As someone living in more rural demographic, replace grandma with every person with a cpu driven device. To quote my dad regarding his cellular trailcams "Wtf is updatefirmware? Stop making up words."

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The whole "old people are bad at tech" thing is a bit long in the tooth now. Many people who grew up with computers are now old, and many young people are just as baffled by the command line as any grandmother.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 33 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

There really was a magic learning window 1990-2010, I think. Some people who were there are still bad at technology, and a select few from before are good at it and maybe even helped build those systems, but the prevalence is night and day.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yes but I'd say it started 10 years before that, growing in numbers through the first few years of the 1980s.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That could be, it was a rough period. I wasn't around for the beginning, and even the end is approximate as locked down mobile OSs and similarly user-opaque systems gradually came to dominate.

Kids today can still learn computers, but they have to explicitly try. I think something analogous happened with early cars. The first guys had to be able to personally maintain and repair the whole thing, and then over time it gradually became an area for experts and the odd enthusiast only.

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

i didnt say any grandma, i said specifically mine, who follows that trope. idk how yours is but mine is like that

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Reminds me of the Hollywood trope of a character saying “In English please” after any reference to something on a computer.

I hate it so much when they do it. The writers should just say it the way an IT admin would and move on. Pretending that the character is speaking another language is just anti intellectual bullshit.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago

Have you ever seen A Touch Of Cloth? It's a superb send-up of police procedurals. There's a scene where the main character, Cloth, is explaining some not-very-complex idea like you said and one of his lackeys replies, "Can you explain it like I'm some kind of viewer, guv?".

[–] dosuser123456@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago

in my case replacing my grandma with "everyone at my school" also works, i chose my grandma just to vary a bit