4 ms·

“Old age” is made up–and this concept is hurting everyone

25 points by andyjohnson0 7y ago

rmilejczz 7y ago
> And don’t try to tell me the real issue is that older people aren’t tech savvy. Maybe that stereotype once contained a grain of truth—in 2000, just 14% of 65-plus America used the internet—but it’s no longer the case. Today, 73% of the 65-plus population is online, and half own smartphones. This is interesting to me, as while it certainly is true it doesn’t come close to saying what the author is trying to make it say imo. Yeah my grandparents have smartphones, I still wouldn’t call them tech savvy. I work as one of a small team of developers in a rather old (demographically) vocational company, and while our team doesn’t do IT work per se, all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. Further, it’s a constant pain point for me working with older people on software related issues, especially when it comes to user interface details. Management is constantly pushing for interfaces to be as plain, simple, and stupid as possible to ensure that all employees can use internal tools without needing assistance. Older people today do engage with technology but that doesn’t make them “tech savvy” and in my opinion they probably never will be. Subsequent generations (mine being one of the first) had the benefit of being introduced to computers at a very young age so to us it’s as natural as riding bike or making grilled cheese. I think that, no matter what we try to do, there’s no way to make older generations be “tech savvy” because they were deprived of that early exposure. I think older people absolutely do have a desire to be tech savvy, I just don’t see how we get there. I’ve thought about this often but I don’t know what the solution is. Overall great article, and I’m probably a lot dumber than anyone who works at MIT AgeLabs so my opinion probably should be taken with a grain of salt
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. I work with people much older than that who use collaborative tools and cryptocurrency and the only difference is that they apply themselves and that there are social benefits to understanding. A lot of older people find more social benefits from joking about how they dont understand with other ignorant people, it is a point of pride for them to have “never sent an email” because their friends say the same thing and thats it. You have to create an incentive and many people lack that. There is no quantifiable brain plasticity argument while there is a repeatable incentive argument.
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    This is extremely insightful and I’m going to try and find away to apply this concept at work! Thank you
- DanBC 7y ago
  > to us it’s as natural as riding bike or making grilled cheese. And yet you're incapable of building something that's usable. This is your failing, not theirs.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > And yet you're incapable of building something that's usable. What is this supposed to mean? I really don't understand who "you" is in this context or what "usable" means.
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    I work on a team and management sees our interfaces before our employees do so I hardly think this is a fair responses. Tech I build is used by everyone at my company every single day, thanks. Is this kind of personal attack the norm for you or have I offended you in some way? I’m new here so forgive me if this is just par for the course
- axaxs 7y ago
  But the definition of 'tech savvy', or its equivalent, is ever changing. In the mid century it was transistors, wires, even assembly. My father, for example, is able to wire up about anything. He once made some AC power to car cd player box that resembled, in my head, some makeshift movie bomb. He could rebuild engines, and about anything come to think of it. I have none of those abilities. I'm sure that made him savvy in his day. And in our old age, tech will look nothing like it does today. Largely I think we'll be in the same predicament.
- andyjohnson0 7y ago
  Most people don't desire to be "tech savvy" in the way you seem to be describing. They want tools that help them do useful things in their lives. And mostly I'd say they want those tools to simple and straightforward. If your org's management want "interfaces to be as plain, simple, and stupid" then I'd submit that they understand this. Context: I'm 50+, have been developing software professionally for 30 years, and I have a parent in his eighties.
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    I agree with this sentiment entirely, and I do think it’s our responsibility as software engineers to make accessible interfaces (if you work in a field where that is a concern). I don’t necessarily have a problem with mgmt and what they require, I love my company, I was just trying to highlight my experiences and add to the discussion
- LameRubberDucky 7y ago
