Boomers in the nearly 100% online age of technology

[nidena]

This kind of goes with the Aging Parent and the Ageism at Self-checkout threads but feels more general than either of those.

I had to help my parents get their tax documents ready this weekend.  I don't think they would have been totally lost without my help but it definitely would have gone much slower had they had to do it.

They had all the paperwork but Dad, who has dementia, might have moved all the papers to a secure spot somewhere in the office when the housecleaners came over and he and my stepmom tore the office apart trying to find where they put them.  No luck.  So, they had to get everything online and print the forms to send them off.  

Well, the printer wasn't working so they had to take that to Best Buy and ended up getting a brand new one in exchange.  Then I had the fun pleasure of setting everything up for wireless printing on their computers and my stepmom's phone.  THAT involved downloading various things from the HP website to the computer and downloading the app on her phone.

After that, we had to create accounts for each of them on the Social Security website, their current mortgage website, and the previous mortgage website (mortgage got sold in the fall).  Thankfully, my dad's military pension paperwork for found in the office and I didn't have to worry about setting up an account on the MyPay website.

That took the better part of this past weekend to take care of, what with the trip to Best Buy and all the account making/document downloading.

It got me wondering how many other folx their age are getting lost in the shuffle due to similar situations.

Anyone else dealing with this in their lives?

[Opti]

Well, my dad is silent generation, and he does well enough. It is I who is at the tail end of the Boom. Most of the people I know in that last 6 years or so of the Boom do just fine. Of course, a large portion of them have engineering degrees or have used computers as part of their jobs.

[nidena]

Mar 16, 2022 18:06:13 GMT -5 Opti said:

Well, my dad is silent generation, and he does well enough. It is I who is at the tail end of the Boom. Most of the people I know in that last 6 years or so of the Boom do just fine. Of course, a large portion of them have engineering degrees or have used computers as part of their jobs.

My dad is first year Boomer--1946--and my stepmom is Silent Generation, too.  However, she had Covid in January and is left with lasting mental fog because of it.

[cooper88]

I have one neighbor that I take care of anything involving a computer. She's just out of the loop completely, including with her phone. She will call me from her cell phone and ask me to call her back to make sure the phone works. Umm, yeah, you are calling me on it. I always call her back though. I download her pension form annually and do her taxes, among other things. I actually keep a paper file in my house with her information I need.

[Opti]

Mar 16, 2022 18:08:06 GMT -5 nidena said:

Mar 16, 2022 18:06:13 GMT -5 Opti said:

Well, my dad is silent generation, and he does well enough. It is I who is at the tail end of the Boom. Most of the people I know in that last 6 years or so of the Boom do just fine. Of course, a large portion of them have engineering degrees or have used computers as part of their jobs.

My dad is first year Boomer--1946--and my stepmom is Silent Generation, too.  However, she had Covid in January and is left with lasting mental fog because of it.

My Mom is dead from Alzheimer's. My dad was born I think in 1932. Not sure. Covid definitely can screw up a person. As can dehydration. I have to watch out for the latter.

[Deleted]

I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boom (1953) and took to computers immediately.  I belong to a Garden Club with some older ladies who just don't get it.  Some don't have e-mail.  How do you live without an e-mail address?  The President is a sweet lady but she can't do much on e-mail except write her own messages or forward things to us (without her own comments or any Edits to the Subject line or deleting the long chain of preceding e-mail texts that we don't need).  I went over to help her set up the e-mail list and she just had a really hard time with it.  I'm also the first Treasurer to get on-line access to the bank account.  I had to jump through all kinds of hoops.  Previous Treasurers got paper statements.  What a PITA!  It's gonna be a pain to transfer over the records to a new Treasurer if she isn't Excel-friendly.  I'll have to do a LOT of printing.

[Deleted]

It can be challenging.  I am 100% online but have to maintain paperwork for DH who is not as comfortable with online.  More and more companies are surcharging for or eliminating paper service.  Our brokerage is a pain because I have to explain to every new hire that DH must have paper statements or he will move the accounts elsewhere. 

