Don't You Hate It?

Since several years ago, but particularly lately that the number of Internet users has increased substantially, publicists tend to portray seniors as a kind of retards whose "big" achievement in life is have learned to turn on a computer after a really retard-looking youngster have taught him/her how to do it.

For young adults, teenagers and children coming into the online world is novelty and wonder, but for most of us this is an aged topic of not major relevance at all because most of us have been online for years!

Even for those who have come recently, and might have come after their children let them know how, what really upsets me is the advertising tagging seniors as individuals that are behind what's going on, and really fool to get into technology.

Any thought on this you want to share?

 

Our generation are the ones that used the first computers where patience was indeed a very much needed virtue. Our input into those primitive home desktops helped the development of what is used today and of which we should justifiably take credit for.

All problems were shared to get through problems and pass on tips and these help/discussion sessions were also the forerunners to what is now Social groups which is also thanks to us oldies.

Its nice to know that this latest generation are just improving on what we started Carlota

 

I'm reminded of a day when I was in a shop looking for a laptop. The assistant, who was a lad either in his late teens or just out of them, was talking to me as though I were a particularly slow-witted small child. When I suggested that I actually knew a little about IT matters, having spent some considerable years as a computer programmer and systems analyst, the look on his face was quite something to behold.

 

You do have to smile though Tom. I show them the photo below and tell them it was when my laptop was delivered. Most of today's generation would be just as lost with our old type computers/floppy dics etc along with dial phones. And I doubt if they could cope with dial up. (Remember the dial up tone that could make or break you )

 

Before I was a programmer, I was a computer operator for a while. Paper tape (great fun piecing broken paper tape together), punched cards, magnetic tape and discs that weighed about 18 tons and gave you forearms like Popeye...those were the days!

 

Did my teleprinting time Tom and how scary do they look now

 

Here's an implement I remember from my early days of programming:



Once you'd been doing it for a while, you could really get those fingers moving...

 

Yes I learned long ago that when it comes to things like computers and electronics I am certain I know more then the kid working at Best Buy, or half of the geek squad for that fact. ironic isn't it? The thought that seniors are totally lost on this stuff. I was on the internet way before it was what it is today, I have to laugh because if today's youth had to endure what we did they might have very well given up. The joy of waiting while a single image loaded for 20 minutes, and golly no streaming anything. Awwwh remember when animated gifs first started, boy that seemed so cool didn't it.

i will say though that some of this phone stuff is just to much for me, there are a few phones that just do not seem to make to much sense in the way that they are designed out for usage. The Iphone seems to be pretty straight forward, but I would pass on some of the others for sure.

 

I do hate it when it is implied that anyone over thirty has no idea what to do with a computer. I worked as a programmer also, worked at Fannie Mae on the conversion from paper data to computers, the first savings and loan and bank big housing breakdown. Yep, I know a think or two about computers.

 

I don't think it is so much of the computer but the software for it. There is software for everything.

I've taken apart a computer just to see the inside of it for myself. I had the specs beside me so that I could tell what was what. Now understanding the jargon is another story.

 

Now that you mention it this can be annoying. After all, we know more about computers the younger generation. We were around when these first came into exitstence, if those kids saw those large wall units they would be intimadated, yet for us that was the introduction to the computer. Also, we learn to type on a little ancient device (well to kids it is) known as the typewriter. To me this taught me more about the proper keyboard then a laptop does. So, I say we have a bit more experience and instead of treating us like we are dumb about technology how about treating us with the respect because we have our own knowledge to share about technology and where it has been.

 

This recalls me my first encounter with a computer in the mid-70s when my father took me to visit a friend at the programming department in a bank. They used huge computers, if not like this, very close and, if my memory serves me good, they were programmed in Cobol, not sure about this fact, but remember they had to use perforated cards with a sequence of numbers 0 and 1 that I liked to have for playing purposes, hence the good guy used to give me all of those that were mistakenly perforated.

Yes, we are more knowledgeable that most people believe we are, and if it weren't for our generation, we might probably be using computers like the one portrayed here, or any of the other devices in those photos posted above, LOL

 

COBOL, now you're talking...I wonder how many COBOL programs I wrote. Thousands of them.

 

I know how to use the computer and surf the web. But that's all. I tried to resist the Internet for a very long time!! It just got too inconvienant to not have it.