Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.

-Mitchell Kapor

Sitting at a red light the other day I glanced over to admire the reflection of my old rag top jeep in a coffee shop window (I love my jeep). Looking past the image my eyes re-focused on a common site (to the point of cliché) in most urban settings; at the coffee bar were two people perched on tall stools side-by-side, consuming not just coffee—but information.

One was a 20-something woman with an ipod, peering intently at her laptop (you know the one, with the bite-out-of-the-fruit logo). Her coffee-bar-neighbor was a Boomer male (gray temples) reading a local events “fish-wrap,” complete no doubt with crumbs and coffee stains from a prior customer. The juxtaposition struck me.

 

Transition-species

I’ve come to consider myself (boomer) a transition-species, in that I didn’t grow up with a laptop. My first technological encounters consisted of rabbit-ear antennas and much later I was dazzled by the futuristic Pong. And I live, like many of you, straddling the “digital divide.”  

For example, I used WORD in creating this post, but I also used a yellow legal pad/pen to gather concepts. We have a Kindle, and I’m still buying hard/soft cover books from Amazon and Powell’s. Further, I have friends who don’t use computers, or use them sparingly and struggle with cell phones—I can’t email many of them (email and twitter is how “old” people communicate now).

I can remember when having “computer skills” was an exotic unfair competitive advantage on a job interview…now a given for most struggling for the legal tender.

 

Tech-Lag

I’m not an early adopter, especially in relation to younger generations who haven’t known a world without Apple or Microsoft. But I do come around to embrace technology—however there is a tech-lag which seems to be a common in the boomer experience. Many of us haven’t been spoon-fed technology and have had to search it out by trial-and-error,  with self-directed learning on weekends and late nights between obligations…often under adapt-or-perish  conditions.

A recent report from Forester Research noted that more than 60 percent of Boomers consume socially created content such as blogs, podcasts, videos, and forums, with the numbers rising. In 2007, the percent of Boomers taking in social media was 46 percent for younger (43-52) Boomers, and 39 percent for older (53-63) Boomers. By 2008, that had increased to 67 percent and 62 percent respectively. Responding to content is on the rise according to Forrester as well with the proportion of older Boomers posting comments doubling from 15 percent in 2007; up to 34 percent in 2008.

These figures suggest the Boomer tech-lag. Nothing too surprising here, but it’s encouraging to know that many of us are adapting quite nicely given the deluge of information coming at us with meth-paced speed—while balancing the opportunity-cost (time to tech-up) of mid-life responsibilities.

 

The Older Face of Facebook

The face of Facebook is getting older too. According to the nytimes.com the median age of a FB user is 26, while the fastest growing user group is women over 55—up more than 175 percent since last fall (men >55 up 138% in same time period).

With the steady encroachment of Boomers into a younger generation’s technological turf comes some resentment from the tech-savvy avant-garde who ponder” Boomercide.” But before you do anything rash, I respectfully want to remind the tech-savvy youth, who made the internet and PC possible…”Old guys” like Vint Cerf  born in 1943, as well as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates born in 1955:  And to be patient with us as we dance between two paradigms.

Off to tweet this…

See

Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation (watch video)

 Laurie Orlov rant: Why Don’t Vendors Invest More in Technology for Seniors?

The IDEA house

SeniorNet