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What I’m most surprised by is how visually illiterate the older generations seem to be. As a video editor, I’ve encountered multiple moments where an older per

What I’m most surprised by is how visually illiterate the older generations seem to be. As a video editor, I’ve encountered multiple moments where an older person is incapable of even noticing that we’ve cut from one angle to another, and the amount of times I’ve had to convince them that “yes the audience will absolutely notice that incredibly obvious mistake and we need to fix it” is astronomical. I’ve seen video after video of old people seemingly incapable of identifying even the most basic CGI or AI videos. And all you techies know how clearly this issue extends into the basic usage of a computer interface. How many times do I need to remind my dad how to turn on the subtitles? We can sit here and lambast the younger generations all we want, but I refuse to do it without accurately comparing them to the previous generations, which IMO were clearly less capable than we previously thought.

criddell 1y ago
Back when high def TVs were relatively new and cable TV and separate channels for SD and HD feeds, it used to drive me crazy that my parents would watch the SD channel with the image stretched to fit the screen. I’d show them where the HD channel was (it was something like SD channel # + 200) but they just didn’t care. The stretched SD image was good enough.
- kouru225 1y ago
  I’m almost certain that if we were to do a test, less than 10% of 60+ year olds would be able to identify a messed up aspect ratio.
shortrounddev2 1y ago
Tech illiteracy at some age groups is insane to me. I understand that my 93 year old grandma wasn't great at this sort of thing. But I encounter people who are in their 20s who don't know how to print a document, or people in their 50s falling for obvious AI scams. Didn't Jurassic Park come out in 93? Did they just think people were getting eaten by dinosaurs?
walkabout 1y ago
Media literacy seems to be one of those things it's easy to forget you ever had to learn. I'm routinely amazed at how little of it most other people are capable of, when a lot of it is now so automatic for me that I can't turn it off, it's just a permanent part of how I experience things—but at some point I'm sure I was about that limited, and I'm better at it now only because I found improving my literacy to be interesting and fun, so I effortlessly put a lot of time into it. Still, the idea of watching as much video, listening to as much music, et c., as most people do and not putting a little thought & effort into "reading" it better/more-fully seems like an odd choice, yet it's the norm. Apparently not even wanting to engage with the "why did the creator make that choice? OK, this part achieves effect X, but how does it do that? What does it seem like this other part was trying to do, and does that illuminate or enhance any elements of or mysteries in the rest of the work?" side of things seems totally alien to me.
meindnoch 1y ago
I think some people simply have a bad visual cortex. Countless times I've tried to show people how to turn off motion interpolation on their TV to prevent the soap opera effect, and they just didn't see any difference.
carefulfungi 1y ago
As an "older" person, watching video critically wasn't a literacy skill that mattered throughout my education. I was taught how to use a (physical) card catalog, how to distinguish primary and secondary sources, how to use printed indexes to discover relevant news articles, how to find and read material on microfiche, ... I'm often impressed by the multi-media literacy and production capabilties of younger colleagues. But to be honest, I will likely always prefer to think and to communicate by writing and not by making videos. I think your criticism is fair - assessing the quality and reliability of information is different today than it was 40 years ago. And getting harder as more of it becomes un-bylined, remixed, bot-driven propaganda pushed by platforms without reputational skin the game for truthfulness. But I'm not sure I can be convinced that reading and writing aren't critical thinking skills, regardless of what other mediums exist. Maybe that's just generational myopia on my part. Certainly, these seem like more critical skills than mastering the remote control.
IncreasePosts 1y ago
Maybe they just have a different set of values. These older generations you're talking about may have grown up watching ultra grainy, ultra low def, low production quality(relative to modern), black and white TV. Maybe they just learned to look past visual blips and focus on the story. If I point out to my dad that the actors are in a slightly different position before and after a cut, I can imagine my dad saying "Okay. Who cares?"

criddell 1y ago

Back when high def TVs were relatively new and cable TV and separate channels for SD and HD feeds, it used to drive me crazy that my parents would watch the SD channel with the image stretched to fit the screen. I’d show them where the HD channel was (it was something like SD channel # + 200) but they just didn’t care. The stretched SD image was good enough.

kouru225 1y ago
I’m almost certain that if we were to do a test, less than 10% of 60+ year olds would be able to identify a messed up aspect ratio.

shortrounddev2 1y ago

Tech illiteracy at some age groups is insane to me. I understand that my 93 year old grandma wasn't great at this sort of thing. But I encounter people who are in their 20s who don't know how to print a document, or people in their 50s falling for obvious AI scams. Didn't Jurassic Park come out in 93? Did they just think people were getting eaten by dinosaurs?

walkabout 1y ago

Media literacy seems to be one of those things it's easy to forget you ever had to learn. I'm routinely amazed at how little of it most other people are capable of, when a lot of it is now so automatic for me that I can't turn it off, it's just a permanent part of how I experience things—but at some point I'm sure I was about that limited, and I'm better at it now only because I found improving my literacy to be interesting and fun, so I effortlessly put a lot of time into it. Still, the idea of watching as much video, listening to as much music, et c., as most people do and not putting a little thought & effort into "reading" it better/more-fully seems like an odd choice, yet it's the norm. Apparently not even wanting to engage with the "why did the creator make that choice? OK, this part achieves effect X, but how does it do that? What does it seem like this other part was trying to do, and does that illuminate or enhance any elements of or mysteries in the rest of the work?" side of things seems totally alien to me.

meindnoch 1y ago

I think some people simply have a bad visual cortex. Countless times I've tried to show people how to turn off motion interpolation on their TV to prevent the soap opera effect, and they just didn't see any difference.

carefulfungi 1y ago

As an "older" person, watching video critically wasn't a literacy skill that mattered throughout my education. I was taught how to use a (physical) card catalog, how to distinguish primary and secondary sources, how to use printed indexes to discover relevant news articles, how to find and read material on microfiche, ... I'm often impressed by the multi-media literacy and production capabilties of younger colleagues. But to be honest, I will likely always prefer to think and to communicate by writing and not by making videos. I think your criticism is fair - assessing the quality and reliability of information is different today than it was 40 years ago. And getting harder as more of it becomes un-bylined, remixed, bot-driven propaganda pushed by platforms without reputational skin the game for truthfulness. But I'm not sure I can be convinced that reading and writing aren't critical thinking skills, regardless of what other mediums exist. Maybe that's just generational myopia on my part. Certainly, these seem like more critical skills than mastering the remote control.

IncreasePosts 1y ago

Maybe they just have a different set of values. These older generations you're talking about may have grown up watching ultra grainy, ultra low def, low production quality(relative to modern), black and white TV. Maybe they just learned to look past visual blips and focus on the story. If I point out to my dad that the actors are in a slightly different position before and after a cut, I can imagine my dad saying "Okay. Who cares?"