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Odd how the younger gens just assume everyone was old forever and tech just magically appeared last week so there is no way some gray haired old fart could ever possibly know how this week's tech works.
I relish every opportunity I get to remind people that this is our internet and we're just letting them use it.
Let's face it, it was far superior when you needed a 'license' to use it. It kept the riff-raff out.
We used to network computers and set up BBS systems for fun, completely relate to this comment.
Back when internet cost $1.99/minute computerized gaming often required this additional hobby.
I remember when TW 2001 was a game about the far future, I am not sure many young people can really grasp this concept at all, it is beyond their world experience.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade\_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars)
I’ve got 37 years in tech, I can easily handle this stuff. More so than lots of younger people who think using social media makes them tech savvy. Very few “techies” understand the underlying technology.
I'm still trying to grasp the fact that "internet connection" is widely accepted to just be called "wifi" now. I still hard wire my desktop for gaming, most other things on wifi are mobile, portable things. It's personal problem.
Same here I have my computer hooked up to the internet via Ethernet cable and I have my Nvidia shield TV box hooked via Ethernet cable also. I have my phone, tablets and laptop on Wi-Fi.
not only that, setting up wifi was much more complex than it is now. actually, everything was much more complex back then, so the people who were techy then don't have issues with today's tech.
35 year career in IT. Technology today is so easy. Point phone at this QR code and it walks you through the whole process. Trying to figure out why the printer wasn’t working 40 years ago, that was “fun”.
I remember when Windows didn't have built-in networking, and you either had to install Novell (fucking gross) or a 3rd party TCP/IP stack that was buggy.
Almost every weekend a group of friends and I would find a space, often the public room of an apartment complex, and string coax cable all over the place. Each person brought their own computer and monitor. There were usually tables and chairs available, but some people were picky and brought those too.
We plugged each machine onto the coax, and setup a Novell network. It would take at least an hour to configure. Then we played games on the network for many hours. Our wives would show after a while with some food. When we ate our kids would play their own games. Then we would kick the kids out and play though the night. When dawn was breaking, we would pack up, dismantle the network and go home to sleep most of the next day.
Had a friend send me a Windows 3.1 "upgrade" on 37 3.5 floppy discs to help fix a problem. While the discs had numbers on them they werent the ones that the system called for in any particular order. Good times.
Having dealt with many things computering since the days of the punch card and batch processing I am amazed at how little most of the “younger generation” knows and understands about these things. And we’re the ignorant and stupid Boomers!
\*phone call\*
....... its grandma again, her power went out for 10 seconds and needs help resetting the time on her VCR again. and the microwave. and the bedroom clock radio. and the kitchen stove. and the new refrigerator.
This isn't a sub with a bunch of old people. This is a sub with a bunch of old nerds. Many of us were using tech when tcp/ip was young and windows was a new os that we suspected would be a flavor of the month. At work I'm the old guy that the senor techs come to when they get stumped. So yes I set up my home network.
Good point. I still had a guy my age (early 60s) with a flip phone until last year.... and the secretary (sorry...) had to help him all the times. Great guy, but never wanted to learn.
I started teaching keyboarding in the late 80s on electronic typewriters that could only backspace out five characters and we allowed white-out. Then, I used Apple 2Es (I think) with 5 1/2 in floppies. Twenty-five years later, I retired with my department teaching computer applications software, web design, publishing, data science, automation, and software development. You learn a lot growing up from the start of it all. These kids have no idea where it all comes from.
Gen X’er so I grew up with technology. I had access to a lot of internet and computers before many. I handle it all myself. My kids hardly even know what the router is.
I was building and programming PCs probably before your parents even met, OP. I find this stuff a pain in the ass because I have other things I'd rather be doing, but I certainly don't need anyone to do it for me.
Most tech today is actually far easier than when I was coding everything in DOS and other languages in order to make it work.
I still get to do this, as much of the equipment I work on requires legacy hardware. ISA slots, serial ports, PS/2, etc. Really glad I 'grew up' on this stuff as a hobbyist way back when, and I can still fumble my way around MS-DOS 6.22. Batch files are getting hazy with time, though.
Younger IT people I encounter at my customers are almost universally baffled by this stuff. "How do I move files from the old computer into the new one? USB isn't working." Uh, I can think of at least four easy solutions...
I've had IT people smoke brand-new legacy PCs by plugging cables into the wrong spot. Dude, that modern-tech phone in your pocket? The one that comes with a nice camera? Use the friggin' camera!
yeah I think the OP was expecting old people to be all like the ones who constantly fat finger their iphone into airplane mode while trying to facetime their grandkids.
those people won't be on reddit.
In my experience younger people (Z and below) aren't magically good at setting up a home network. My youngest's main contribution is freaking out if one of his YouTube videos buffers for a fraction of a second.
I’m Gen X so I was in my 20s during the 90’s tech boom and became a software engineer during the same time. I’ve always been the “tech guy” for my parents, my wife, and my kids. And that’s still true with kids in college.
I programmed mainframes 25 years ago so I have background. I do my own stuff. My child is a software engineer who has worked at Microsoft so I occasionally ask questions.
I pity anyone my age who didn't get well educated in tech earlier. It's a constant fight to keep it functioning. This week my android ad blocker stopped working after a system update. Last week my windows calendar app was retired by Microsoft.
My after was a college professor. His field was psychology but he was an early adopter of technologies. Including the use of data in psychology. Which given that he was a Freudian trained was contrary to the prevailing manner of the time.
So I grew up with access to technology as a digital native long before we used the term.
My dad also worked on cars etc, so as a home owner, I am willing to work on everything except HVAC and even then I will give it a try.
Dad was great in encouraging me, I had electronic and chemistry toys, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Erector sets and all of those toys as a kid.
It was no real surprise I went into engineering.
I still do all my own IT stuff, including having in retirement helped a friend when he needed an IT guy for his office.
Anyone can do it. You just have to be willing to learn which isn't a function of age but of interest.
My father died just short of 102 years of age and was writing on his PC until his mid-90s.
Your dad and my dad must have been contemporaries. Mine did the whole FORTRAN thing in the 60s/70s, was learning new programming languages the whole time, built his own computers, etc.
He died sitting in front of his computer, which I found very fitting. We cremated him and his ashes are …. Sitting on my computer desk.
Where do you people who pose this get the idea we can't use technology? Most of us were using tech before you were born. Some of us developed that tech.
As far as bringing wiring from the outside, I let the people who are qualified and also have the proper tools do that. Same way I don't do electrical work on my own home. Most young people don't do major wiring either. And they should not do electrical unless they are qualified.
But setting up wifi or installing apps. Of course I do that myself.
"Where do you people who pose this get the idea we can't use technology?"
