Many Baby Boomers are late and sometimes reluctant arrivals to the computer and cell phone age. Even if their careers required them to be computer-savvy (in full recognition that this meant something different in the 1990s and early 2000s than it does today), the rapid pace of technological advancement means that their skills are out of date even if they retired within the last decade. I count myself in this group. It is not hard for us to keep up with the changes – they come incrementally and we can adjust because we have a basic skill level that allows for gradual growth. But many older people are frustrated and even irate because they find that they increasingly have to be tech-savvy (or at least tech-capable) to function in the 2020s.
Osher Program members bring with them a variety of levels of skill when it comes to working with computers and cell phones. Most commonly, our members function reasonably well in this environment. They use email, know how to search the internet, and use apps with some facility. Some are fully competent in all of these areas. Some live on their laptops (raises hand sheepishly) or their phones. But they are still like ESL learners trying to become fluent in speaking English; cell phones and computers will never be their native language. Native speakers of technology (their children and grandchildren) know intuitively what to do when technology jams them up. Older people like me don’t. We have to logic it through (with our limited knowledge of how all this works) and we sometimes end up totally blocked and frustrated. That’s when we call a grandchild for help.
I was thinking about this today because I’m teaching a couple of Osher classes this semester and I’ve been communicating with the class members online – emailing them information about upcoming classes, linking them to google docs that I’ve placed online for them to read, and sending them YouTube videos. Every time I do this, I discover people that don’t really know how to use email and don’t know how to download a document. They don’t know how to search for something online. To them, “google” looks like someone misspelled “goggles.” One person asked me to print out the documents and mail them to her. I’m not going to do that.
And some of them are bizarrely proud of their ineptitude. Last fall, an acquaintance bragged that “I don’t even have a cellphone” and “I have a desktop, not a laptop.” One of the reasons we were talking was because he was interested in delivering some lectures to local community groups but had no idea how to use Powerpoint. When I told him that there were YouTube videos and other instructional materials online, he said he doesn’t do “any of that.” He wanted someone to make his slides for him. When I told him that he could probably find someone to help him, but that he would have to navigate the slides on his own during the presentation, he was put off. In the same conversation he remarked that he was also interested in serving on a community board that I had served on in the past; when I told him that the board was largely meeting via Zoom these days (even after the pandemic, this group finds it easier and more efficient to meet online), he huffed, “well, that leaves me out.” Yes. Yes it does.
News flash: the world is not going to go back to the way it was in the 1980s because you want it to. People who are this resistant to change make me think of American expats who stay in their expat bubble when they move to another country. Most expats embrace the culture they moved to – after all, why else did they move there? But there are resisters. They don’t try very hard to learn the native language (other than what they need to order meals, buy things in the shops, and give directions to their maid and gardener), they resist new foods, they don’t go out of their way to meet people outside of their expat bubble, they are annoyed that the rooms and refrigerators are small, and they complain when things don’t work as efficiently as they did back in the States. They know that their objections won’t change the culture in the place that they’ve moved to, but they continue to resist anyway.
People who resist modern technology fall in the same category as disgruntled expats. I recognize the difference; they didn’t move to another country but rather probably feel that they have been invaded by an alien culture. The result is the same; they have to adjust or they’ll miss out. Every week in the local paper, I see stories about people who no longer go to Colonial Williamsburg or the College because most of the parking lots require you to pay through an app. They get testy when a restaurant asked them to scan a QR code to access the menu. They don’t have apps for airlines, chain restaurants, or other services. They refuse to conduct any financial transactions online. As the world moves forward around them, they find they can access less and less.
Their feelings are best expressed in the title of a 1961 musical, Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.
Over 50 years ago, Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi wrote presciently about this problem in their 1970 book Future Shock. Some of you may remember reading this. I do. The main theme of the book is that the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected and suffering from stress and disorientation. They coined the term “information overload” in their discussion of the components of this phenomenon.
The Tofflers followed this publication with three additional books: The Third Wave (1980), Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990), and Revolutionary Wealth (2006). The thesis of the last book is that public, private, and social institutions left over from an era of mass production are unsuited to a new global civilization. Alvin Toffler died in 2016 at the age of 88. Heidi died three years later at the age of 89.
We can only imagine what they would have had to say about the technological changes and information overload in the years since their deaths.
So true. It’s time consuming, frustrating, but ultimately rewarding to soldier on to be a contributing member of society. And each of us must soldier on for our community, country, and the world. Onward!
There’s a lot to unpack in this essay, Karen. I’ve had similar conversations with people who have chosen to stay behind and are pretty much unwilling to change, even when help is offered. So sad. Thanks for shining a light on this situation.