  I think that many people you seem to think are tech savvy are really not. I'm 51 and I've been programming since 13, getting paid for it since around 20 years old. My kids are 21 and 19, they both use smartphones, so do my wife and I, I just picked up a OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. My kids know how to use the latest social media apps sure, but they don't know how anything behind that phone and computer work at all. I can write Android apps all day long but they wouldn't even know where to start. I had to teach my son how to punch a hole through the firewall to run a Minecraft server for his friends 5 or 6 years ago. After watching me build a few computers, he has now built his own top of the line rig. But he didn't just "know" that stuff because he's young, he had to have an interest and learn, from an old dude no less. It's just like people that drive cars, most of them do not know how cars work but they can still drive. I can also take a car apart and put it back together. I can do a ton of other technical things as well. It's not age, but interest in my opinion, that makes a person tech savvy. Please don't lump all people over 50 together. Many of us designed and built the tech that you are so proud of now. We stood on the shoulders of giants and so do you. Your time is coming as and "old person." Always remember that.
  - saltcured 7y ago
    Also, there is a real aspect of "old age," where cognitive function declines, taking savvy with it. It might be known as "dementia" or "senility" when it is very advanced, but subtle changes can happen for years or decades prior for some people. It's been painful watching an ~80 year old relative---definitely tech savvy for most of his life---as he slowly loses his upper-hand on his own technology. This is someone who worked on radar systems, cryptographic systems, computers, power electronics, control systems, and measurement systems in the military and civilian worlds from the 1960s to early 2000s. He built his own kit electronics for home audio and later a ZX-80 computer. He followed the whole PC revolution from the CP/M and DOS days to Windows 7. He participated in BBS systems in the 1980s and used the Internet since around 1991. He exposed his children and friends to science and tech. He followed countless changes from minicomputers and teletypes, to PCs with CRTs and text CLIs, to window-based GUIs. Then, he started to struggle with the abstractions of these same GUIs as well as web sites. He struggles to identify the boundaries between different programs and content, like some novice user who never understood how it was all put together. Worse, he is aware of this struggle and of his losses. I can see that it frustrates him daily. Once in a while, I'd say it terrifies him.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  >all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. This is called performative[0] ignorance, in the world view of the person interacting with you they are a senior person (older, longer time with the company) and you are a junior person (younger, less tenure) so it is their place to assign you tasks. The world has moved on but this whole "I don't know computers" act allows them to preserve their self perceived social status. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    Wow this is really interesting, never heard of this kind of cognitive bias
wnissen 7y ago
Life expectancy past 65 is not, in fact, increasing at nearly the rate of overall life expectancy, which is mainly driven by reduced infant and child mortality. This data is from the UK, not the US, but the curves are similar. In the last 30 years life expectancy for women who reach age 65 has increased only by about 4 years. People are living a few years longer than a generation ago, but not that many. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/public/news-item/are-we-too-complacent-about-life-expectancy https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/public/news-item/are-we-too...
blunte 7y ago
This is a complex topic with many (not-so-related) facets. From the employment perspective, there certainly are some companies where the benefits a more senior/experienced employee provide are wasted or ignored. In those cases, it makes sense for the company to replace the older worker with younger (cheaper and less opinionated) employee. Granted, I'm on the older side, so I'm not being ageist here. From a consumer/user perspective, it's more about understanding your user than their age specifically. But generally speaking, much older users have very different backgrounds and experiences; thus, their approach to using things may be considerably different from that of a younger person. That said, most user interfaces and product features probably don't fit any userbase well. So in a way, the sea of bad interfaces isn't ageist - it's just bad UX.
- moltensodium 7y ago
  You managed to take an article about ageism and somehow transform it into a UX problem because that's the prism you wanted to see the world through. Wow, that's really something else. You see this a lot on HN but this comment is really just breathtaking in the leaps it takes.
  - blunte 7y ago
    Subtitle of article: Products designed for older people reinforce a bogus image of them as passive and feeble. And elsewhere in the article: Half of older longtime job holders, meanwhile, are pushed out of their jobs before they planned to retire.
    - whycome 7y ago
      The fact that you so simply replied to that misguided comment with information rather than its much-deserved counter-attack really shows your age. Thank you.
  - whycome 7y ago
    > "Asking young designers to merely step into the shoes of older consumers (and we at the MIT AgeLab have literally developed a physiological aging simulation suit for that purpose) is a good start, but it may not be enough to give them true insight into the desires of older consumers."