[jerseygirl]

I have a deaf friend 87 who is very sharp and uses computer iPad iPhone and Apple Watch. I admire her so much!!

[nidena]

Mar 16, 2022 18:44:46 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

I have a deaf friend 87 who is very sharp and uses computer iPad iPhone and Apple Watch. I admire her so much!!

My stepmom has an iphone and I have an android so setting her stuff up on her phone was a challenge for me.  lol.

[Deleted]

My Mom is a Baby Boomer, and when I bought my first computer in 2001, she knew way more than I did about computers. 

When I really started texting, my Mom could text just as well as I could. Even now, she is good with it and texts with emojis and stuff lol. My Mom’s older sister uses text messaging a lot too, but she doesn’t do that well with most other technology like that. There is a very clear difference between them in that regard.

My Mom has never been unwilling or unable to learn to use that kind of technology. I’ve never had to figure out how to help her set up a new computer or anything related to one, or a cell phone or tablet.

[minnesotapaintlady]

I'm sure it's very individual specific.  My mom (born in 47) and her sisters (born in 49 and 53) are very techno (and financial) savvy.  Carrot says Grandma's house is like Tony Stark's.  LOL  She has EVERYTHING controlled by her Alexa (or whatever she uses...I don't even know), cameras all over the property in all their buildings and gets the latest and the greatest of everything all the time. I have zero interest in having that level of technology in my house.  My mom's husband (my stepdad) has a laptop and a smart phone and knows how to use them for searching for car parts and I know he likes to use YouTube for how-to videos, but it's mainly because of my mom.  I think he would just as soon everything be like in the 80's technology-wise and wouldn't have learned without her prodding. 

[Tennesseer]

I was in high school during the 1960s. The high school subject that has helped me out in life was taking Typing 1 (manual) and Typing 2 (electric). I have used a keyboard and monitor screen in all my adult jobs. Taking typing in high school served me well.

I was visiting my parents around 2001. They had a computer my mother used to play games on (mom was in the middle stage of Alzheimer's disease-so the game playing). Parents were born in 1924.

Dad kept all of his stock market information on paper spreadshoots-data entered in pencil.

While I was visiting and to get dad a little experience with computers, I transfered all his stock market information onto Excel spreadsheets on their computer. I set it up that all dad had to do was enter a number and the info would change itself. I even set up charts that would update themselves when he entered raw data. All dad had to do was tap the SAVE button now and then and all would be well.

Found out after I got home dad walked away from it. He went back to pencil and paper. Computers were too complicated for him.

The parents also gave away an expensive TV I bought them one Christmas. They gave it to my older brother because the remote control was too complicated.

[NoNamePerson]

I was born in 43 so I’m not even a boomer.      Introduced to computer in 61 or 62. IBM key punch. Was entering accounting data on computer in 79. Went online in late 80’s. 56k modem dialup. Went with Comcast “broadband” around 99. I love all the technology but I’ve been exposed to it forever it seems. Have a iPhone, iPad and have a desk top. Old eyes enjoy surfing on 32 “ tv screen. 

sometimes I think my generation fell into the notion that we shouldn’t be tech savvy! But again I love it.   

[Opti]

My mom convinced me to take typing in summer school in junior high. I think it did help. My Dad did lots of self-study and followed some of my engineering courses. He was very excited when I got to FFTs, fast Fourier transforms. That made me decide that perhaps very few people from college would come home to visit as he'd probably end up quizzing them.

Where he lives is horrible for internet and service in general as he intentionally bought on the outskirts of town. He can use email and his smart phone but prefers not to. I think he went with the pay as you go phone, which is what I had last prior to this one. It spent most of its time off. Cheaper that way. 

[NoNamePerson]

Mar 16, 2022 19:35:59 GMT -5 Opti said:

My mom convinced me to take typing in summer school in junior high. I think it did help. My Dad did lots of self-study and followed some of my engineering courses. He was very excited when I got to FFTs, fast Fourier transforms. That made me decide that perhaps very few people from college would come home to visit as he'd probably end up quizzing them.

Where he lives is horrible for internet and service in general as he intentionally bought on the outskirts of town. He can use email and his smart phone but prefers not to. I think he went with the pay as you go phone, which is what I had last prior to this one. It spent most of its time off. Cheaper that way. 