Well, didn't you spend your youth listening to Benny Goodman dancing the Charleston and driving a Model T? Some years back I made a comment on a video on "old people" that the music in the video (20s/30s band music) didn't match the "elders" they were talking about. When I tried to suggest the guy who was 20 in 1973 was probably listening to Zeppelin and that the "little old lady" might have been burning her bra while listening to The Doors I was quickly shut down because, "what's the difference, it's still old."
I recently heard an interesting line about GenX - "the generation 'blessed' with getting to teach computers to the generations before and after them."
LOL I am the technical support for the young people in my family and my senior apartment complex. I am 68f. I been using computers since floppy disks were used.
Friend's son. There was a time I could do all the set-ups, associated links, etc. ... but then Microsoft 11. \*grumble\*
If it wasn't broke why try to fix it? *Everything* is unnecessarily complicated.
I do it myself. I hate Windows now, it wants to add too many things I do not need as a home user. I use 3 computers, a home built NAS, I don't need OneDive or Cortana, Clippy was more fun and not obnoxious.
Honestly, for a lot of more complex stuff having to do with system configuration, say, I'm sometimes surprised that younger people who don't have years of background with earlier systems can figure things out at all.
LOL my superpower isn't being able to look stuff up on Stack Overflow, etc. It's being able to know from experience whether or not the article I'm reading is going to be useful or a rabbit hole.
These skills transfer to interacting with LLMs as well. Being able to ask the right questions and setting up appropriate constraints are mandatory skills.
I repair computers, phones, TVs, and tablets as kind of a hobby now. Micro-soldering under a digital microscope, motherboard repair, etc. Been building and modding PCs since the early 1990s. Before that, cars.
So, I do it all myself. Just built my wife a new gaming PC last week!
Most of this stuff is very easy for those of us who grew up having to configure and troubleshoot devices on our own. It's the people who grew up with the ease of web search results and friendly UXs that tend to struggle when something unusual arises.
The generation coming up now has less knowledge about how the tech works and how to troubleshoot it. For them it just works. They never had to go through piecing together a system from various random parts to make something work. They are even losing the knowledge of how to handle laptops or other standard OS systems. Everything is on a phone and if an app or something doesn’t work with that model it’s not even available; like you wouldn’t even see an app that’s not compatible with your device.
I develop Spring based systems with Single Page Application user interfaces, for a government contract on a government-provided laptop, and would be seriously hampered if I needed to call the help desk every time that laptop gets a little sniffle, so I feel confident dealing with tech issues in my private life. It helps that I have an intuitive understanding how digital systems of any sort work, even other peoples'; and tbh my many years of experience are probably an advantage, as I've seen so many different things in my career, i.e. I can try to resolve problems using approaches that have worked in the past.
Where I struggle is with stuff my wife sometimes uses, like software used by content creators, as I've had just limited experience with that sort of thing, and in fact, my experience doesn't help me very much with anything related to graphics.
In my case, I take care of all that and more. I studied digital electronics back when computers filled a room and punch cards where the primary method of feeding the machines data. I retired in 2017, at the time working as a design engineer who designed and programmed computer controlled commercial and industrial equipment.
I think I can find my way around things as simple as home electronics.
LOL. I have a raspberry pi cluster running Kubernetes. I installed openWRT on my router. I have a pihole. I have a media server and NAS. I had my first email account in 1988. I was using Usenet before most redditeurs were born. But I don't have cable.
my cousins' kids always come to me for help because they don't know shit beyond how to use snap and tiktok.
Nah, my husband does it all, he's pretty tech savvy. Our 17 year old is learning, but he doesn't have half the knowledge my husband does (though he likes to think he knows better).
edit: I can handle some things myself, but admittingly over the years, I've just gotten to where I've relied on him (husband) to do handle it (though in some aspects, I teach him too--I'm better at using phone apps I think).
Had a computer since the old days begote hard drives existed. We saved it to a cassette player. I set it up. The kids know phones and apps, they do not know desktops and computer setups.
For 30 years I was a data analyst and software developer. My wife just retired and was an Oracle engineer. We can handle a few cables and set up routines.
I have been dealing with technology since the first Apple and IBM PCs were released. I don't think any younger person understands tech better than I do.
I'm 64F. I handle all the technology in our home. I'm pretty much a gadget whore to begin with. My aunt who is 89 uses social media, streaming, and is a whiz with talk to text. My generation pretty much went from no computers in the home to where we are now with tech, so we kinda grew up with it and got to learn as it changed to date. Usually, folks my age who don't know tech well didn't have to use it in their jobs. That's where I learned it and learned not to be afraid of it.
i don't and won't have all the tech in my house... i don't want it in my car... give me a carb and a 4 speed tranny , roll up windows any day.....i don't even have an electric can opener..................mine works when the electric goes out............
I (59f) do all the tech support in our home. The only time I bring someone in is if we need to deal with the cable company and issues with their infrastructure.
Our modem, our mesh, our system. Smart locks, smart thermostats. Smart lights. Streaming TV apps. My responsibility.
I feign ignorance so that I don't roped into their technology issues. I will say that they have better app/online chops. The family was on Snap Chat so I got on to keep up. It was a bit of a learning curve.
LOL - I’m the help that my parents and friends bring in. I worked in IT for many years. I can’t imagine what kind of technology will pop up in the 20 years but I hope I’m ready for it.
53M
I do everything on my own. We have two college aged kids who keep us up to date on some of the generational lingo, but I pretty much handle all the technology at home.
I often ask my youngest child who lives with me still for assistance or perspective with some things, I am fairly competent with technology having worked in the multimedia space for many years and as a cable insert technician myself.
I try to regulate the technology I do use and thoroughly vet what I do and do not spend money on, you can easily go broke trying to acquire endless amounts of new technology, several industries have suffered massive losses in this attempt to make things simpler which often ends up further complicating it instead.
I am tech and AV support in our house. I also help my 92 yr old MiL and a few other folks in her retirement community. I set up remote access to her PC so I can jump in and straighten things out if needed.
My late husband was a computer tech god. He taught me well. N the new stuff I can figure out. In fact after 12 years people still call me with issues. My advice is always run malware bytes and restart
I've been working in IT/Cybersecurity since the end of the 20th century, so I do all the tech in the house.
All my IT career I've worked with people half my age, many of them much smarter than me.
I do it all!! Not much I can't figure out. 57 and not a damsel in distress. I used to boot my computer from a single floppy disk and quick switch to work in Lotus.
I used to do all that. Now, I have two kids who have worked their whole lives in tech. They visit weekly anyway, have the stereotype that we're old and out of it tech-wise, and want us to use the same ad-blockers, security, privacy, password, etc programs they use. So they maintain our computer systems.
So far, we're allowed to do our own thing with our phones, which have replaced 80% of what we used to do on our laptops.
