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Older Workers Are Better At Adapting To New Technology, Study Finds (cio.com) 219

Posted by EditorDavid from the generation-gaps dept.
"Don't let the millennial buzz fool you. Older workers handle and adapt to new systems better than younger people," writes CIO magazine. Slashdot reader itwbennett writes: A survey by London-based market research firm Ipsos Mori, sponsored by Dropbox, found that older workers are less likely to find using technology in the workplace stressful and experience less trouble working with multiple devices than the younger cohort.
Millennials "are used to using tech in their personal lives that's pretty darn good," suggests one Dropbox executive, "and that raises the expectations of what tech can be in their professional lives... So younger people will feel frustration at tools that are not up to snuff." Out of 4,000 information workers who were surveyed in the U.S. and Europe, 37% of the 18-34-year-old group reported trouble with multiple devices, compared to just 13% of respondents over 55.
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Older Workers Are Better At Adapting To New Technology, Study Finds More

Older Workers Are Better At Adapting To New Technology, Study Finds

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  • Hilary (Score:3, Funny)

    by NeoGeo64 ( 672698 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:35PM (#52656741) Homepage Journal
    She's very proficient at deleting emails.

  • Well, no crap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:40PM (#52656759)

    The twenty year-olds haven't had to learn new technologies and adapt. Ever manage a group of developers under thirty? I have nearly sixty under me, and I think only a couple of them are good at learning new things.

    • Re: Well, no crap (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:53PM (#52657009)

      Things haven't changed nearly as much in the past twenty years as they did the twenty years before that. Of course they can't work with change because they haven't had to.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lucm ( 889690 )

        Spot on. One of the guys at work used to oil hard disks for a living. That's how old he is. Lately we changed our build scripts and got rid of grunt and bower, just switched everything to straight npm, and in a team of twenty he was the fastest to catch up and one of the few who was not bitching about npm and remembering the "good old days" of having a Gruntfile.

    • Most people stop learning after graduating from school since learning is a requirement only for school. Learning is a lifelong pursuit. A requirement for a long career in the technical fields.

      • Most people stop learning after graduating from school since learning is a requirement only for school. Learning is a lifelong pursuit. A requirement for a long career in the technical fields.

        I read someplace that after college 40% (or maybe it was 60%) said they were never going to read a book again.
        Kind of reminds me of the old conservatives who say they haven't changed their minds in 40 years, which to me means they haven't learned anything new in 40 years.

    • I have nearly sixty under me ...

      Sounds lumpy.

    • "The twenty year-olds haven't had to learn new technologies and adapt."

      Meanwhile, there are lots of middle-agers who survive in development because they remain adaptable. Unfortunately, the ones who are stodgy and set in their ways and ageist work have been shunted into HR.

  • So it's just a survey (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:44PM (#52656773)

    Any "interpretation" of the results is coming from some high-up blowhard at Dropbox, who likely pulled it from his nether regions.

    My experience has been that some people are more adaptable than others, and that spans generational lines. But younger people are less likely to have a mental block simply because some new task just happens to involve a computer.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      That one is dead now. It applied when older workers necessarily didn't have access to a computer until at least college. These days, the older workers also grew up with computers. Further, this survey was of 'information workers', so I doubt very much that computers would be new to any of them.

  • Generations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:48PM (#52656793) Homepage

    My dad's generation had computers, telephones, and lots more that previous generations didn't - he bought our ZX Spectrum for us.

    However, my grandfather was baffled by car seatbelts, anything no wired to a wall, and changing the channel on the television

    It's no surprise now that, compared to twenty years ago, the older generations are better with technology. It's not their father's generation, who struggled to keep up, they grew up with all this stuff.

    As we go on, the next generation are growing up being taught on iPads, with Kindles in libraries (what are those places?!), mobile phones from the day they are old enough. They won't have trouble adapting.

    I call it the "old-people's home" fallacy. My grandmother would have been quite happy playing bingo for the rest of her existence once she retired. But I'm going to need a full-on Internet connection, a bunch of freedom and technology, to operate into my old age. There's no way I'm going to end up in a corner, dribbling, and watching Match of the Day, and it's not even a personality thing.