I tried to tell my son he needed to learn to type. He fell into that age group where computers were not the norm yet! He said “why”. I said one day you are going to need to know cause you will be on a keyboard. Well he had to admit down the road I was right.  They offered typing course in summer activity program and he signed up. He was around 25 at the time. He called and was laughing and said half the class were guys whose mom’s had tried to make them get it in high school.    

[Opti]

Mar 16, 2022 19:35:37 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

I was born in 43 so I’m not even a boomer.      Introduced to computer in 61 or 62. IBM key punch. Was entering accounting data on computer in 79. Went online in late 80’s. 56k modem dialup. Went with Comcast “broadband” around 99. I love all the technology but I’ve been exposed to it forever it seems. Have a iPhone, iPad and have a desk top. Old eyes enjoy surfing on 32 “ tv screen. 

sometimes I think my generation fell into the notion that we shouldn’t be tech savvy! But again I love it.   

I'm younger than you, but I feel like its been with me forever as well. In 79 I was probably using dumb terminals in EE and I remember when getting a 286 desktop machine at the Telcom company was a big deal. I remember when I saw the copyright date for Windows and almost went into shock. Sometimes I wish I had copies of those old DOS manuals. They described the commands pretty well even if it was very easy for stack overflow back in those days.

Some people take to technology and some do not. I think now everyone is so exposed because of cellphones. Back when I was a teaching assistant I remember having sections of students for the intro programming course in engineering. Some really struggled. But they made it through if they wanted to, because I was more than willing to make sure they did. 

[TheOtherMe]

I'm a boomer.  Born in 1951.  I learned to type as a sophomore in high school on a manual typewriter.  Then I took two years of typing on an electrical typewriter (we took turns on the IBM selectrics) and shorthand.  The shorthand got me in to the IRS but it's useless now.

The typewriting gave me a head start when we started using computers at work.  The guys complained that the women had an advantage over them because most of us had taken typing in high school.  They had a course they could take on the computer on their own time.  They didn't like that idea and just complained.

I have had a computer in my home since about 1986 or so.  The first one was mostly a huge typewriter.  That's all it did.  I have progressed as computers, printers and scanners have progressed.

When I took the job at the church my BIL was the volunteer treasurer.  He kept track of expenses in a checkbook, which made it very difficult at year end to get financial statements together.

They kept track of donations on a huge spreadsheet.  He told me every year people complained because the numbers were wrong.

The pastor who hired me was in to computer.  He found a church software and that worked great for the donations.  We moved expenses to Quicken.

When we got a new treasurer, he was a CPA and used his CPA firm's license to install non-profit Quick books on the church computer.  That was the best thing that ever happened to me as the person doing all of the entries.

I finally had confidence in the numbers.  

The last pastor wanted to be paid by direct deposit so I learned to do that.  We were already doing automatic contributions so it wasn't hard to set up.

I figured out my iPhone pretty much alone.

Neither one of my parents could use a computer.  When they still needed to file tax returns, they had BIL do it.

My sister, born in 1954, can't figure out anything more than FB and watching videos.  She has to have help with anything in Word or Excel or printing.  I finally gave up helping her with her Christmas letters because she didn't write anything down about how to do it so she never learned anything.

Only one off her kids will help her for the same reason.  

BIL was forced to use computers because of working at H & R Block.  He fought it but finally figured it out.  

[giramomma]

My mom is one of the first boomers.

She refuses to use technology. No computer. No caller ID on her land line. No internet in the home. She has a cell phone that gets internet. Actually, it's a 5G phone. But she only will use it to make long distance calls and text. I have to look things up on the internet for her.

She pays her utilities bills in cash at the grocery store. She will write checks for other bills, like extra health and drug insurance.

Because of her refusal to use anything modern, dealing with taxes was rather easy last year.

It's everything else that is a PITA.

She's rude and upset that the rest of the world doesn't stop to accommodate her.

But, it also serves a purpose for her. 

