we live in different realities because:
I’ll go even further. My kids (9 and 11 years old) are better trained to use anything thrown at them regardless of UX, because I take the time to take them through logic and common sense exercises with different systems regularly, which is way more than can be said about the upcoming generation. Kids today are being taught to “do this always” for any step instead of pushing them to figure out how to work out stuff. This creates a train of thought that’s detrimental to them because their brains will get use to “this is how it’s done”, effectively blocking the “and what happens if I do this instead?”. Does that make sense?
However, people from my generation, who started becoming adults when computers (regardless of OS or brand/manufacturer) were just becoming mainstream in households and workplaces, we had to adapt to how things worked as they evolved with little to no help. This is what allowed us to still be able to keep up with anything that shows up new, all the evolution of software and hardware over the years, and the new technologies.
I am all too aware that there are some seriously skilled and smart younger individuals out there. These are curious and risk-taking people that are always hungry for knowledge. I know quite a few people like this, but this, unfortunately, is not the norm, again in my experience. Similarly, there’s a bunch of people from my generation that just learned the basics to be able to go about their day, and never learned how to change a freaking DNS address in their device.
Having said that, my response to your original comment remains, based on my first hand experience on how skills across age ranges differ in a generalized context over many different countries and cultures.
You keep referencing your own personal tech adeptness as some sort of gotcha against what the study found. This is exactly what they say. People well-versed in tech greatly overestimate the general public’s tech abilities.
You are in your own bubble. Your kids are good at tech because YOU are good at tech. Just peruse through your posting history. You’re posting about hacker conferences and running local Joplin services. You are NOT the average tech consumer. Congratulations on being surrounded by like minded peers. You are not the average.
The findings of the study went absolutely over your head. You’re clearly very tied to your personal experience and cannot see outside of it so any more interaction or discussion would be a waste of both of our times. Take care.
You’re correct, the older I get, the less I care about things outside my circle, but the fact remains, that study you are pushing does not segregate the age range. They talk about the broader 16-65 years old, and you reference the segregation based on your personal experience teaching those age ranges you point out.
Now, out of curiosity, how is that different from what I’m doing?
You may be right, someone here is arguing for the sake of it.
You have a great day too, buddy.