    But are old-people's homes of today actually taking account of that? Not that I've seen. There are 60, 70, 80 years olds out there that are tech literate, can shop online, watch iPlayer, and all the other stuff we younger people do, because they were pioneers and that's stayed with them into old age and now they are the ones being put into homes that still cater only for a previous generation.

    Time's change. I have no idea about allotment gardening or crochet or mending mechanical machines. Previous generations did but can't operate a mobile phone. As we go further on, the newer generations will be VR-addicts or whatever and they'll be surveys saying that not enough old people are getting the benefits of VR-space and still cling to their old WWW ways.

    • There are 60, 70, 80 year olds that literally wrote the books on what our modern society is built on.

      • There are 60, 70, 80 year olds that literally wrote the books on what our modern society is built on.

        What are "books"?

        • There are 60, 70, 80 year olds that literally wrote the books on what our modern society is built on.

          What are "books"?

          Thanks for proving his point.

          • There are 60, 70, 80 year olds that literally wrote the books on what our modern society is built on.

            What are "books"?

            Thanks for proving his point.

            It was a joke. I'm 53 and have actually read many books - some more than once. :-)

            • It was a joke. I'm 53 and have actually read many books - some more than once. :-)

              I know it was, I was making a joke to your joke. Tough crowd here tonight!

      • There are 60, 70, 80 year olds that literally wrote the books on what our modern society is built on.

        In my business (residential/small business IT services) I work mostly with fellow chrono-Americans. What I find is that the real oldsters, the Greatest Generation folk, are noticeably more adaptable than the Boomers.

      • While true, that's a vanishingly small proportion of them. How many people in their 20s and 30s are building the technology that everyone will be using in the 2050s?

    • Re:Generations (Score:5, Informative)

      by bws111 ( 1216812 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:03PM (#52657053)

      Either you don't realize there is a difference between healthy older people and those with dementia, or you think all older people have dementia. Unless he had dementia, it is very unlikely your grandfather was 'completely baffled' by any of those things.

      A few weeks ago we had a party for my parents, and their friends were there. The ages ranged from 70 to 90. Almost all of them had cell phones, and many were taking pictures and posting them to Facebook. Of the ones that didn't have cell phones, some couldn't see well enough to use one, and one said it hurt his hands too much to hold one.

      Your comments about 'old people homes' are absurd. There are basically three types of 'od people homes': senior housing, assisted living, and nursing home. For the first two types, the residents CHOOSE to live there, so the facilities provide whatever amenities that will attract residents. OF COURSE they provide Internet service.

      But I guess when you say old people home, you mean nursing home. Those people are not there because they want to be, they are there because they can't care for themselves or make their own decisions. Some can't feed themselves, some can't use the bathroom, some don't even know their children's names. But you think if you wind up there a concern is going to be Internet access? Are you already insane?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lucm ( 889690 )

        Totally agree. My mom is in her late sixties and she's more aware of popular apps on smartphones than me. She watches streaming videos on sites I didn't know existed, buys stuff on eBay and etsy, even gets in "polite" flame wars on twitter.

        I was a kid when she got her first microwave. I was in high school when the family got our first computer. Now she doesn't even tell me when she buys a new tablet.

    • Re:Generations (Score:4, Informative)

      by thinkwaitfast ( 4150389 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:10PM (#52657101)

      anything no wired to a wall,

      My grandfather's generation grew up with ham radios. He said all the kids used to do it.

      • Re:Generations (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bws111 ( 1216812 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:24PM (#52657169)

        Exactly. And before that, they built crystal radio sets. I think the OP just threw together a bunch of stereotypes to see if he could get any mods to bite. Unsurprisingly, he did.

        • Re:Generations (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thinkwaitfast ( 4150389 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @07:00PM (#52657375)
          I think people were actually a lot more technical a few generations ago. Maybe it's just the people I grew up around or hang out with, but they seemed a lot more mechanically and electrically inclined. Also people did not have as much money and would have to improvise. Now it's called the maker culture but before is was just living.

          My grandfather and father made stuff (like this guy [youtube.com] all the time whereas now I'd spend $4 on ebay and have it delivered to my door already assembled in two days. I remember having to spend entire weekends learning how to fix things like fans and vacuum cleaners whereas now I'd drive down to walmart and buy a new one.

