If you have adult children in their 20’s or 30’s do they think you are a techno novice? Do they think you seldom shop if ever on line? Do they think that you use FaceBook just because they set it up for you? Are you perpetuating the myth that women and men over 50 are not truly comfortable on line?
I know better. I know that the fastest growing demographic group on FaceBook is the woman over 50. I know that men and women over 50 are the fastest growing group signing up for Skype. I know that customers for my on line business are shopping all hours and often. So why the disconnect?
Many of us remember DOS. We remember when a computer took up an entire room. We remember when computer science class in college was similar to a foreign language class.
Many of us shop on line for all kinds of services, products and research. I can’t remember the last time I pulled out a phonebook. When trying a new restaurant, I check the reviews. I pay bills on line, reserve movies, and read newspapers. Most of my friends do the same, but if you ask their kids they would not know that their Moms and Dads are this computer proficient. Even those kids, who know their parents are using their computers often, still think they have superior computer skills. Sure they have been using computers their entire lives, but we aren’t brain dead! Just because we asked them to set up our new computer, or install a program or show us a short cut does not mean we could not do it ourselves. It just may take us an hour and 15 minutes for them.
My, my. Should we just leave the kids happy in their ignorance or inform them about the truth? I lean for the truth because their attitude can spill over to the work place to their over 50 co-workers. It is one thing for your own kid to scoff at a computer question but scoffing has no place in the work place