The Technology Era: Boomers and Gen-Zers are more alike than you may think

By: Bevin Baskin

(February 2024) - While I may be sick of hearing that life is “too easy” for younger generations, I am able to admit that there are some advantages to growing up in this technology-driven world. Students (such as myself) can look up answers and have an assignment done in five minutes thanks to Google. They can have artificial intelligence, or AI, tools write entire essays for them. Outside of the education system, we can learn concepts that take thousands of dollars and hours a year, for free on YouTube.

We are currently living in what we call the “technology era”. Whether or not humans choose to adapt to this new technology is what seems to be the new “every man for himself” concept. As our world evolves, it is essential that we must evolve with it. Animals that don’t adapt to their surroundings die off and entire species are wiped out. Humans that don’t proceed with society or choose not to keep up can face undesirable outcomes. It is paramount to explore how this fast-paced technology era affects various generations.

As 80-year-old Sandra Baskin puts it, “If you can’t keep up, you fall behind at your own expense. We bank online, buy stuff online, I get all of my doctor records online. I had no choice.” Everyone has had to adapt to these types of changes as society progresses, and the stereotype of seniors not knowing how technology works is simply not accurate in 2024.

Baby Boomers, born from 1946-1964, is a generation full of people who actively pushed against the growth of the technology era at first. In fact, the U.S. News & World Report reported that technology use in seniors has shot from 19% to 75% from 2000-2023.

The statistic-shift in seniors’ technology use is one that is important to explore. What caused this gradual leap in senior technology use?

After speaking with seniors over the age of 70, they, just like Gen-Z, had no choice in the matter. Age aside, we simply must adapt if we want to thrive with society’s evolution.

I visited a Missouri retirement community in February 2024, where I spoke with local seniors about AI developments and how it is changing the world they once grew up in.

Filled with passion and as much outrage as excitement, we discussed how modern-day society is like an episode of a show they once grew up fearing, The Twilight Zone. The show's sci-fi and technology episodes realm of thinking was once scary to society. According to seniors, it has now become reality. With The Twilight Zone being the equivalent of Gen-Z's Black Mirror, television's "crazy technology predictions" are slowly becoming reality.

Artificial Intelligence: Should we be worried?

In 1983 when the internet was invented, technological advancements were being introduced into the workforce. Today’s seniors were around their 30s and 40s during this time and the advancements helped make their jobs easier. Though they were once excited about how life was about to change, a mobile phone is vastly different than artificial intelligence robots and programming.

AI is one of the quickest advancements seen in technology. From creating artwork that sells for almost $500,000 to tracking and interpreting human emotions, AI software is mind-boggling to say the least.

Linda Dieterle, 72-years-old, worked in Information Technology for 15 years and has kept up with all of the technological advances since the 80s. “I do not have fears about the speed of technological evolution, but I have concerns about how quickly AI is coming into the conversation,” she says.

FEB 2024 - Linda Dieterle keeping up

with AI advancements through Facebook

after retiring from IT development in 2009.

Although today’s seniors are worried about the path AI is taking, many of the seniors expressed concern for Gen-Z’s future. In fact, Baskin is a part of the generation before the Baby Boomers- The Silent Generation. In an eye-opening conversation, Baskin reminded me that “most aspects of life are being taken from you.” With Dieterle expressing she is “absolutely worried for the next generations.”

Younger generations may have certain aspects of life simply handed to them thanks to the internet, but at what cost? Gabrielle Gross, 21-years-old, expresses that "knowing how to work software programs or keep up with advancements means nothing to me if it takes away my ability to focus on the world around me. From taking keyboard lessons at 7-years-old to learning how to use early Microsoft programs before I knew how to divide."

Are seniors at a disadvantage?

AI is a cause for reluctancy to trusting this path society is on, but fraud is the main technological issue actively targeting the senior audience. Patricia Dedrick, 74-years-old, pointed this out while expressing her thoughts on technological evolution. “I was always open to new technology. However, now there are so many scams and lies caused by it that I am reluctant in trusting it,” she says.

Billions of dollars are stolen every year due to internet fraud and scams targeting seniors. They are common targets as they are assumed to have money in the bank or little to no knowledge on detecting internet fraud. While no seniors I have come across have personally been scammed online, the FBI reports there were over 88,000 seniors scammed in 2022 (the most recent report).

Costing up to $3 billion per year, seniors are at an extreme disadvantage in not having the same “internet safety” training that younger generations do. The newer generations have days in school where assemblies are called just to teach us how to avoid the dangers of technological scams. Meanwhile, seniors were far out of public school by the time scammers realized they could utilize the internet to do this.

With the increasing power of AI and the knowledge of its developers, scams could be entirely unpreventable and uncontrollable- whether or not one has been trained in looking for signs of it.

It is not just scams, privacy concerns or confusion that keeps seniors reluctant, but what they’ve watched it do to society. Dedrick has noticed that “children are losing social skills and the ability to entertain and educate themselves.” While Baskin pointed out that this new era of technology “seems to want to brainwash and corrupt nearly every aspect of life.” Backing up Baskin's statement, the Pew Research Center has reported that 96% of the Gen-Z population in America uses their devices daily.

FEB 2024 - Patricia Dedrick (left) and Linda Dieterle (right) after a meal discussing

the future of society according to patterns of modern-day technological reliance.

While Gen-Z was raised into an addiction, reliance or adaptation to a life of technology, seniors are beginning to feel the same. It may not have been forced into them at a young age, but they were forced into it for billing, banking or appointments (amongst many other things). “I eventually had to give in to technology,” Baskin says. “Whether I wanted to or not.”

"Gen Z has spent their entire lives in a digital world where technology is second nature and fundamental to their existence," as stated by the Fast Company. With Post Media Solutions explaining that for seniors, "being online and staying up to date with technology isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity."

No one knows what the future holds, but every generation has their fears, and the masses are coming to realize that society has been forced into a reliance which we cannot back out of.