Most people would be like "oh, I can spend $20 a month on caller ID and then see if the calls are important or not" and then just sort of move along with life. If my mom spends $20 for peace of mind, it's one less thing that she can complain, fret,  and get quite angry over. She would rather get into negative spirals and keep her $20.

Not using technology keeps her in control.  It reinforces  her narrative.

[Lizard Queen]

My dad was born in 34 and was always into technology and gadgets. Also stock trading on Fidelity.com.
I'm fairly savvy myself, but I have little patience to figure out new gadgets. And just because I can do things on a computer, does not automatically mean it's better than pencil and paper. Sometimes the manual way has a zen feeling.

[Deleted]

Mar 16, 2022 19:25:12 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

The parents also gave away an expensive TV I bought them one Christmas. They gave it to my older brother because the remote control was too complicated.

I think this happens a lot. The Garden Club President uses an iPad that was a gift from her daughter but she isn't all that comfortable with it. Dad was VERY tech-friendly till his mind started to fail. One of the things I got when he moved to LTC was an e-reader that I don't think he ever used. My siblings who married spouses who felt that you HAD to get Mom and Dad something for Christmas (they really didn't want gifts) frequently upgraded their technology.

The e-reader was out-of-date and didn't play nicely with my library site but it DID motivate me to buy a new one and I use that thing every day.

[Deleted]

DH and I both have  Iphones, Ipads and Kindles which we use constantly, along with my desktop.  One benefit of my volunteer work has been keeping my Word and Excel skills up-to-date, plus learning all the Google stuff, and DropBox.   Since Covid I also learned to navigate Zoom and Teams.  My biggest challenge has been in attempting to share info across multiple platforms.  Now I put it out in DropBox or Google or whatever, and it's the responsibility of the recipient to figure out how to access it - I'm not duplicating stuff across different sites.

[Deleted]

Mar 16, 2022 19:35:37 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

I was born in 43 so I’m not even a boomer.      Introduced to computer in 61 or 62. IBM key punch. Was entering accounting data on computer in 79. Went online in late 80’s. 56k modem dialup. Went with Comcast “broadband” around 99. I love all the technology but I’ve been exposed to it forever it seems. Have a iPhone, iPad and have a desk top. Old eyes enjoy surfing on 32 “ tv screen. 

sometimes I think my generation fell into the notion that we shouldn’t be tech savvy! But again I love it.   

This brings back a lot of memories!  Late 60's, and I was super fast on the machine

[TheOtherMe]

I have paid Dropbox and back up everything there as well as to an external hard drive.

[moneysquirrel]

I am also a boomer born in 1950.  I was an early computer user starting with the Apple IIe.  As a teacher I had to adapt to the progression and to increase my knowledge as things came up.  Starting with WordPerfect and then moving on the the Microsoft Office Suite and now to the Google programs.  I use the google versions now because my laptop is on its last legs and I want to make sure that my current info is saved.  I currently use a Chromebook and that also has pushed me further into the google realm. Documents have been backed up to an external hard drive, dropbox or to the cloud.  Had to learn a lot of this on my own.  Recently Zoom has been added to the list.  As a volunteer teacher I am currently teaching boomers how to navigate Google.  I also take several classes over zoom and for a year had to teach using it.  

However, my younger sister is tech resistent.  She and her DH use certain programs but are not willing to branch out and experiment.  I have had to talk her through several procedures as the need arose. My students in their 70+ years are at least willing to try to learn how to do some things.

[Tiny]

My older siblings are all "computer literate" to some degree and do a lot of financial stuff on line.   Our parents died  decades ago. 

I am the literal tip of the tail end of the Boomers -  I identify more with Gen X than Boomers.   

All the older than me Boomers in my life have embraced technology - they may not be super savvy but they do use it and are generally not resistant to it if it can be shown to have a benefit to them.  
It's the handful of people in my life who are my age  who more or less refuse to use technology.  They still receive all their bills via snail mail and write checks and mail it back.  They worry about their CC's being hacked (I guess because they wouldn't see a fraudulent charge until they got the bill in the mail...).    They have a high level of fear and anxiety when it comes to using technology that I just don't understand.   They experience anxiety/stress with paying bills the old way (a bill didn't come in the mail - so it never got paid, a payment got "lost in the mail" and so they got a "nasty gram" about an unpaid bill)  they don't want direct deposit - they want to wait for a check.  They don't want to use a webpage to get information or to schedule a service - they want to call (or go in) and schedule an appointment/whatever.   