      • "My grandfather's generation grew up with ham radios. He said all the kids used to do it."

        Radio hams were the very first generation of electronics nerds. It's fascinating to look at the cultural history of hamdom 50 and 75 years ago to see what nerd of that time were like.

        • "My grandfather's generation grew up with ham radios. He said all the kids used to do it."

          Radio hams were the very first generation of electronics nerds. It's fascinating to look at the cultural history of hamdom 50 and 75 years ago to see what nerd of that time were like.

          I wonder if there was any 'elitist attitude' then. I mean, human nature doesn't change so surely there were people talking down to noobz and scolding them with a "Go RTF AARL Handbook!". However, as a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s I remember walking down the street on a weekend and just about everyone was out tinkering on something in their garage. Ham Radios, go carts, hot rods, RC cars/planes, model rockets, model trains, etc. If you showed even the slightest bit of interest they'd invite you in

          • No, I knew a bunch of radio nerds in those days and the field had its own pecking order from the very beginning. Higher status was accorded to those who built more of their own rigs; those who bought ready-made gear were looked down on as "appliance operators." But the greatest dividing line was use of Morse code over voice. The highest status hams were those who could "pound brass" at maximum speed.

          • "

            I wonder if there was any 'elitist attitude' then. I mean, human nature doesn't change so surely there were people talking down to noobz and scolding them with a "Go RTF AARL Handbook!".

            For certain there was. As technology progressed, there was always a contingent of Hams who were pissed off by it. From spark gap to alternators to AM to Single sideband, There's always been a group taking up the rear guard, and pissed about it. The latest has been the end of Morse code testing, and now, Software defined radios are raising their ire.

            There was a fellow during the 1960s - W2OY who when calling foro contacts, used to demand " No kids, no lids, no space cadets" and other inanity (A Lid is slan

            • Today of course, any male adult is considered bad to be around.

              I held back from mentioning this... the part how you can be a 7 year old and just go spend an afternoon with some adult male without it being any sort of problem whatsoever. These days it is so very hard to believe.

              As an adult male who now tinkers on stuff in the garage, I make it a point to shut the door to avoid any sort of 'trouble'.

              • Today of course, any male adult is considered bad to be around.

                I held back from mentioning this... the part how you can be a 7 year old and just go spend an afternoon with some adult male without it being any sort of problem whatsoever. These days it is so very hard to believe.

                As an adult male who now tinkers on stuff in the garage, I make it a point to shut the door to avoid any sort of 'trouble'.

                It was a different day and age. In truth, there are almost certainly the same percentage of males who children shouldn't be around. Which is to say very few.

                Unfortunately, over time, the marginalizing of adult males, by way of reporting every incident in a country of hundreds of millions as if it was happening in our own town, the vested interest of well meaning parents trying to protect their children from anything bad in their lives at all, and the vested interest of a subset of humanity that simply ha

              • "As an adult male who now tinkers on stuff in the garage, I make it a point to shut the door to avoid any sort of 'trouble'."

                Now there's a whole other reason you have to keep the garage door closed. If the manufacturer knows you're working on your car, they can sue for infringement under the DMCA.

          • just about everyone was out tinkering on something in their garage.

            Yes. This exactly. What happened? Sure cars are harder to work on, but people still do it.

    • Oh no I think is more the difference between makers and users. There were makers in my father's and grandfather's generation (I was born in 65) but there are so many toys available today that I just think kids are growing up as consumers. I rarely see anybody under 40 in my local electronics shop. Plenty of kids out buying phones and tablets though.

      Also a lot of new tech these days is straight out of science fiction from the 1970s and 80s. People from older generations can just say oh yeah I read about this

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by adolf ( 21054 )

      I think technology skips generations, sometimes.

      One of my grandfathers worked for The Power Company (back when that meant something), and his job involved rural electrification. He was a high-tech guy for his time and even owned a (probably ludicrously-expensive) wire recorder when my dad was young. I (and my kinfolk) still have archives of the only known, existing recording produced by that machine, which were first professionally transferred to cassette by a (now) friend of mine when I was young, and th

  • That's not what it says (Score:4, Informative)

    by djsmiley ( 752149 ) <djsmiley2k@gmail.com> on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:55PM (#52656829) Homepage Journal

    It says the old people are less likely to complain, and are happy to put up with shit.