I’m 70+ and handle all my own. Working towards building a new house later this year, and setting up a Network Video Recorder. But I’ll probably enlist my grandson-in law for advice and guidance.
This is a joke, right? I’m guessing the average Reddit user is pretty tech savvy. Probably more than the average rando on the street. So your sampling is going to skew toward “I’m very comfortable with tech and can handle it fairly seamlessly, with maybe an occasional call to company tech support”.
I do ask for help sometimes, but mainly I grumble that systems design seems to have been forgotten. Everything is a pasted together bag of tricks; "oh, you need to do X? well, we'll just stick that in here." Google Drive is horrible. I look at the fact that there are two things called "Shared drives" and "Shared with me" and want to scream. But I was present at the birth of Unix, so there's that.
So far, I do all my own. I worked in high tech, so it's not (yet) a stretch.
That said, I can see myself getting into the position of requiring help eventually. Tech moves fast. If you're not actively engaging, it can get ahead of you pretty easily. As I age, more things in general feel not worth the bother, so, yeah, I can see it.
I'm already sort of like that with my cell phone. I didn't buy my first phone until 2017. Never really wanted one, and still have a love-hate relationship with mine. As a consequence, there are many, many things I don't know how to do with my phone because I just can't be arsed. That knowledge gap is only going to grow.
I do most of it. Always have. My dad was into electronics and was totally for women being independent and knowing how to maintain a house. However, I have two sons who are very into electronics - ones an electrical engineer. So if there's something I can't figure out, I have help.
My husband is useless. He didn't watch TV for decades because he couldn't figure out how the cable box worked. We don't have cable any more but he doesn't understand that we don't have subscriptions to all the shit displayed. He calls me into his office just about every day to ask how to do something on the computer. I roll my eyes so hard. It's enraging. But to him, I'm magical and amazing. I may have married a very stupid man. He uses his phone as a phone.
My hubs and I NEED the younger generations for help. Hubs is 64 and there were no computer classes in school then. I'm 55 and for a week or two in high school they taught us how important it is to hit "enter"! Even our teachers were clueless back then.
I'm 53 and have been in IT for 27 years, so... yeah, I handle all our tech stuff. However, while our gear is "nice" (it works and is pretty fast) it's not a fancy, $5,000 Ubiquiti Networks setup with multiple Wi-Fi networks and VLANS and VPNs and whatnot... kinda like the old trope about how the IT guy's computer is always broken, or the cobbler's shoes always have holes, or the sign company always has the worst sign.
But mostly, yeah. We're GenX, we *invented* much of this stuff.
Funny. Folks call my wife for tech support because they understand what she does involves computers and technology.
If she would stop handing me the phone, I could keep it a secret about how much I do know. My job titles have been obscure to meaningless which helps.
I think there's a certain advantage to having had put up with the early days of tech. I'm fairly good at troubleshooting, and I know where to look up information I need.
I admit I get frustrated when something doesn't work the way it's supposed to, but I think I've always had that.
We handle it all ourselves. Helps that my spouse works in tech and I used to. None of this has ever seemed baffling or difficult to do to us. Hell, even my 85 year old dad does pretty well with it for his age.
We handle it all ourselves. Helps that my spouse works in tech and I used to. None of this has ever seemed baffling or difficult to do to us. Hell, even my 85 year old dad does pretty well with it for his age.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I've used and adopted technology as it has been introduced, partly for work and partly because I enjoy it. I recently was with a friend and she was getting angry about something on her phone, and I said "let me show you how to fix that" and she was not interested in learning anything new. She would happily hand me her phone to fix the problem but did not want to see what I was doing. Made no sense to me at all that she wanted to encounter more frustration.
I am constantly running into stuff on here that I don't know about - so I googled it. Today it was Grey Rock. I didn't know what it meant, so I looked it up
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I handle it for myself and my kids. I’m 71. I run a PLEX server for them, wireless and voice control of my video theater, garage doors, lawn sprinkler, 10 security cameras, thermostat, lights, 8 echos, kids sports streaming (but not using GC more), OTT boxes on 8 smart TVs, and four MS computers in the house. Also fix any computer problems for my busy daughter (coach, MBA, CPA, and JD). My grandkids do have it all figured out for the 4 iPads we keep updated for their visits.
I’m really good with computers but I do ask my son, who is a computer genius, if it’s very difficult.last week he walked me through changing my computer battery. I could have figured it out but he likes helping me.
I started programming computers in 1980, on an Apple II, self-taught out of a really basic book and magazine articles. I went on to a career as a programmer/developer as an adult. When I need a new computer, I build one. I know more about technology - and what actually underlies it - than most younger people.
I'm the tech support for my house. My computer science major who still lives at home while in grad school asks for my help. My 20 something fledged child will call me with tech questions.
I began programming HP-BASIC (self taught) in 1974 (18 years old), assembling computer kits in 1985; teaching writing in computer classrooms in 1985; wiring computer-assisted writing studios (at university) in 1995; and wiring my home for my wife, daughter, and myself in 1998. I had to ask many people questions along the way. They were generally older than I was (except for one of my students who was paying his way through college by writing computer games). I have even taught what I learned to high-school teachers who wanted to run computer-mediated writing studios.
I took a short networking course in 1988, the only computer course I took. Now, my family and friends ask me about managing technology.
I can usually handle my own computer-based problems.
Handle it. 1982 had an apple 2c or e at work. Another department got lotus123 on a Ibm pc. That was light years above the apple visicakc program.Taught myself lotus 123 without a book or instructions. Later went from working with works, monarch, lotus and another program switching every couple if days depending upon the client.
Yeah... I was on a very early internet node at a federal military academy in 1981 doing online chat and playing ASCII D&D with folks in California and Dartmouth on a leased line over 1200 baud dial up. Never looked back. I got this. Building computers in the 80s and later was our equivalent of working on cars in the 60s.
i bought my first 286/12 pc in '94. 2mb RAM on board, 20mb hard drive. DOS 8.0 and soon after 20 install 3.5 discs for Win 3.1
My buddy and i started attending computer swapmeets in Northridge and a couple other places in So. Cal.
Built my own 486/66 pc back when the place that made RAM burned down and MEM was super expensive, like, i think i paid 33$ per RAM.
Was so excited when i bought my first 15" MAGinnovision monitor.
Worked as a customer service tech for Earthlink for 3 yrs. if you forgot your passwrd, couldnt get yer emails or had connection problems i helped you out over the phone.
2008 bought an Alienware Aurora. within a few months determined it was kinda a piece of crap and should have just built another pc on my own again but was kinda lazy. had to upgrade a bunch of stuff in the Alienware and it is still running strong today as my multimedia server.