I get being a Luddite (I'm sometimes proud of some of my Luddite ways)  but NOT when it makes one's life more difficult (and adds a different layer of anxiety/stress) - so they suffer from the anxiety/stress of fearing they will be forced to use technology while suffering from the stress/anxiety doing things the "old way".    

[teen persuasion]

My parents are 81 and 91. They resisted having a computer in their house. They only got internet because it had to be bundled with their cable (but teen grandsons were jubilant to have WiFi at grandma's house). Dad was frustrated trying to follow his stocks when newspapers stopped printing stock prices, so my sister would track them on her phone, and show him each time she visited. Eventually, sis bought mom a tablet. She set up the stock watch list for dad. She also put Pinterest on the tablet, logged in to sis's account, for mom to browse.

But mom still refuses to get an email address. So she can only see pix and videos of great grandson when we visit.

She complains about services all going online - she wants to go to the bank for every transaction. She doesn't drive, and we are all trying to discourage dad from driving much now that he's getting less mobile, which pushes it off onto sis or bro who live nearby.

[Tennesseer]

Mar 17, 2022 8:16:21 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Mar 16, 2022 19:25:12 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

The parents also gave away an expensive TV I bought them one Christmas. They gave it to my older brother because the remote control was too complicated.

I think this happens a lot. The Garden Club President uses an iPad that was a gift from her daughter but she isn't all that comfortable with it. Dad was VERY tech-friendly till his mind started to fail. One of the things I got when he moved to LTC was an e-reader that I don't think he ever used. My siblings who married spouses who felt that you HAD to get Mom and Dad something for Christmas (they really didn't want gifts) frequently upgraded their technology.

The e-reader was out-of-date and didn't play nicely with my library site but it DID motivate me to buy a new one and I use that thing every day.

I know a gift is a gift and the recipient of the gift can do whatever they want with it. My older brother was in the process of getting divorced and the folks knew he needed a TV so they gave it to him.

During a previous visit with the folks, I bought them a coffee maker because I liked having a fresh cup of brewed coffee when I visited.  I would bring my own ground coffee on my trips to see them.

So fast forward to a future Christmas visit with the folks. My older brother stopped by. Older brother sees the coffee maker and asks the parents if he could have the coffee maker. My mom tells him they don't drink coffee any more and I only use it when I visit. Mom looks at me and asks can he have it. I tell her it is yours so you can do what you want with it and I can drive down to the nearby Dunkin' Donuts to get fresh coffee.

So older brother accepts it.  It's dark outside.  Older brother walks the coffee maker out to his vehicle and slipped on some ice.  Coffee maker falls to the ground and the glass carafe shatters.  Older brother not hurt.

I silently laughed to my self.  Older brother will now have to spring at least a few dollars to replace the shattered carafe.

[NastyWoman]

Mar 16, 2022 18:22:59 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boom (1953) and took to computers immediately.  I belong to a Garden Club with some older ladies who just don't get it.  Some don't have e-mail.  How do you live without an e-mail address?  The President is a sweet lady but she can't do much on e-mail except write her own messages or forward things to us (without her own comments or any Edits to the Subject line or deleting the long chain of preceding e-mail texts that we don't need).  I went over to help her set up the e-mail list and she just had a really hard time with it.  I'm also the first Treasurer to get on-line access to the bank account.  I had to jump through all kinds of hoops.  Previous Treasurers got paper statements.  What a PITA!  It's gonna be a pain to transfer over the records to a new Treasurer if she isn't Excel-friendly.  I'll have to do a LOT of printing.

?? I thought that the boomers were born between 1946 and 1964? Some how I either got that wrong or you are by no measure on the tail end of that (my) generation. BTW I (1951) also took to computers without any problems.. 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 16, 2022 18:02:18 GMT -5 nidena said:

This kind of goes with the Aging Parent and the Ageism at Self-checkout threads but feels more general than either of those.