    • Re:That's not what it says (Score:4, Informative)

      by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:03PM (#52656843)

      Have you spoken to old people much? they bitch and moan and have a whole list of shit they don't like.

      Seems the key is patience. Older people have more patience. They are as unhappy to put up with "shit" as the next guy but they have patience that comes with experience.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is just clickbait for old people. Millennials suck, count the ways.

        • Re: That's not what it says (Score:4, Funny)

          by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:01PM (#52657039)

          Millennials suck, count the ways.

          I can count pretty high but that's asking a bit much, don't you think?? ;)

        • This is just clickbait for old people. Millennials suck, count the ways.

          And what about those of us think that millenials have been terribly fucked up by adults who tried to protect them from any negativity in their lives whatsoever, and now they are adult in body, but stunted in emotional maturity? Damaged goods that might need another 10 years to learn to cope with reality in the same manner as 20 year olds once did?

          Does that make me some old fart that hates kids or perhaps someone who might be observant and speaking from experience?

          The millenials I worked with, with two

      • Where as my experience as a 30-something year old tells me if I don't like something, I can change it, change myself, change my situation or stfu as no one else cares what I think.

      • Older people have more patience. They are as unhappy to put up with "shit" as the next guy but they have patience that comes with experience.

        It seems to me that one's impatience ought to grow with age. The time that something takes in proportion to your remaining life expectancy grows larger the older you get.

        I don't think older people are more patient. I think the patience that old people appear to have is really lower and more realistic expectations.

      • "Have you spoken to old people much? they bitch and moan and have a whole list of shit they don't like. "

        Also, we vote and serve on juries.

      • Have you spoken to old people much? they bitch and moan and have a whole list of shit they don't like.

        Some do, and no doubt. A lot don't though. I tend to dismiss the grumps if they can't give up the bitching and moaning. But there are plenty out there who are very adroit. Its just that the bitchers and moaners are loud about it.

        Seems the key is patience. Older people have more patience. They are as unhappy to put up with "shit" as the next guy but they have patience that comes with experience.

        That's pretty plausible

    • But the new shit is so much better than the old shit. Ever try using wordperfect on an original green monitor IBM PC? I grew up with a 300baud modem and learned how to get around the limitations (like scheduling downloads while I'm sleeping), so I'm perfectly fine with 5mbs service and don't need 10GB/s.

  • Damn right we are. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:10PM (#52656865) Homepage

    The freaking kiddies that think they know everything..

    They cant fax anything to save their life.
    They dont know how to use their voicemail..
    They are confused by the copy machine.

    Us old farts, we have EXPERIENCE and we can adapt to new stuff faster. Stuff it in your eye sockets you little snot nosed punks.

    There is a reason why I just landed a job kicking out all the kiddies with fresh degrees with my 20 years of experience. I adapt faster and easier because nothing "new" is really actually new. It's a rehash of an older thing passed off as new. Your shiny new chat systems like SLACK? It's basically a copy of an IRC channel, not new technology in any way.

    Texting and instant messaging? Kiddies, I was doing BBS messaging before your mother was old enough to breed.

    • they need you to work your ass off. You can't or won't put in 60-80 hour work weeks. Investors make their money not by being geniuses but by having a shitload of money and being able to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks (with the added bonus that if they _really_ fuck up their gov'ts will bail them out since they are, after all, the ruling class).

      Iteration is more important than reproducible results in most cases. Those cases where it's not a young guy trying to establish himself and get enough

      • With few exceptions old people can't compete with young people when it comes to profitability.

        Um huh, because paying a person a lot less is always the most profitable move. I've often written of my experiences with the millennials. Yes, I was paid much more than them. But I could work rings around them. Plus, I would come in early and stay late if needed. And the work only needed performed once, and was always done on time.