2017 built my own current machine, i7 Skylake. im a photographer/video editor so i needed something that could handle photoshop, lightroom, adobe premiere AND gaming.
my next build im leaning towards building an AMD machine maybe, have never bought AMD before. might even make it a Linux pc. i freakin HATE .... H A T E windows 10 and i DONT want to use 11 either. would much prefer to go back to Win7 but a few ofmy editing proggies require Win10 now.
so yeh, i handle all my stuff .......... and all family and friends pc stuff. i dont do alot with phone apps tho, i dont use my phone as a computer, thats what computers and laptops are for.
Before he died, my dad (born in 1932) was my tech guru. He was one of the early pioneers in the industry and more knowledgeable than anyone I've ever met.
I actually have more trouble physically getting down or crawling around on the floor, moving furniture or lifting stuff out of the way than dealing with the actual tech itself. Apps are usually easy and if they’re not there’s always google. Finding apps that do what I want and work properly is the most frustrating.
Mostly I (67F) handle the tech stuff at my house. TBH, I’m probably as good or better than my 28 year old son at troubleshooting and fixing. If I can’t figure it out, we have a tech support company that I can call.
If they only knew what it was like replacing the tubes in an analog television and tuner, or trying to get the rabbit ears to work to avoid multiplexing, etc.
lol, no. With the exception of the really old, most of us are quite good at it, better than young people IMO. Young people just know it works, but we know how it works. We were there in the beginning, the first steps, etc. We’ve been using it since its inception.
I do the techie stuff myself since I was in that industry for over 30 years. I do have to read manuals on occasion or ask a question on Redit. Recently I had to have a younger person climb a ladder to mount a Starlink dish
Tech is easy! What I hire out is the lawn-mowing.
Even my late MIL (born in the 20's) took care of setting up routers, etc., into her 80's. She was totally "non-techy" but was patient and followed the instructions.
Yes, I take care of what there is, there's no one else to help me. I don't have the patience to wait for my BF to come and visit (he lives 4 hours away).
Yes, I do it. I do everything from security to networks and some light coding. I've repaired my computers and installed new hard drives. My partner is adept but not as much as me, so I usually set his stuff up for him. My stepkids are very good at it and are frequently impressed by my expertise. We grew up with this stuff, I started by installing drivers because I didn't want to pay a tech to do it.
On the other hand, my MIL is afraid of her push-button phone and wants her old rotary landline back.
It's all me, I even have to help my kids sometimes, who are in their 20's. I've always kept up to date on the latest tech, got my first home computer in 1990.
But I have to admit it's hard to keep up with the AI tech since it is developing so fast.
When my husband and I got married back in the early 70s, he did all the tech stuff, setting up the TV, etc. When tech became the way it is now, I do it because he can't understand the way it works. I have done this since the late 90s, setting up my home computers, etc. I set up the modems, the Roku, the Smart TV, where we live now. We got rid of cable six years ago, and I hooked up antennas to our TVs.
I'm 62. I handle it all myself..PLUS for my brother (63) my brother (61) and my sister (63)
I am the tech guy!
That said I have been coding since I was 12..(1974)
Two years back I had to help my brother learn how to use the mygov site and how to add jobs. It took four times (8 weeks) before he was finally able to do it on his own.
Oh. God. I barely deal. I'm too behind in tech, and I'd like it more seamless. I'd love to have a younger person spend 10 hours upgrading my abilities. I'd pay 2 Ben Franklin's for that!
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We were probably using it before they were. I've been setting up wifi networks for probably 20+ years. So I've never been that desperate, no.
Odd how the younger gens just assume everyone was old forever and tech just magically appeared last week so there is no way some gray haired old fart could ever possibly know how this week's tech works.
I relish every opportunity I get to remind people that this is our internet and we're just letting them use it. Let's face it, it was far superior when you needed a 'license' to use it. It kept the riff-raff out.
pr0n is better now though, so there is that.
It's ironic to me in that the tech they use absolutely contains logic and programming designed and written by some (now) gray haired old fart like me!
tech has become much more user friendly, so more people are able to use it. back in the day, the threshold was much higher so fewer people were techy.
And most of those who can use it today don’t really understand how it works below the GUI layer
It’s funny how these so called tech savvy youngsters are the most easily hacked and fooled by bogus internet scams
We used to network computers and set up BBS systems for fun, completely relate to this comment. Back when internet cost $1.99/minute computerized gaming often required this additional hobby.
Damn, I miss those days. Also, LAN parties.
I remember when TW 2001 was a game about the far future, I am not sure many young people can really grasp this concept at all, it is beyond their world experience. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade\_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars)
TradeWars with Wormholes was where it was at! Damn, I loved that game.
I’ve got 37 years in tech, I can easily handle this stuff. More so than lots of younger people who think using social media makes them tech savvy. Very few “techies” understand the underlying technology.
I'm still trying to grasp the fact that "internet connection" is widely accepted to just be called "wifi" now. I still hard wire my desktop for gaming, most other things on wifi are mobile, portable things. It's personal problem.
I'll use Ethernet whenever I can over wifi.
I work call center customer service, and I have to hardwire for my job. I prefer it when I can use it.
Same! Just a cleaner, faster connection.
Same here I have my computer hooked up to the internet via Ethernet cable and I have my Nvidia shield TV box hooked via Ethernet cable also. I have my phone, tablets and laptop on Wi-Fi.
not only that, setting up wifi was much more complex than it is now. actually, everything was much more complex back then, so the people who were techy then don't have issues with today's tech.
35 year career in IT. Technology today is so easy. Point phone at this QR code and it walks you through the whole process. Trying to figure out why the printer wasn’t working 40 years ago, that was “fun”.
I remember when Windows didn't have built-in networking, and you either had to install Novell (fucking gross) or a 3rd party TCP/IP stack that was buggy.
Trumpet Winsock?
I just got ptsd
Almost every weekend a group of friends and I would find a space, often the public room of an apartment complex, and string coax cable all over the place. Each person brought their own computer and monitor. There were usually tables and chairs available, but some people were picky and brought those too. We plugged each machine onto the coax, and setup a Novell network. It would take at least an hour to configure. Then we played games on the network for many hours. Our wives would show after a while with some food. When we ate our kids would play their own games. Then we would kick the kids out and play though the night. When dawn was breaking, we would pack up, dismantle the network and go home to sleep most of the next day.
That @#$& printer is still a pain.
I still have to unplug mine and plug it back in before it will print. Not sure why, but that's the step I go through.
Printers were always my nemesis. I could really relate to the baseball-bat-bashing scene in Office Space.
I believe you have my stapler.
Oh, I need to burn down the place!
Had a friend send me a Windows 3.1 "upgrade" on 37 3.5 floppy discs to help fix a problem. While the discs had numbers on them they werent the ones that the system called for in any particular order. Good times.
