Hacker News Reader

Comment by aboringusername | Hacker News Reader

I think the pandemic has a role to play in this for sure. I imagine may were required to use computers/tech as they've not done before. Often times those who are uneducated have to be accounted for so concessions are made.

For example, Sam needs to use a corporate network, doesn't really understand "apps" or what a "TOTP" is, so they optimize (weaken security) to allow them in.

View on HN

Can we change this to "dumber than average" Sue? I guarantee when I'm 60 I'll still be able to safely operate a computer and understand what an "app" is, FFS. Ageism is really out of control these days.

Sure, but when you're 60 you might not be so hot on technology that you first encountered in your 50s.

I'm sure today's 60-year-olds are still perfectly good at the kind of things they've been doing since they were 20.

The implication that someone couldn't keep up with a relatively new things-- in your case vague example something they even encountered a few years earlier-- is pretty much the definition of ageism. Anyone who decides to keep their professional skills current will do just fine whether they're 5 years out of school or 40 years out of school. If someone doesn't keep current & is 5 years out of date on their skills, there's not a lot of difference between a 30 year old and a 60 year old that are equally 5 years out of date. Though the 60 year old might have decades more of experience working in their advantage, so maybe the two aren't equal.

25 years ago, the hot technology was dial-up modems. And PCMCIA cards to connect to WiFi.

Haven’t had much use of that lately.

You have a point about ageism, but you also make quite a condescending mistake of your own. You could have say "less tech savvy" than "dumber than average". It is not because you don't master something that you did not use before that you are dumb.

I edited the comment, you make a good point. My bias is that in my experience the elderly tends to struggle the most as it wasn't common in their day, but point duly noted.

Absolutely agree on this. I've seen the entire spectrum by now: kids,who literally grew up with computers in their hands, not being able to operate simple software and people way past retirement age doing complex 'magic' on their PCs

I'm not impressed by the digital native, current generations.

I think a better descriptor would be "app-native" -- i.e. "I don't understand or care how anything computing works under the hood, and it'd better be tied off with a pretty bow and UI."

This is a topic we discussed with a colleague earlier this week: everyone's smart to click some buttons on an app,which, even a monkey with some basic training could do, but anything outside their comfort zone is a foreign language to them. Just a few days ago got asked what's the url to login to Office 365. There doesn't seem to be any willingness to think.

As someone who hasn't touched Microsoft office in a decade, what's the URL for Office 365 seems like a fair question. Isn't it competing with Google? I assume they offer an in browser client,

So yes, I have no idea how things I don't use work. This isn't that I'm unwilling to think, things are more open ended.

It's not the part whether one knows or doesn't know the url fascinates me: it's a professional setting, where people are quite used to solve problems much more complex than figuring out what's the url. For me it's the thought process: What's the url? I don't know.. error... error.. error. The equivalent of this is if I'd say to someone I've read a great article on Financial Times website,and they'd reply with: sorry, I can't read it,I don't know the url..

Isn't it also the kind of thing that large organizations self host? Sure they could have probably found it with a search engine, or some employee reference, but asking someone isn't a huge deal.

I don't understand your example. There is such a URL (https://www.office.com/). Or are you just suggesting that the colleague could have looked it up themselves?

How about Pat? That’s ambiguous enough.

Or pretend you're in the southeastern US, where "Sam" and "Sue" are both non-gendered, and probably ageless, according to Mr. Cash, at least. You could also go with Courtney, Tracy, Billie, Casey, Drew...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com