So my mother offered me $100.00 to setup her Samsung Smart TV today. Of course, I did it for free. It took me about an hour to mount the base on her TV, connect her blue-ray, configure the TV to her wireless, and figure out the remote. I told her that it was really easy, but for her it was a daunting task that was beyond her abilities. So I'm wondering if I will hit the same wall when I reach her age, if technology will advance to the point where I can no longer fend for myself. My son and daughter seem to pick up new devices without much trouble, as if it is second nature for them. Where I started on an Atari in my teens, my kids have been using technology since their early years. I'm just wondering whether age defines our ability to grasp new tech.
Some of us old people have been working on various forms of program design and implementation since its inception - some of my generation invented the foundations on which the whole present edifice is built. Even so, if we relax for a few years after retirement, we lose touch and have to learn how to use a new piece of equipment from the manual. The difference between the experienced and inexperienced is usually confidence: If Bowser's mother has never been much involved with electronic devices, she's probably afraid of them, while those who have worked with similar equipment before just assume it works much like its predecessors. So, if you understand today's equipment, you'll probably have the confidence to handle something unfamiliar in the future. The very young people of today might have a new sort of problem: they know which buttons to push, but the devices are so user-intuitive, they don't learn how it works. They're fine, as long as it does work; stymied if something goes wrong. And there is no guarantee that they'll always have the luxury of throwing away imperfect or stalled things.
My brother-in-law just recently retired. He was a programmer for a large company. He does make an effort to stay in touch with the new tech by reading articles and such. As for my mother, yes, she is very ignorant of current advances. She bought a cell phone awhile back but found that she couldn't use it because it was too difficult to understand. As for my son, he did build his own desk top computer, something that I would have done years back when I was younger.
I probably know more about the Commodore 64 operating system than I do about Windows or Android. In the old days you could understand the whole system pretty well but today most of us are limited to understanding as much as we need. I don't expect to get dumber as I get older but I do expect to understand a smaller and smaller subset.
Funny you should mention that, the commodore 64 was my first, uh, computer. It was the first machine on which I tried to program. We upgraded to the 128 several years later. Then came the Magnavox 386, the HP 486, the Pentium System, onward and onward. I started building my own desktops for a time, but when wireless came out, I started buying laptops for their convenience. I haven't built my own system in many years, yet I'm sure I could with enough research online.
There are diminishing returns, though. It keeps taking more and more effort to learn about things we care less and less about. I find I really don't need to vote for some wailing teenager or send pictures of my lunch, or body parts, to anybody.
And when I was growing up I heard a lot of people say they don't need to send people computer messages when they could just write a letter on paper and mail it. Every generation has a level of technology they are comfortable with.
I would suggest that complexity is irrelevant. The only thing that really matters regarding technology is how user-friendly and intuitive it is to operate. I would say that's the deciding factor in determining whether something has a design flaw or not. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