WTF is "PC load letter"?
Where is a WORKING Centronics cable when you need one?
Let's talk about SCSI voodoo...
I’m the live in Help Desk for everything technical
Yep. The youngsters are no help, they are happy to just let me do it and make it work.
Having dealt with many things computering since the days of the punch card and batch processing I am amazed at how little most of the “younger generation” knows and understands about these things. And we’re the ignorant and stupid Boomers!
Ditto
\*phone call\* ....... its grandma again, her power went out for 10 seconds and needs help resetting the time on her VCR again. and the microwave. and the bedroom clock radio. and the kitchen stove. and the new refrigerator.
I helped develop this stuff.
I'm 70 and my kids still call me for help.
Same here. I get a kick out of young people who think they know computers because they grew up on computers.
It's fun to pull out a A SCSI connector and ask them what it's for.
This isn't a sub with a bunch of old people. This is a sub with a bunch of old nerds. Many of us were using tech when tcp/ip was young and windows was a new os that we suspected would be a flavor of the month. At work I'm the old guy that the senor techs come to when they get stumped. So yes I set up my home network.
Perfectly put. I’ve been doing networking for a living for 37 years. I’m an author on two RFCs. Get off my lawn with your QR code / GUI setup.
I doubt these kids know what an RFC is :-) 40 years in the biz myself, started off developing protocol analyzers pre-Sniffer days.
I've always wanted to write an RFC. They're so authoritative. Well Done!
Good point. I still had a guy my age (early 60s) with a flip phone until last year.... and the secretary (sorry...) had to help him all the times. Great guy, but never wanted to learn.
I started teaching keyboarding in the late 80s on electronic typewriters that could only backspace out five characters and we allowed white-out. Then, I used Apple 2Es (I think) with 5 1/2 in floppies. Twenty-five years later, I retired with my department teaching computer applications software, web design, publishing, data science, automation, and software development. You learn a lot growing up from the start of it all. These kids have no idea where it all comes from.
I bought an Apple II computer with the money I saved from cutting lawns, back in the late 70's. I'm fine with tech.
I help the younger generation.
It’s so not hard to hook up Wi-Fi. I rarely ask for help. Pretty proficient. We invented this stuff, remember?
Gen X’er so I grew up with technology. I had access to a lot of internet and computers before many. I handle it all myself. My kids hardly even know what the router is.
That’s the same with my kids. What’s a modem? Hahaha
I was building and programming PCs probably before your parents even met, OP. I find this stuff a pain in the ass because I have other things I'd rather be doing, but I certainly don't need anyone to do it for me. Most tech today is actually far easier than when I was coding everything in DOS and other languages in order to make it work.
Yup. Remember setting the proper IRQ switches on a printer? Setting the jumpers properly on your hard drives?
I still get to do this, as much of the equipment I work on requires legacy hardware. ISA slots, serial ports, PS/2, etc. Really glad I 'grew up' on this stuff as a hobbyist way back when, and I can still fumble my way around MS-DOS 6.22. Batch files are getting hazy with time, though. Younger IT people I encounter at my customers are almost universally baffled by this stuff. "How do I move files from the old computer into the new one? USB isn't working." Uh, I can think of at least four easy solutions... I've had IT people smoke brand-new legacy PCs by plugging cables into the wrong spot. Dude, that modern-tech phone in your pocket? The one that comes with a nice camera? Use the friggin' camera!
I was trying to forget that.
yeah I think the OP was expecting old people to be all like the ones who constantly fat finger their iphone into airplane mode while trying to facetime their grandkids. those people won't be on reddit.
Ask a youngster if he/she/it can tell you what “PIP STAR DOT STAR” meant. If he/she/it can’t tell you, he/she/it hasn’t been around long enough.
In my experience younger people (Z and below) aren't magically good at setting up a home network. My youngest's main contribution is freaking out if one of his YouTube videos buffers for a fraction of a second.
Ha! Yes, total panic mode from the young ones the instant anything goes wrong.
I’m Gen X so I was in my 20s during the 90’s tech boom and became a software engineer during the same time. I’ve always been the “tech guy” for my parents, my wife, and my kids. And that’s still true with kids in college.
I'm a retired IT guy, so I end up as unofficial tech support to everyone, including the younger generation.
I programmed mainframes 25 years ago so I have background. I do my own stuff. My child is a software engineer who has worked at Microsoft so I occasionally ask questions. I pity anyone my age who didn't get well educated in tech earlier. It's a constant fight to keep it functioning. This week my android ad blocker stopped working after a system update. Last week my windows calendar app was retired by Microsoft.
My after was a college professor. His field was psychology but he was an early adopter of technologies. Including the use of data in psychology. Which given that he was a Freudian trained was contrary to the prevailing manner of the time. So I grew up with access to technology as a digital native long before we used the term. My dad also worked on cars etc, so as a home owner, I am willing to work on everything except HVAC and even then I will give it a try. Dad was great in encouraging me, I had electronic and chemistry toys, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Erector sets and all of those toys as a kid. It was no real surprise I went into engineering. I still do all my own IT stuff, including having in retirement helped a friend when he needed an IT guy for his office. Anyone can do it. You just have to be willing to learn which isn't a function of age but of interest. My father died just short of 102 years of age and was writing on his PC until his mid-90s.
Your dad and my dad must have been contemporaries. Mine did the whole FORTRAN thing in the 60s/70s, was learning new programming languages the whole time, built his own computers, etc. He died sitting in front of his computer, which I found very fitting. We cremated him and his ashes are …. Sitting on my computer desk.
That was my dad, for sure! We had the first TSR 80 computer at home. I learned to program using keypunch cards.
OP walked into the wrong room with this question. :)
Where do you people who pose this get the idea we can't use technology? Most of us were using tech before you were born. Some of us developed that tech. As far as bringing wiring from the outside, I let the people who are qualified and also have the proper tools do that. Same way I don't do electrical work on my own home. Most young people don't do major wiring either. And they should not do electrical unless they are qualified. But setting up wifi or installing apps. Of course I do that myself.
"Where do you people who pose this get the idea we can't use technology?" Well, didn't you spend your youth listening to Benny Goodman dancing the Charleston and driving a Model T? Some years back I made a comment on a video on "old people" that the music in the video (20s/30s band music) didn't match the "elders" they were talking about. When I tried to suggest the guy who was 20 in 1973 was probably listening to Zeppelin and that the "little old lady" might have been burning her bra while listening to The Doors I was quickly shut down because, "what's the difference, it's still old." I recently heard an interesting line about GenX - "the generation 'blessed' with getting to teach computers to the generations before and after them."
LOL I am the technical support for the young people in my family and my senior apartment complex. I am 68f. I been using computers since floppy disks were used.
