Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
Personal computers were introduced around 1975 and were widespread in offices by 1985. The Internet was widely available by 1995.
Yes, there was a cohort of people who grew up and became adults without Internet-connected computers in their lives. Those people are dead. Baby Boomers in their 70s, 80s and 90s used networked PCs 40 years ago.
The idea that grandmas and grandpas, much less parents and aunts and uncles, are inexperienced with technology is obsolete and meaningless. Enough already.
Bruce Elrick 🇨🇦
@evan My 30ish-year old sons are experienced with technology as users, but are in no way what I'd call "power users". My 83-year-old mom used computers in work and uses an Android phone and a Chromebook today, but when I ask her to describe what she sees on the screen when I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem of hers remotely, she does /not/ have the concepts of windows and tabs withing windows, and bars (menu bars, widget bars, scroll bars,...) within both as in her mental model.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
🙄
Yes, there exist old people who are inexperienced with technology.
No, that does not mean that all old people are inexperienced with technology.
∃ x ( old(x) ∧ inexp(x) ) ⇏ ∀ x ( old(x) → inexp(x) )
It also doesn't mean it's OK to keep using "old people" as a synonym for "inexperienced with technology".
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@lambic What's the value of this?
I'm just saying not to use "old people" as a synonym for "technologically inexperienced".
Even if there are *some* old people who are technologically inexperienced, it's still not a reasonable analogy to use.
Why is it so important to everyone to contradict that? Is it so great to say dumb things about old people?
Lambic
@evan there are still plenty of olds who barely touched computers before they got their first smart phone and are still relatively clueless.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@nick My point is that not everyone over 30 is technologically illiterate, and phrases like "easy enough for my mother to use" are sexist, ageist, and not even meaningful.
Nick Sloan
@evan I don’t think you intend to be making the argument that all (or most) parents and grandparents spent their careers in offices, because that would be a pretty major class blind spot.
I think basic technology literacy even among millennials and later is likely much lower than you might expect. The idea is obsolete because we know that it is also your cousin and nephew and grandchild as well.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@jerome 🙏🏼
Jérôme
@evan yep! People still talk about “grand parents” using tech. Meanwhile my mom close to 80 of course used computers through a big part of her professional career. And people keep repeating this non sense.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@blogdiva All I'm asking is that people don't use ageist stereotypes like "so easy my grandma can use it."
I can't stop you, though. Go ahead if it's important to you. 🤷🏻♂️
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
you are assuming my grandparents and parents were of your same social class.
my nana sent telegraphs well into the 1980s. that was the height of tech communications for most poor Puerto Ricans and latinoamericans of not just her generation, mind you. a money transfer is a telegraph and that's how my family circulated money well into the 2000s.
never forget the class divide. Bill Gates was a capitalist nepobaby who had access to computers from a very early age. that's his genius.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
If you were born before 1945, hi! 👋🏼 Nice to see you on the Fediverse. I'm glad you're here.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
Kalle Kniivilä
@evan I grew up and was adult for several years without internet. Not dead yet. Just saying.
🤪
Maj - 🇨🇦
@evan arguing semantics ! (Complimentary!)
🇨🇦 CleoQc 🍁🦜🧶🚐🌈
@evan
My kids (late 20s) both of them work in tech and yet they come to me, their mom, born in the 60s, to fix their computer problems. I am more computer savvy than they are.
Now one thing I'll bring up is that old people do need accommodation for apps and software . Not due to lack of competencies, but rather due to deteriorating eyesight. Yes, I need a bigger text font, most apps won't let me.
@nick
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@lambic No, I was asking that people stop using a common stereotype.
Lambic
@evan i missed the context of it being used as an analogy, i thought you were saying everyone is computer literate now so we can stop factoring that in during development.
Jean-François Mezei
@evan At uni. I took a computer architecture and assembler classes. I understad how a bunch of and/or gates can allow "if" and "add" commands etc. And understand how a machine processes op codes and references to addresses in RAM.
When PSION reeased its series 5 with proprietary formats, while the hardware was Arm based, the excuse I was given for not documenting file formats as they had done for Series 3 was that it was all object oriented and there were no file formats.
(cont)
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@jessamyn Right. But it would be stupid to say, *because* she was born in the 1970s, she's not experienced with cars. The generation that never saw cars and for whom cars became ubiquitous during their adulthood was born before 1900.
I'm not sure why everyone is hanging onto this one so hard. Do we all like ageist stereotypes that much? Is it so hard to let go of them?
Jessamyn
@evan I feel like we've had cars for well over a century but there are still a lot of people who don't know how to drive or do it poorly. Access to technology doesn't necessarily mean experience with it.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@airwhale lol
Tormod
Lately, I'm finding myself being the same age as old people, and it's frankly quite disturbing.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@detritus @lambic when people say, "It's so easy my grandmother could use it," they're using an old person as a synonym, or maybe it's better to say an example, for a person inexperienced with technology.
steev hise
@evan you’re straw-manning. Who does what you’re complaining about? Old people being bad with tech is a stereotype but it’s not a synonym. I don’t see people using it as a synonym.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@maj and I were discussing this this morning! The people who have the least cognitive surplus to waste on bad interfaces are those with active, engaged lives in the real world.
"So easy an airline pilot could use it" would be a better term. We all want that person as focused as possible. Let's give them intuitive, concrete interfaces that let them quickly make the right decisions and take the right actions.
steev hise
Rob Ricci
@evan @detritus @lambic I find 'congressperson' (or substitute your local equivalent) as a good stand-in for someone with low tech literacy
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
Also, in an earlier version of this post, I said that the generation before the Baby Boomers, sometimes called the Silent Generation, is dead. That wasn't strictly true; about 10% of that generation worldwide is still alive. It also wasn't very thoughtful to write off so many real people as a rounding error. There are some indignant responses to my original post, which I have changed to "mostly passed". I'm sorry for what I said.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@timbray 💔
Tim Bray
@evan Us boomers are starting to fade pretty fast, too.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@splicer well, that makes one of us.
Steve Scotten
@evan Though I pushed back on the previous toot, this one is so thoroughly correct that even a Jerk on the Internet™ like me can't find a way to play "well actually" games with it.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@talesfc great! I'm glad you're here.
Tales Costa
@evan As far as I can tell, I am still alive
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@devnull I don't know what you want here, champ.
Ageist stereotypes about technology are wrong on two fronts.
First, because any ageist stereotypes are shitty.
Second, because they are increasingly inaccurate as generations that are familiar with technology age.
🐧DaveNull🐧 ☣️pResident Evil☣
@evan No, The Internet was "NOT widely available" by 1995.
Many people, especially non-white immigrants, couldn't afford an internet subscription at home.
Many people grew up until they were (almost) adulta, including people who DO "understand tech" and are still very much alive, not even that old
Not everyone work in offices with computers… Also most people who work with computers in offices have no idea of how they work and don't "understand technology", no matter of their age ranges…
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@devnull by 1995, 15% of US households had online services or the Internet.
By 2005, 70% did.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
It sounds like you feel like that doesn't count as "widely available".
You're right that many people did not have access to computers or the Internet at work or at home.
Some still don't.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@devnull I think it's still fair to say that as a cohort Boomers have had access to technology for 50 years. If you don't, because of how you define "access to technology", that's fine.
Can we at least both agree that dumb stereotypes about age and technology should be avoided?
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
If you are unconvinced that ageist stereotypes are entirely inaccurate, maybe just don't use them because it's a shitty thing to do. Stereotypes don't have to be 100% false for us to avoid them.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
steev hise
@evan it’s a metaphor, an analogy, but it’s not a synonym.
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