Age & Technology

Ok, I'm old.  Not merely in the physical sense, but in the psychological sense.  There is a Technological Divide.  And its not just regional (Developed v. Under-Developed Nations) or resource based (affluent neighborhoods v. struggling neighborhoods), it's also generational -- not so much physical age as psychological age.

The point was driven home for me this morning at the Starbucks near the Sonjara HQ.  While I was waiting for my morning pick-me-up, I noticed a toddler at a table working her mother's iPhone.  NOT playing with it, actually working it. She was using an app that let her mother ask her to press a certain colored shape on the screen, and be rewarded by a musical tone, and then swipe to the next screen.

I started chatting with her mother, and the 23 month old knows how to swipe the phone awake from sleep mode and starts poking at it, like she sees her parents do, to make it work. If she only knew the code, the phone would be hers, said Mom.

The gentleman next to me was impressed, as well. The three of us conversed a bit about how it seems the children of today seem to understand how technology works by osmosis.  Unlike my generation, who had to plow thorough reams and reams of documentation (RTFM, was tech support's favorite phrase to us) to learn how to operate the Osbournes, Tandy 2000's and IBMs PC's. 

Looking at the young miss,  I was reminded of a certain 7 year old of my acquaintance, who was able to hack his parents' Amazon account to purchase his favorite Legos. Then again, the actor Kirk Douglas, at age 95 is the oldest blogger on MySpace.  And Alvin and Heidi Toffler are still writing about futurization and they're in their 80's.

 And as these thoughts percolated in my brain, I remembered the 2008 Playstation 9  commercial, and thinking that the amazingly encapsulated interactive gaming process it depicted, might not be so far-fetched.  And that I may actually be alive to witness their wide-spread commercial availability.

But I'm comfortable where I am.  I have enough grasp of technology to complete the tasks assigned to me and conduct my quotidian tasks.  Yes, I'm an early adapter compared to some but I'm not bleeding edge like some of my peers.

And I'm now beginning to appreciate how my paternal Grandmother felt, at the age of 100 in 1981, looking around at all the technology she had in her house.  All the changes they wrought in how she went about her day and more importantly how everyone viewed/treated her based upon whether or not their technological proficiency levels were on par with hers, or above.