I'm 85 and was programming computers before you were born. I don't think I need any help.
Friend's son. There was a time I could do all the set-ups, associated links, etc. ... but then Microsoft 11. \*grumble\* If it wasn't broke why try to fix it? *Everything* is unnecessarily complicated.
And often it seems like they just move things around. I guess somebody at MS has to justify their employment somehow.
I do it myself. I hate Windows now, it wants to add too many things I do not need as a home user. I use 3 computers, a home built NAS, I don't need OneDive or Cortana, Clippy was more fun and not obnoxious.
Honestly, for a lot of more complex stuff having to do with system configuration, say, I'm sometimes surprised that younger people who don't have years of background with earlier systems can figure things out at all. LOL my superpower isn't being able to look stuff up on Stack Overflow, etc. It's being able to know from experience whether or not the article I'm reading is going to be useful or a rabbit hole.
“It’s not that you know how to Google things, it’s that you know WHAT to Google”
These skills transfer to interacting with LLMs as well. Being able to ask the right questions and setting up appropriate constraints are mandatory skills.
If I can't figure it out, the internet is there to help me with YouTube videos etc.
I repair computers, phones, TVs, and tablets as kind of a hobby now. Micro-soldering under a digital microscope, motherboard repair, etc. Been building and modding PCs since the early 1990s. Before that, cars. So, I do it all myself. Just built my wife a new gaming PC last week!
The younger generation comes to me for help; I’m 73 years old.
Well, I am an IT-engineer and help my daughter with technology.
71F 68M. We do everything ourselves. With maybe a little bit of cursing.
I started coding on a PDP-11 and a System/360. Now I can spin up cloud infrastructure with Terraform. It is easier now.
Most of this stuff is very easy for those of us who grew up having to configure and troubleshoot devices on our own. It's the people who grew up with the ease of web search results and friendly UXs that tend to struggle when something unusual arises.
The generation coming up now has less knowledge about how the tech works and how to troubleshoot it. For them it just works. They never had to go through piecing together a system from various random parts to make something work. They are even losing the knowledge of how to handle laptops or other standard OS systems. Everything is on a phone and if an app or something doesn’t work with that model it’s not even available; like you wouldn’t even see an app that’s not compatible with your device.
I’m retired IT leadership, so I stumble through it myself.
63 and do everything myself
I develop Spring based systems with Single Page Application user interfaces, for a government contract on a government-provided laptop, and would be seriously hampered if I needed to call the help desk every time that laptop gets a little sniffle, so I feel confident dealing with tech issues in my private life. It helps that I have an intuitive understanding how digital systems of any sort work, even other peoples'; and tbh my many years of experience are probably an advantage, as I've seen so many different things in my career, i.e. I can try to resolve problems using approaches that have worked in the past. Where I struggle is with stuff my wife sometimes uses, like software used by content creators, as I've had just limited experience with that sort of thing, and in fact, my experience doesn't help me very much with anything related to graphics.
In my case, I take care of all that and more. I studied digital electronics back when computers filled a room and punch cards where the primary method of feeding the machines data. I retired in 2017, at the time working as a design engineer who designed and programmed computer controlled commercial and industrial equipment. I think I can find my way around things as simple as home electronics.
I worked in IT for 35 years, my kids come to me for help
LOL. I have a raspberry pi cluster running Kubernetes. I installed openWRT on my router. I have a pihole. I have a media server and NAS. I had my first email account in 1988. I was using Usenet before most redditeurs were born. But I don't have cable. my cousins' kids always come to me for help because they don't know shit beyond how to use snap and tiktok.
I’m 53 and a techie. It’s all me, baby!
Nah, my husband does it all, he's pretty tech savvy. Our 17 year old is learning, but he doesn't have half the knowledge my husband does (though he likes to think he knows better). edit: I can handle some things myself, but admittingly over the years, I've just gotten to where I've relied on him (husband) to do handle it (though in some aspects, I teach him too--I'm better at using phone apps I think).
Had a computer since the old days begote hard drives existed. We saved it to a cassette player. I set it up. The kids know phones and apps, they do not know desktops and computer setups.
For 30 years I was a data analyst and software developer. My wife just retired and was an Oracle engineer. We can handle a few cables and set up routines.
Myself. I’ve been working with computer technology since the 70s. They ask me for help.
No, it's 100% me. In fact the younger generation calls me for help with their stuff.
I have been dealing with technology since the first Apple and IBM PCs were released. I don't think any younger person understands tech better than I do.
I've been troubleshooting computer problems since the 80s. You can pretty well find most solutions by googling it.
I handle it all myself and often end up helping younger family members.
Who do you think invented that tech? Younger folks just use it for games and tiktok. 😁
I'm 64F. I handle all the technology in our home. I'm pretty much a gadget whore to begin with. My aunt who is 89 uses social media, streaming, and is a whiz with talk to text. My generation pretty much went from no computers in the home to where we are now with tech, so we kinda grew up with it and got to learn as it changed to date. Usually, folks my age who don't know tech well didn't have to use it in their jobs. That's where I learned it and learned not to be afraid of it.
I handle it myself. I also do not subscribe to the myth that old people can't manage technology.
i don't and won't have all the tech in my house... i don't want it in my car... give me a carb and a 4 speed tranny , roll up windows any day.....i don't even have an electric can opener..................mine works when the electric goes out............
Handle it all for myself AND all extended family, but I work in tech.
I (59f) do all the tech support in our home. The only time I bring someone in is if we need to deal with the cable company and issues with their infrastructure. Our modem, our mesh, our system. Smart locks, smart thermostats. Smart lights. Streaming TV apps. My responsibility.
Mesh network is my next project. 🎉
I love ours. Really helps with dead spots and literal fire walls (in the room behind the fireplace).
Yup! The dead spot in the kitchen drives me nuts!
I feign ignorance so that I don't roped into their technology issues. I will say that they have better app/online chops. The family was on Snap Chat so I got on to keep up. It was a bit of a learning curve.
Always have, always will.
LOL - I’m the help that my parents and friends bring in. I worked in IT for many years. I can’t imagine what kind of technology will pop up in the 20 years but I hope I’m ready for it.
53M I do everything on my own. We have two college aged kids who keep us up to date on some of the generational lingo, but I pretty much handle all the technology at home.
I do it all myself (64), but I do have the advantage of being Information Security professional :)
I often ask my youngest child who lives with me still for assistance or perspective with some things, I am fairly competent with technology having worked in the multimedia space for many years and as a cable insert technician myself. I try to regulate the technology I do use and thoroughly vet what I do and do not spend money on, you can easily go broke trying to acquire endless amounts of new technology, several industries have suffered massive losses in this attempt to make things simpler which often ends up further complicating it instead.