25 points by andyjohnson0 7y ago

> And don’t try to tell me the real issue is that older people aren’t tech savvy. Maybe that stereotype once contained a grain of truth—in 2000, just 14% of 65-plus America used the internet—but it’s no longer the case. Today, 73% of the 65-plus population is online, and half own smartphones. This is interesting to me, as while it certainly is true it doesn’t come close to saying what the author is trying to make it say imo. Yeah my grandparents have smartphones, I still wouldn’t call them tech savvy. I work as one of a small team of developers in a rather old (demographically) vocational company, and while our team doesn’t do IT work per se, all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. Further, it’s a constant pain point for me working with older people on software related issues, especially when it comes to user interface details. Management is constantly pushing for interfaces to be as plain, simple, and stupid as possible to ensure that all employees can use internal tools without needing assistance. Older people today do engage with technology but that doesn’t make them “tech savvy” and in my opinion they probably never will be. Subsequent generations (mine being one of the first) had the benefit of being introduced to computers at a very young age so to us it’s as natural as riding bike or making grilled cheese. I think that, no matter what we try to do, there’s no way to make older generations be “tech savvy” because they were deprived of that early exposure. I think older people absolutely do have a desire to be tech savvy, I just don’t see how we get there. I’ve thought about this often but I don’t know what the solution is. Overall great article, and I’m probably a lot dumber than anyone who works at MIT AgeLabs so my opinion probably should be taken with a grain of salt

rolltiide 7y ago
> all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. I work with people much older than that who use collaborative tools and cryptocurrency and the only difference is that they apply themselves and that there are social benefits to understanding. A lot of older people find more social benefits from joking about how they dont understand with other ignorant people, it is a point of pride for them to have “never sent an email” because their friends say the same thing and thats it. You have to create an incentive and many people lack that. There is no quantifiable brain plasticity argument while there is a repeatable incentive argument.
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  This is extremely insightful and I’m going to try and find away to apply this concept at work! Thank you
DanBC 7y ago
> to us it’s as natural as riding bike or making grilled cheese. And yet you're incapable of building something that's usable. This is your failing, not theirs.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > And yet you're incapable of building something that's usable. What is this supposed to mean? I really don't understand who "you" is in this context or what "usable" means.
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  I work on a team and management sees our interfaces before our employees do so I hardly think this is a fair responses. Tech I build is used by everyone at my company every single day, thanks. Is this kind of personal attack the norm for you or have I offended you in some way? I’m new here so forgive me if this is just par for the course
axaxs 7y ago
But the definition of 'tech savvy', or its equivalent, is ever changing. In the mid century it was transistors, wires, even assembly. My father, for example, is able to wire up about anything. He once made some AC power to car cd player box that resembled, in my head, some makeshift movie bomb. He could rebuild engines, and about anything come to think of it. I have none of those abilities. I'm sure that made him savvy in his day. And in our old age, tech will look nothing like it does today. Largely I think we'll be in the same predicament.
andyjohnson0 7y ago
Most people don't desire to be "tech savvy" in the way you seem to be describing. They want tools that help them do useful things in their lives. And mostly I'd say they want those tools to simple and straightforward. If your org's management want "interfaces to be as plain, simple, and stupid" then I'd submit that they understand this. Context: I'm 50+, have been developing software professionally for 30 years, and I have a parent in his eighties.
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  I agree with this sentiment entirely, and I do think it’s our responsibility as software engineers to make accessible interfaces (if you work in a field where that is a concern). I don’t necessarily have a problem with mgmt and what they require, I love my company, I was just trying to highlight my experiences and add to the discussion
LameRubberDucky 7y ago
I think that many people you seem to think are tech savvy are really not. I'm 51 and I've been programming since 13, getting paid for it since around 20 years old. My kids are 21 and 19, they both use smartphones, so do my wife and I, I just picked up a OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. My kids know how to use the latest social media apps sure, but they don't know how anything behind that phone and computer work at all. I can write Android apps all day long but they wouldn't even know where to start. I had to teach my son how to punch a hole through the firewall to run a Minecraft server for his friends 5 or 6 years ago. After watching me build a few computers, he has now built his own top of the line rig. But he didn't just "know" that stuff because he's young, he had to have an interest and learn, from an old dude no less. It's just like people that drive cars, most of them do not know how cars work but they can still drive. I can also take a car apart and put it back together. I can do a ton of other technical things as well. It's not age, but interest in my opinion, that makes a person tech savvy. Please don't lump all people over 50 together. Many of us designed and built the tech that you are so proud of now. We stood on the shoulders of giants and so do you. Your time is coming as and "old person." Always remember that.
- saltcured 7y ago
  Also, there is a real aspect of "old age," where cognitive function declines, taking savvy with it. It might be known as "dementia" or "senility" when it is very advanced, but subtle changes can happen for years or decades prior for some people. It's been painful watching an ~80 year old relative---definitely tech savvy for most of his life---as he slowly loses his upper-hand on his own technology. This is someone who worked on radar systems, cryptographic systems, computers, power electronics, control systems, and measurement systems in the military and civilian worlds from the 1960s to early 2000s. He built his own kit electronics for home audio and later a ZX-80 computer. He followed the whole PC revolution from the CP/M and DOS days to Windows 7. He participated in BBS systems in the 1980s and used the Internet since around 1991. He exposed his children and friends to science and tech. He followed countless changes from minicomputers and teletypes, to PCs with CRTs and text CLIs, to window-based GUIs. Then, he started to struggle with the abstractions of these same GUIs as well as web sites. He struggles to identify the boundaries between different programs and content, like some novice user who never understood how it was all put together. Worse, he is aware of this struggle and of his losses. I can see that it frustrates him daily. Once in a while, I'd say it terrifies him.
fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
>all the employees over 50 can’t tell the difference between the Dev team and IT support. They have no clue, and explaining it to them is impossible. This is called performative[0] ignorance, in the world view of the person interacting with you they are a senior person (older, longer time with the company) and you are a junior person (younger, less tenure) so it is their place to assign you tasks. The world has moved on but this whole "I don't know computers" act allows them to preserve their self perceived social status. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  Wow this is really interesting, never heard of this kind of cognitive bias