I had to help my parents get their tax documents ready this weekend.  I don't think they would have been totally lost without my help but it definitely would have gone much slower had they had to do it.

They had all the paperwork but Dad, who has dementia, might have moved all the papers to a secure spot somewhere in the office when the housecleaners came over and he and my stepmom tore the office apart trying to find where they put them.  No luck.  So, they had to get everything online and print the forms to send them off.  

Well, the printer wasn't working so they had to take that to Best Buy and ended up getting a brand new one in exchange.  Then I had the fun pleasure of setting everything up for wireless printing on their computers and my stepmom's phone.  THAT involved downloading various things from the HP website to the computer and downloading the app on her phone.

After that, we had to create accounts for each of them on the Social Security website, their current mortgage website, and the previous mortgage website (mortgage got sold in the fall).  Thankfully, my dad's military pension paperwork for found in the office and I didn't have to worry about setting up an account on the MyPay website.

That took the better part of this past weekend to take care of, what with the trip to Best Buy and all the account making/document downloading.

It got me wondering how many other folx their age are getting lost in the shuffle due to similar situations.

Anyone else dealing with this in their lives?

how old are your parents? 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 17, 2022 14:55:44 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Mar 16, 2022 18:22:59 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boom (1953) and took to computers immediately.  I belong to a Garden Club with some older ladies who just don't get it.  Some don't have e-mail.  How do you live without an e-mail address?  The President is a sweet lady but she can't do much on e-mail except write her own messages or forward things to us (without her own comments or any Edits to the Subject line or deleting the long chain of preceding e-mail texts that we don't need).  I went over to help her set up the e-mail list and she just had a really hard time with it.  I'm also the first Treasurer to get on-line access to the bank account.  I had to jump through all kinds of hoops.  Previous Treasurers got paper statements.  What a PITA!  It's gonna be a pain to transfer over the records to a new Treasurer if she isn't Excel-friendly.  I'll have to do a LOT of printing.

?? I thought that the boomers were born between 1946 and 1964? Some how I either got that wrong or you are by no measure on the tail end of that (my) generation. BTW I (1951) also took to computers without any problems.. 

I'm at the tail end of the boomers. In fact, as I was in adulthood, the definitions were shifting around and sometimes I was genX and sometimes boomer. it eventually settled into boomer for sure as the defining dates settled into a uniform range. my dob is less than 3 months away from genX and I certainly identified more with that group at earlier times in my life. I was also born slightly premature . so even closer to being a true genx

At some point I decided it was funny to embrace being a boomer as I looked about 15 years younger than I actually was so people's faces and initial arguments when I claimed boomer status was funny. But while I still look quite a bit younger than my age, I don't look at all "young" anymore and for the 30ish on down crowd, I am just a generic oldster. who cares if bommer of genx?

My DD still gets irate if I call myself a boomer, saying I am nothing like a boomer, she sees my older brother - less than 2 years older - as a definite boomer, but not me. Probably due to the "boomers killed the world" narative going on with the younger folks, and I've been vegan and recyling and boycotting certain companies for many decades. 

I only recently gave up status as a pretty tech savvy person. I did a lot of coding on a lot of different platforms over the years - starting with fortran77 and ending with python and R, but my promotion moved me into an AVP role and I'm really surprised at how quickly I lost that prowess. I do most things in excel now and hire out/subcontract the heavy programing for my Rukh, Inc. work. I'm not sure if I would have so blithely gone down this path if I knew I'd be losing some things as well as gaining. I probably would have, even solely due to money, but there are a lot of other perks too. I'm still helping out younger coworkers with my excel and word savvy. I'm not remotely IT, my coding is just around data manipualtion and analysis, but even those with computer science degrees and under 25 years of age are still learning a bit from me on the tech side. That will likely end in another few year or so. Maybe that was yesterday, lol? And I certainly learned great tips from them as well. I'm great with building complex equations in excel, and all the keyboard shortcuts, but the last few years gained great understanding on what can be done with pivot tables and lookup in excel.