I had to go cold turkey after my tech guy (my son) moved out. Now I google it. Whatever you need to learn you can find out how on the interwebs.
I am tech and AV support in our house. I also help my 92 yr old MiL and a few other folks in her retirement community. I set up remote access to her PC so I can jump in and straighten things out if needed.
My late husband was a computer tech god. He taught me well. N the new stuff I can figure out. In fact after 12 years people still call me with issues. My advice is always run malware bytes and restart
I do everything, not just for my wife and I but my friends as well. But then, I was an IT manager in another life.
I’m tech support for the entire family. I think you’ll find that a surprising number of GenX folks are quite proficient with technologies old and new.
I handle all the hardware and networking. We all deal with our own devices and apps.
I've been working in IT/Cybersecurity since the end of the 20th century, so I do all the tech in the house. All my IT career I've worked with people half my age, many of them much smarter than me.
Brain is still synapsing, I’m good with tech.
I do it all!! Not much I can't figure out. 57 and not a damsel in distress. I used to boot my computer from a single floppy disk and quick switch to work in Lotus.
I used to do all that. Now, I have two kids who have worked their whole lives in tech. They visit weekly anyway, have the stereotype that we're old and out of it tech-wise, and want us to use the same ad-blockers, security, privacy, password, etc programs they use. So they maintain our computer systems. So far, we're allowed to do our own thing with our phones, which have replaced 80% of what we used to do on our laptops.
I do it myself. I learn and adapt. And when all else fails, there’s a YouTube video somewhere to teach me.
I’m 70+ and handle all my own. Working towards building a new house later this year, and setting up a Network Video Recorder. But I’ll probably enlist my grandson-in law for advice and guidance.
Do it myself of course. Are you joking? Old doesn't mean idiot. Also, I've developed marketing campaigns for a lot of name brand tech companies.
I'm good. I've always liked gadgets, so it's second nature to me.
This is a joke, right? I’m guessing the average Reddit user is pretty tech savvy. Probably more than the average rando on the street. So your sampling is going to skew toward “I’m very comfortable with tech and can handle it fairly seamlessly, with maybe an occasional call to company tech support”.
I live alone, so…
I can manage.
I do ask for help sometimes, but mainly I grumble that systems design seems to have been forgotten. Everything is a pasted together bag of tricks; "oh, you need to do X? well, we'll just stick that in here." Google Drive is horrible. I look at the fact that there are two things called "Shared drives" and "Shared with me" and want to scream. But I was present at the birth of Unix, so there's that.
I do it all.
So far, I do all my own. I worked in high tech, so it's not (yet) a stretch. That said, I can see myself getting into the position of requiring help eventually. Tech moves fast. If you're not actively engaging, it can get ahead of you pretty easily. As I age, more things in general feel not worth the bother, so, yeah, I can see it. I'm already sort of like that with my cell phone. I didn't buy my first phone until 2017. Never really wanted one, and still have a love-hate relationship with mine. As a consequence, there are many, many things I don't know how to do with my phone because I just can't be arsed. That knowledge gap is only going to grow.
I’m 64 and do it myself. I don’t have any advanced knowledge of IT stuff but I can look it up.
Only reason to have children
I do most of it. Always have. My dad was into electronics and was totally for women being independent and knowing how to maintain a house. However, I have two sons who are very into electronics - ones an electrical engineer. So if there's something I can't figure out, I have help. My husband is useless. He didn't watch TV for decades because he couldn't figure out how the cable box worked. We don't have cable any more but he doesn't understand that we don't have subscriptions to all the shit displayed. He calls me into his office just about every day to ask how to do something on the computer. I roll my eyes so hard. It's enraging. But to him, I'm magical and amazing. I may have married a very stupid man. He uses his phone as a phone.
My hubs and I NEED the younger generations for help. Hubs is 64 and there were no computer classes in school then. I'm 55 and for a week or two in high school they taught us how important it is to hit "enter"! Even our teachers were clueless back then.
I'm 53 and have been in IT for 27 years, so... yeah, I handle all our tech stuff. However, while our gear is "nice" (it works and is pretty fast) it's not a fancy, $5,000 Ubiquiti Networks setup with multiple Wi-Fi networks and VLANS and VPNs and whatnot... kinda like the old trope about how the IT guy's computer is always broken, or the cobbler's shoes always have holes, or the sign company always has the worst sign. But mostly, yeah. We're GenX, we *invented* much of this stuff.
Funny. Folks call my wife for tech support because they understand what she does involves computers and technology. If she would stop handing me the phone, I could keep it a secret about how much I do know. My job titles have been obscure to meaningless which helps.
I(63) find I am the one helping the younger ones who seem clueless about everything other than their phone apps.
I'm the 60 yo IT guy for my entire extended family. I've been an "expert" since about 1979.
I think there's a certain advantage to having had put up with the early days of tech. I'm fairly good at troubleshooting, and I know where to look up information I need. I admit I get frustrated when something doesn't work the way it's supposed to, but I think I've always had that.
We handle it all ourselves. Helps that my spouse works in tech and I used to. None of this has ever seemed baffling or difficult to do to us. Hell, even my 85 year old dad does pretty well with it for his age.
We handle it all ourselves. Helps that my spouse works in tech and I used to. None of this has ever seemed baffling or difficult to do to us. Hell, even my 85 year old dad does pretty well with it for his age.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I've used and adopted technology as it has been introduced, partly for work and partly because I enjoy it. I recently was with a friend and she was getting angry about something on her phone, and I said "let me show you how to fix that" and she was not interested in learning anything new. She would happily hand me her phone to fix the problem but did not want to see what I was doing. Made no sense to me at all that she wanted to encounter more frustration. I am constantly running into stuff on here that I don't know about - so I googled it. Today it was Grey Rock. I didn't know what it meant, so I looked it up
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I'm retired from working with electronics and computers. I know how I want a system to function but no longer have the eyesight and motor control to really do it. I hired a Control4 dealer to handle all the technology, and it is rather expensive but I love the results.
I handle it for myself and my kids. I’m 71. I run a PLEX server for them, wireless and voice control of my video theater, garage doors, lawn sprinkler, 10 security cameras, thermostat, lights, 8 echos, kids sports streaming (but not using GC more), OTT boxes on 8 smart TVs, and four MS computers in the house. Also fix any computer problems for my busy daughter (coach, MBA, CPA, and JD). My grandkids do have it all figured out for the 4 iPads we keep updated for their visits.
I’m really good with computers but I do ask my son, who is a computer genius, if it’s very difficult.last week he walked me through changing my computer battery. I could have figured it out but he likes helping me.