  • After you've worked with old slow quirky bad tech like MSDOS or AT&T's Merlin phones, you know you can handle anything. Fact is, most of today's apps and tech services are freemium, so any company with a novel product that has to grab mindshare by virtue of its popular appeal knows they can't ship crap like what passed for software, O/S, or hardware back in the 1980â(TM)s. The youngsters have been spoiled, and it's only in the workplace where employers buy trash tools from the lowest bidder that

  • Out of 4,000 information workers who were surveyed in the U.S. and Europe, 37% of the 18-34-year-old group reported trouble with multiple devices, compared to just 13% of respondents over 55.

    What the heck is that supposed to mean. How many devices were they using? What were the nature of the complaints? How picky were they being? Did they control for the sophistication level of the devices in question?

    I have 18 devices in my house last I counted with an IP address (computers, phones, tivo, tv, roku, thermostat, print server, webcam, etc). Folks in my dad's generation might have 2-4. (probably just phone and computer) Who do you think is going to complain about more devices? Who do you

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      That reminds me of the great fun we all had with the original bits of "Internet technology" back in the day before it was well debugged and automated. Some of these kids probably haven't ever had to deal with a misbehaiving network device or manually configuring one.

  • Kids can't use computers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:31PM (#52656941)
    I'm constantly shocked by younger people (30) who can't do anything that doesn't involve swiping on gadgets. Most of the 30 people at our company cannot do basic tasks in Windows.

    • "Most of the 30 people at our company cannot do basic tasks in Windows."

      That's because they don't get around to running cCleaner and MalwareBytes on it every month to keep it from freezing up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        I would argue that somebody that has to run those programs monthly to "keep it from freezing up" don't know how to use a computer in the first place, either.

  • Two part story (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:32PM (#52656943) Journal

    First is the data: older workers are better at adapting to new technology.

    Second is the guesswork: "Millennials "are used to using tech in their personal lives that's pretty darn good," suggests one Dropbox executive, "and that raises the expectations of what tech can be in their professional lives... So younger people will feel frustration at tools that are not up to snuff."

    "one Dropbox executive"...

    Never spent a second thinking that it might be that older workers are more patient. Or older workers are more focused. I wouldn't be surprised if older workers could also do a better job than "one Dropbox executive".

  • Gen X'er here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cowtamer ( 311087 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:37PM (#52656957) Journal

    We were better than our parents, who couldn't fix the flashing 12:00 on the VCR. Our cohort (plus those within 10 years of our age range) went from dealing with BASIC on Apple II, ZX Spectrum, QuickBasic, etc., DOS, earlier versions of UNIX, all the Windows-es, etc. all the way to the abomination that is Windows 8.

    To play Doom, I had to download 6 ZIP files over a 2400 baud modem for a week, unpack everything, and learn how to hack the Config.sys file on my 4 MB DOS machine to free up just the right amount of the right type of memory.

    When I bought my first scanner, it took 2 days of resolving IRQ conflicts by flipping DIP switches whose meanings I did not understand at the time to make sure it didn't conflict with my sound card.

    Mice required their own drivers.

    The current generation is just as smart as we are, if not more so. But they always had UIs that made sense. They did not live through an entire 2 decade long information technology revolution. It shouldn't come as a surprise that they are surprised by alien (and to them, non-sensical and inconsistent) interfaces developed for a captive audience.

    Add to this that enterprise software is always purchased during golf games by people who will never use it, and you have a world in which our skills of adapting to horrible and inconsistent interfaces are still useful.

    I will now press Alt-H to disconnect :)

    • Re:Gen X'er here (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:46PM (#52656987) Journal

      Actually it is the millennials who like the hamburger menus in 8 and 10.

      They feel file menus are cluttered and soo dated. They prefer no effects and focus on the content rather than the icing on the cake and like it minimal and touch friendly. It is really the other way around as their brains grew the most in their childhood playing on their iphones and ipads. Windows 7 seems drastically different to them in comparison.

      • Re:Gen X'er here (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday August 07, 2016 @01:27PM (#52660449)
        File menus were developed after a decade of research having users try different things to figure out what worked. It evolved into a consistent set of UI paradigms [wikipedia.org] which allows both consistency of experience across applications (e.g. the command to Print is always under the File menu), makes it easier tor new users to learn how to use the app by organizing commands in a clear hierarchical structure, and prevents conflicts by reserving common shortcuts so they're consistent between apps.

