...just don’t call them nerds!
As a gen-x 80s kid, time is getting interesting; we went from the best childhood ever with Atari, NES and other video games, with no phones and cameras spying on us, to the dawn of the internet in the 90s, and now to the AI generation. That said, I’ve started to notice that some of the younger generations have interest in learning about former tech. and getting their hands dirty, but learning from past generations may be challenging to them.
You see this in kids wanting to buy computers from the beige-box era, wanting to learn DOS and getting old games going (DOOM!). This includes the hardware that went with that; ISA cards, setting IRQ/DMA settings and all that fun stuff. Thing is, while AI may provide future gens with prior knowledge, it might not always be right, it might be biased, it might not know “tricks”, it certainly can’t speak to the experiences of previous generations, and more importantly, might be gate kept in new and fun ways in the future limiting access to that knowledge. As such, the new generations need to connect with the previous generations. This is true for not only tech, but any other crafts, hobbies, interests, and everything in-between.
While I didn’t follow this person specifically, I recently learned about a ham radio elmer who was popular on Youtube had passed, and it reminded me I’ve been meaning to write about the importance of mentoring and connecting, as well some challenges around that. This was one of (if not the) last videos of that elmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVsuEjvxMBs&t=171s
Tech aside, I’ve observed some interesting aspects from the generation gaps in my own adventures and through third-party experiences. Keep in mind this is just a general list of observations, not proven facts nor is it intended to point a finger at anyone; its really just how life likely works:
- Older generations think younger generations could care less about stuff they know or care about
- Older generations might have gear, documentation, and other things stashed away that may likely end up in a dumpster
- Younger generations likely trend to be more antisocial; its not intentional; growing up in the cell phone, AIM chat and social media era are doing things to younger gens, and in a lot of cases they may struggle with in-person interactions
- Younger generations are more mindful of labels and aspects to their personality (ADHD, Neuro-divergent, etc; older generations shun labels and bottle those aspects up; understand they were raised and taught to do so
- Older generations thrive more in-person, but first impressions might come across as offputting to younger generations; think “get off my lawn” interactions
Again these are just things I’ve picked up on, and the intention of this article to try to cooerce both sides to maybe be a bit more open minded when it comes to interacting with each other. Here’s some examples that speak to the above bullets:
- I was at a train museum looking at a diesel-electric engine. There was a docent on board who was likely 20-30 years my senior, talking about some aspects of the engine, and I commented “wow that’s a huge selenium rectifier!”. To see that docents eyes light up when I said that, and suddenly he’s talking a mile a minute about more technical aspects of the train.
- I often see social media posts, as well as even “comments to editor” in various magazines with lines like “kids these days don’t care about XYZ”, or “if only kids these days had to do things the way we did”.
- Likewise, kids having interest in older tech or topics, and not able to interact with some people knowledgeable in those topics because they may just not be “online”.
- As I demo stuff at a museum I volunteer at, both kids and adults find older tech fascinating, and in some cases it brings out tons of questions
- As I demo stuff at a museum I volunteer at, both kids and adults find older tech fascinating, and in some cases it brings out tons of questions
- Seeing more and more “how to” social posts about how to fix or tackle issues and topics that I feel like should be common knowledge, and I believe this to be more true for previous generations, leading to the assumption that everybody knows how to change a flat tire or jump start a car properly.
Time Marches On
This article is partly driven from my experiences over the last couple years; as one ages, mortality becomes substantially more noticeable. People I went to school with, interacted with are gone, and even people you’d think would long outlive me, did not. In some cases, these were people I had intended to interact with about some topic I knew they were knowledgeable about, and now that carnal knowledge is gone.
The moral here can be summed up as:
- The younger generation need to connect with the older generations and learn from them while they still can
- The older generations need to connect with younger generations, teach them, and talk about their experiences
- There’s a proverbial “ton” of generation gap social issues that might derail these interactions, and other than waxing poetic about patience and open-mindedness on both sides, I’m not sure what other things we can do to “help” these interactions happen more often, but hoping this post starts some wheels turning somewhere.
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