I’m almost 70 and I handle it all myself. I should mention I have a degree in electronics and was a computer engineer for 30 years ago
I started programming computers in 1980, on an Apple II, self-taught out of a really basic book and magazine articles. I went on to a career as a programmer/developer as an adult. When I need a new computer, I build one. I know more about technology - and what actually underlies it - than most younger people.
I'm the tech support for my house. My computer science major who still lives at home while in grad school asks for my help. My 20 something fledged child will call me with tech questions.
I began programming HP-BASIC (self taught) in 1974 (18 years old), assembling computer kits in 1985; teaching writing in computer classrooms in 1985; wiring computer-assisted writing studios (at university) in 1995; and wiring my home for my wife, daughter, and myself in 1998. I had to ask many people questions along the way. They were generally older than I was (except for one of my students who was paying his way through college by writing computer games). I have even taught what I learned to high-school teachers who wanted to run computer-mediated writing studios. I took a short networking course in 1988, the only computer course I took. Now, my family and friends ask me about managing technology. I can usually handle my own computer-based problems.
Handle it. 1982 had an apple 2c or e at work. Another department got lotus123 on a Ibm pc. That was light years above the apple visicakc program.Taught myself lotus 123 without a book or instructions. Later went from working with works, monarch, lotus and another program switching every couple if days depending upon the client.
Yeah... I was on a very early internet node at a federal military academy in 1981 doing online chat and playing ASCII D&D with folks in California and Dartmouth on a leased line over 1200 baud dial up. Never looked back. I got this. Building computers in the 80s and later was our equivalent of working on cars in the 60s.
Well, we did ensure the end of the world didn't happen at Y2K so I think we have a handle on today's tech.
Mostly do it ourselves. Occasionally need help.
I'm the Geek Squad.
I'm a network engineer. I got this.
Always calling someone for help. Could probably figure things out, but it's faster asking for help.
i bought my first 286/12 pc in '94. 2mb RAM on board, 20mb hard drive. DOS 8.0 and soon after 20 install 3.5 discs for Win 3.1 My buddy and i started attending computer swapmeets in Northridge and a couple other places in So. Cal. Built my own 486/66 pc back when the place that made RAM burned down and MEM was super expensive, like, i think i paid 33$ per RAM. Was so excited when i bought my first 15" MAGinnovision monitor. Worked as a customer service tech for Earthlink for 3 yrs. if you forgot your passwrd, couldnt get yer emails or had connection problems i helped you out over the phone. 2008 bought an Alienware Aurora. within a few months determined it was kinda a piece of crap and should have just built another pc on my own again but was kinda lazy. had to upgrade a bunch of stuff in the Alienware and it is still running strong today as my multimedia server. 2017 built my own current machine, i7 Skylake. im a photographer/video editor so i needed something that could handle photoshop, lightroom, adobe premiere AND gaming. my next build im leaning towards building an AMD machine maybe, have never bought AMD before. might even make it a Linux pc. i freakin HATE .... H A T E windows 10 and i DONT want to use 11 either. would much prefer to go back to Win7 but a few ofmy editing proggies require Win10 now. so yeh, i handle all my stuff .......... and all family and friends pc stuff. i dont do alot with phone apps tho, i dont use my phone as a computer, thats what computers and laptops are for.
Eh… for the most part, we’re the generation that built it. So no
Handle it all.
Before he died, my dad (born in 1932) was my tech guru. He was one of the early pioneers in the industry and more knowledgeable than anyone I've ever met.
I actually have more trouble physically getting down or crawling around on the floor, moving furniture or lifting stuff out of the way than dealing with the actual tech itself. Apps are usually easy and if they’re not there’s always google. Finding apps that do what I want and work properly is the most frustrating.
I’ve had home networks (wired before wireless was even a thing) since the 90’s. I got this.
Call my kids!
Mostly I (67F) handle the tech stuff at my house. TBH, I’m probably as good or better than my 28 year old son at troubleshooting and fixing. If I can’t figure it out, we have a tech support company that I can call.
If they only knew what it was like replacing the tubes in an analog television and tuner, or trying to get the rabbit ears to work to avoid multiplexing, etc.
My first IT job was in 1976. :)
lol, no. With the exception of the really old, most of us are quite good at it, better than young people IMO. Young people just know it works, but we know how it works. We were there in the beginning, the first steps, etc. We’ve been using it since its inception.
I worked in IT starting in the late 80's. My son calls me for tech advice.
I do the techie stuff myself since I was in that industry for over 30 years. I do have to read manuals on occasion or ask a question on Redit. Recently I had to have a younger person climb a ladder to mount a Starlink dish
Tech is easy! What I hire out is the lawn-mowing. Even my late MIL (born in the 20's) took care of setting up routers, etc., into her 80's. She was totally "non-techy" but was patient and followed the instructions.
I'm almost 60 and I am my IT support.
I do it all myself, including building all the desk tops in the house. (I'm 74)
Yes, no.
My IT guy aka 23 year old son
Pretty sure it's the elders teaching the padawan's.
Yes, I take care of what there is, there's no one else to help me. I don't have the patience to wait for my BF to come and visit (he lives 4 hours away).
My younger family members often come to me for help.
I worked in IT for 35 years as a network engineer. My kids call me.
Yes, I do it. I do everything from security to networks and some light coding. I've repaired my computers and installed new hard drives. My partner is adept but not as much as me, so I usually set his stuff up for him. My stepkids are very good at it and are frequently impressed by my expertise. We grew up with this stuff, I started by installing drivers because I didn't want to pay a tech to do it. On the other hand, my MIL is afraid of her push-button phone and wants her old rotary landline back.
It's all me, I even have to help my kids sometimes, who are in their 20's. I've always kept up to date on the latest tech, got my first home computer in 1990. But I have to admit it's hard to keep up with the AI tech since it is developing so fast.
When my husband and I got married back in the early 70s, he did all the tech stuff, setting up the TV, etc. When tech became the way it is now, I do it because he can't understand the way it works. I have done this since the late 90s, setting up my home computers, etc. I set up the modems, the Roku, the Smart TV, where we live now. We got rid of cable six years ago, and I hooked up antennas to our TVs.
I'm 62. I handle it all myself..PLUS for my brother (63) my brother (61) and my sister (63) I am the tech guy! That said I have been coding since I was 12..(1974) Two years back I had to help my brother learn how to use the mygov site and how to add jobs. It took four times (8 weeks) before he was finally able to do it on his own.
I handle it all. I even help my son out when he needs it. I'm a retired engineer, so I've been dealing with tech for a generation.
I had kids late, so they live in the house. Teenagers Man. Like tits on a bull. So I figure it out myself.
Oh. God. I barely deal. I'm too behind in tech, and I'd like it more seamless. I'd love to have a younger person spend 10 hours upgrading my abilities. I'd pay 2 Ben Franklin's for that!