How do you experience the generation gap?

Here’s the first one off the top of my head. I don’t communicate with my grandmother apart from face-to-face conversations because she doesn’t know how to use a computer and I don’t have a home phone line. I generalize this to be: elderly people are often cautious and hesitant regarding change and/or are afraid of new technology that appears complicated or otherwise hard to use, which is something I have seen in many (but not all) elderly people I know.

I can emphasize and understand where they are coming from, after all if you’ve lived your life one way, it’s very easy to keep living your life in that way, as well as the psychological issues surrounding change. (The one thing I cannot really comprehend are young people who are apprehensive about or scared of computers, and who choose to maintain that fear instead of starting to learn how to use computers.)

Buying a PC computer for an elder relative did reveal one aspect of the gap to me. They actually expect their new hardware to work right out of the box, not be DOA, not crash in 6 months.

Texting.
I don’t text.
I was with some friends and the 19 year old sister of one can text and send and converse faster than I type. And they will do this even as they talk to you.

It is interesting to me. I am not sure how I feel about it. It is the next phase I guess. Keeps the home lines open. Lets you contact your kids. Lets them contact you.

I know there is a gap. I make references and jokes about things they have no memory of. (turn 40 in exactly 1 month).

But then, they are so willing to help when you ask. I hate those f&#*ing cell phones. I can’t work ‘em.

I have found that older people (60+) in my experience, for the most part do not work well working for younger counterparts. I have been a manager of a 60+ year old and he simply refused to do things my way, because he thought he knew best. He was fired a few months later.

I do understand from their perspective (and of course from my own future perspective) that older can = wiser and therefore why shoud,we listen to jumped up youths that think they know better?

because; sometimes they do know better perhaps.

Son and I are listening to Paul McCartney song on car radio.

Son says,“that’s Paul Mc Cartney! He used to be in a famous band”.

I start to reply, “yes, he was one of the Bea…. ”

Son interupts, “He was with the band, Wings!”

basp brings up a good point that this generation of parents will notice with their children: parents will remember when Band X came out with Song Y, whereas the child will recognize the song from Rock Band Sequel X or Guitar Hero Version Y.

Trying to explain computer and internet related concepts to my father is damn near impossible. I still think he doesn’t realize that yahoo isn’t the basis of the internet.

Try explaining to younger people that “the web” is not the same thing as “the net”.

@cyndyh is it not??? :-/ eek

No. The web is only a part of the internet.

Really? I’m 41 and did not know that :(

My kids are so different than I was at their age…I notice that more than I notice the current difference between us. They call me mommy long past the age I started calling my mother mom. They know their bra straps are showing, and they don’t care…even if a (gasp) boy sees it! I have 3 girls, 6th, 8th and 9th graders. None has had a boyfriend, and they aren’t worried about getting one either. I had my first real boyfriend in 6th grade. It seems to me that my generation grew up much too fast, and in many ways their generation has reversed that trend. I’m glad :)

Yup, the world wide web is just one portion of the greater portion of the Internet. The world wide web consists of pages that are accessed through the hypertext transmission protocol, or http, which you see at the beginning of many URLs (http://www.fluther.com translates to “the hypertext transmission protocol, on the world wide web, and I want to go to fluther.com [bonus explanation: the name fluther.com is really just a pointer to the IP address of the server where the Fluther files reside, but it’s much easier to remember fluther.com versus 67.207.146.191/flutherdirectory/whatever]”. There are many other protocols available and in common use today, such as the file transfer protocol (ftp), simple mail transfer protocol (smtp), etc.

And usenet, gopher, telnet, talk, irc, etc.

When I see my 14-y-old students kissing in the break. In front of me. With a cigarette in their hands. And compare it to how I was even at the age of 18. And I was considered to be a rebel.

Or when younger people (even my gf who is 30) listen to music with too much beat and too few lyrics. And actually enjoy it.

Or when my daughter’s 10-year-old friend beats me on the Playstation. And shows me how to change settings on my mobile.

Then I feel old.

in class the other day, my teacher said something about looking up addresses in a phonebook, and a few kids were like ”.....there are addresses…in the phonebook…?” however the kids who knew this did outnumber them, so i’m not sure if that counts.

Would it kill my grandmother to answer call waiting?

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv My husband (who is only 50!) won’t answer it either. Drives me crazy.

I knew I had fallen into the generation gap, when I was taking out an IV on a 28 yr. old. Guys hate the tape pulling on their arm hair. I had my head down, looking at what I was doing. I told him to, “Grit your teeth.” There was a long pause and then he said, “Why would I want to do that?” The reference was to old Westerns on TV, or movies, where that would be said just before a man had to endure pain…..like taking a bullet out! Absolutely known by people of my age group…....but only us, I guess. Now I just say, “Be brave!” I also use some adhesive remover, it’s not 100%, but helps.