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Older Workers Are Better At Adapting To New Technology, Study Finds (cio.com)
"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.
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.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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 :)
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.
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?
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.
TFA doesn't present any evidence that millennials are better or worse than oldsters at adapting to tech. It is just that they self-report having more problems. So an obvious alternative hypothesis is that millennials just complain about things more.
Very few younglings know how to write a perl one-liner.
- Take Larry Wall... please!
- Larry Wall just flew in from the coast today... and boy are his arms tired!
#DeleteChrome