This is a key point, and I don't think the ability to acquire knowledge online is a skill which only young people specifically have failed to acquire.
Said ability must be trained on, as with anything, a suitable dataset. This objective cannot be meaningfully achieved if all data sources someone has ever consumed and learned from are TikTok, ragebait, clickbait, affiliate link blogs, email chains, WhatsApp message chains, sensationalist news outlets, etc.
This is why people still fall for the Nigerian Prince, Hot MILFs in Your Area, job application with deposit and all the modern variants; not only old people but all types of people.
I think some of us nerds have a slight advantage in that we experience the internet early on in a slightly different way: as a parallel to the real world, with friends and foes, with truth and deceit and as a playground to write a game mod or a bot for shit and giggles. We are, due to that I'd pose, much more keen to learn how and be able to effectively navigate it.