        By comparison, most of the hamburger menus I've used have been thrown together willy-nilly with no consistent organization, thus requiring you to learn each app's specific commands and settings organization. I could buy your argument that this was about "focusing on the content rather than the icing" if they'd done research similar to CUA and strived to organize hamburger menus for maximum consistency and ease of use. But from what I've seen the prevailing philosophy seems to be ease of programming - the programmer doesn't want to bother learning or adhering to UI guidelines developed for consistency, so they just do whatever the hell they want.
    • They also did not have to download pr0n from alt.binaries.pictures.sexymidgets, save it to floppy, insert another floppy to run the uudecode [wikipedia.org] program, then another to view the image. It could take half a dozen floppy swaps and TEN MINUTES for one picture which would take up an entire disk.

    • To play Doom, I had to download 6 ZIP files over a 2400 baud modem for a week, unpack everything, and learn how to hack the Config.sys file on my 4 MB DOS machine to free up just the right amount of the right type of memory.

      Haaahaha, yeah, I remember doing exactly that. Frankly, dicking around with config.sys (and autoexec.bat) and therefore dealing with 16-bit mode x86 memory model, did not help me one iota in my subsequent computer career.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      No way, whippersnapper.

      +++
      ATH0

  • Ha, suck it, youngn's! (Score:3)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @05:42PM (#52656979) Journal

    Ha, suck it, youngn's! We old farts are better at figurin' shit out, so bite that onion I wears on mah belt!

    Now where's that damn new-fangled "sumbit" button doohickey thingy or whatever the hell it's called....Oh shoot, Matlock is on, gotta go.

  • The Windows XP loyalists, anti Windows 10 fanatics, System D gray beards, they all seem to have one thing in common.

    Most of them are over 40. I have not seen any of these people in the field for those under 30. True some concerned about privacy bash Windows 10 here and there, but I remember the people at work trying to put off leaving Windows XP back in 2014 and silently trying not to strangle me when I put 7 on there systems.

    These same coworkers now say Windows 7 is the BEST EVER. They refuse Chrome for ma

  • Déjà Vu (Score:3)

    by thinkwaitfast ( 4150389 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:00PM (#52657033)
    Most older people have already seen, even used, most, if not all, "new" technology under a different UI.

  • If it just works, you don't learn much (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:09PM (#52657093)

    Most 20 somethings are really good at using their phones, but most have no idea how it works - nor should they have to. People keep calling them 'tech savvy' but it's really a bad phrase. They're highly effective app USERS. You do have those who are really brilliant and actually tech savvy and build their own devices from scratch, but they chose it, or it chose them.

    On the other hand, if you grew up with Windows then you either developed some problem solving skills or you were completely baffled all the time - the learned helplessness people. Macs were only relatively better because they narrowed the amount of things that could go wrong by reducing your choices, but there was still plenty that could go wrong. In my office, for instance, you have highly nerdy types of all ages (19 to 62) who have no problem with dealing with anything. On the other hand, outside that group the device problem solving skills seem strongest in the 40 year olds.

    So yes, we grew up with shitty tech and because of that when something goes wrong those who learned to deal with it go into problem solving mode instead of bafflement mode.

    Getting off track here, but tech problem solvers are really easy to spot - step 1: try it again paying closer attention, step 2: check the options (or man), step 3: [search engine of your choice] it. That solves 99.9% of all issues, and anyone who's actually tech savvy knows those, so I can categorize people pretty fast that way.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      >If it just works, you don't learn much

      Headline says it all. And BTW our parents had to 'deal' with cars... and we grew up with oil pressure & battery gauge lights. In GenXs defence we at least learned how to change the oil, a tire, and headlights. Now everything is modular and almost requires a tech or garage visit to fix anything. (on purpose of course, no reason we should learn & take care of ourselves when there is a service for us).

    • Yup, a real lack of curiosity....when I was a kid there was nothing to do so I would drag home tvs or lawnmowers out of peoples trash and tear them apart or fix them.

  • well when I was young . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Saturday August 06, 2016 @06:20PM (#52657159)

    We had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow and rain, and it was all up hill ... both ways!