wnissen 7y ago

Life expectancy past 65 is not, in fact, increasing at nearly the rate of overall life expectancy, which is mainly driven by reduced infant and child mortality. This data is from the UK, not the US, but the curves are similar. In the last 30 years life expectancy for women who reach age 65 has increased only by about 4 years. People are living a few years longer than a generation ago, but not that many. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/public/news-item/are-we-too-complacent-about-life-expectancy https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/public/news-item/are-we-too...

blunte 7y ago

This is a complex topic with many (not-so-related) facets. From the employment perspective, there certainly are some companies where the benefits a more senior/experienced employee provide are wasted or ignored. In those cases, it makes sense for the company to replace the older worker with younger (cheaper and less opinionated) employee. Granted, I'm on the older side, so I'm not being ageist here. From a consumer/user perspective, it's more about understanding your user than their age specifically. But generally speaking, much older users have very different backgrounds and experiences; thus, their approach to using things may be considerably different from that of a younger person. That said, most user interfaces and product features probably don't fit any userbase well. So in a way, the sea of bad interfaces isn't ageist - it's just bad UX.

moltensodium 7y ago
You managed to take an article about ageism and somehow transform it into a UX problem because that's the prism you wanted to see the world through. Wow, that's really something else. You see this a lot on HN but this comment is really just breathtaking in the leaps it takes.
- blunte 7y ago
  Subtitle of article: Products designed for older people reinforce a bogus image of them as passive and feeble. And elsewhere in the article: Half of older longtime job holders, meanwhile, are pushed out of their jobs before they planned to retire.
  - whycome 7y ago
    The fact that you so simply replied to that misguided comment with information rather than its much-deserved counter-attack really shows your age. Thank you.
- whycome 7y ago
  > "Asking young designers to merely step into the shoes of older consumers (and we at the MIT AgeLab have literally developed a physiological aging simulation suit for that purpose) is a good start, but it may not be enough to give them true insight into the desires of older consumers."