    Sorry, there's a tendency for some /. people to insert their lame personal anecdotes into these comments. Here's mine:

    I built my first computer from chips on a breadboard- a 6800 processor with 256 bytes of RAM. I programmed it with a hex keypad and it output results on seven segment LEDs. If I wanted alphabetic letters I had to force the normally numeric LEDs to simulate text by specifying each segment that was to be lit or dark. There was no storage. After painstakingly succeeding to enter a program that worked (such as a thermometer or other primitive program) I had to hope the power didn't fail or I'd lose everything.

    Yadda yadda. The point is that tech doesn't scare me now that I'm in my 70s. I understand the hardware and the software and I keep a hammer close by in case some device should become annoying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swell ( 195815 )

      The sad thing is that younger people have never had the opportunity to see the inner workings of a computer. To watch a program being executed with each clock stroke; watch registers fill, transfer, empty; to watch counters and arithmetic operations at their basic level...

      It would be easy to create a visual simulation of such a basic device. It was done in 1975 on the Apple ][ and it can be done today. But given a choice between that and Pokemon Go, I think kids, parents and teachers will choose unwisely.

  • will adapt faster to using eclipse than someone who has never programmed before.

  • In part because we have significant experience and therefore patience with sucky technology. That's due to both the fact we grew up with technology as the technology got better, and because some of our key experiences (Windows, for example) sucked so badly.

  • ...is there an app for that?

  • Maybe it's only because old IT workers who are still there are the best and most motivated from their generation, others may have moved to other fields or positions (management for example). This natural selection has not yet operated on the newest generation, I guess in 20 years the same study will give similar results.

  • ROFLMAO (Score:3)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @09:27PM (#52657769)

    Really, it's a matter of expectations, and Dunning Kruger effect. Throw in a little bit of ego, and fun times await.

    Software development today is where it is because of several decades of lessons learned. That being said, there is still a massive gulf between enterprise software and consumer software. The subject of my comment is because I remember when I first played around with setting up Oracle, and how frustrating it was. Over a decade later, not much has changed.

    The problem is there is now a very different level of expectation. When computers were older, they were expected to be difficult, because... well.... they were. But nowadays, it's easier to assemble a PC than to build a lego model. In the consumer space, software is generally more accessible than it ever was (although with the way UIs have been going lately, focusing more on being artistic than useful, I'd argue that we're taking a step backwards).

    So people now think that computers are easier than ever, when the harsh reality is that computers are actually even more complicated than ever before, because they do more and more behind the scenes, and *someone* has to code that in.

    What bothers me the most are hotshot people who look at this complexity and, instead of trying to overcome it, they just take the easiest way out they can, lessons learned be damned. The end result are bullshit like the NoSQL movement, because people consider SQL to be "too hard". Boy are they in for a shock when it comes time to actually query that hodge-podge of JSON to produce reports 'n stuff.

    I remember a "team lead" that argued with a developer who rightly refused to use a floating point field to store currency information. The developer had to explain in detail exactly how the floating point format actually worked, and why it would be a really bad idea. It took 2 hours of insistent explanation before the hotshot acquiesced.

  • I kept hearing about REST REST REST at work. I had to ask what the term was. They explained it.

    Oh, that thing I did 15 years ago. Before it had a fancy name. It was called "programming" back then

    and get off my lawn.

  • NoSQL databases == hierarchical databases
    Unstructured data[*] = recipe card normalization
    Graph databases == network databases such as IDM or IDMS
    Java => UCSD Pascal
    Machine Learning == pretty much Bayesian statistics (I haven't seen the rules based or simulated annealing versions of ML though. Are there such beasts?)
    Go == an upgrade of C
    R, Scala, Haskell, etc. => basically LISP

    That's just off of the top of my head.

    Some of the details differ but the basic concepts don't change very much. If you are goo

  • ....is a millenial try to operate a spirit duplicator machine (a chemical copy machine). You know, the ones that went "KER-CHUNK KER-CHUNK" as they spit out those bad quality purple-ink test forms in school a few decades+ back?

  • Adapting to the new takes a higher frustration tolerance - which older people have. At least if they are still in the workforce and have an incentive to be more frustration tolerant. In other words, if you are a somewhat mentally and physically healthy older person, you experience with the world and yourself gives you an edge when adopting to the new.

    Actually not that surprising if you think about it.

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