Vaping over the age of 55.

[DaveP]

ECF is my major online forum surfing platform.

The internet is a treasure house of information if you know how to intuitively glean what's there. Where else can you search and read the news you are looking for without having to watch hours of TV and wait for someone to report it to you with an obvious slant?

The hard part of surfing for info is determining what's a lie and who to depend on for the truth.

 

[SomethingElse]

The internet is a treasure house of information if you know how to intuitively glean what's there. Where else can you search and read the news you are looking for without having to watch hours of TV and wait for someone to report it to you with an obvious slant?
The hard part of surfing for info is determining what's a lie and who to depend on for the truth.

Where else can you IMMEDIATELY have your "cognitive bias," your BELIEF(s), reinforced and confirmed by entities espousing the very SAME BELIEF thereby giving some "credence" to one's "righteousness." (Remember, "belief" requires NO thought and is, indeed, antithetical to reason.) Also remember, the center of the word "believe" is "lie." The rest is appropriately self-!!

 

[Aescwynn]

Remember, the 50+ year olds generally didn't grow up with computers, so surfing the web doesn't come as easy to them. So doing research and trusting old media outlets seem to be their go-to.

Hi there. Coming in a few days late to this discussion, but just wanted to put in my two cents. I'm 51, so I'm a Generation X'r like you. As others have noted, home computers and video game console systems first became available when the oldest of our generation was in high school/college and the youngest was in grade school. I was on the Internet myself by the last year of college. So while you did say you were speaking in a general sense, I'd actually push that generality back to 60+ or even 65+ at this moment.

That's because common access to computers and new media has been available nearly a quarter century now. My father, who is now 87, jumped right in when he had the chance, and participated in message boards and other areas of popular internet culture of the time. He is no longer able to do so because of dementia.

Except for folks like my dad, I think people-- not just 50+'ers but speaking generally-- who would rather trust whatever they hear in the MSM than hop on the net for 30 minutes and do a little reading, are just lazy, tbh. Case in point, my 55-year-old sister-in-law who is in no way computer illiterate, as she amply demonstrates when she has to demonstrate something that she's interested in, like chasing down incredible travel deals. She just finds it more convenient to sit there and say, "But you don't know what's in that stuff" when she sees me vape.

 

[Aescwynn]

Yes, I love, love, love REAL books. But, now books can be left to be for pleasure while I get the job done faster on the internet.

I love the look and feel of real books. But sadly, it's very hard for me to see them very well any more, so Kindle books are an absolute godsend. Also, moving house when you have as many books as we do is absolute hell.

 

[NealBJr]

Hi there. Coming in a few days late to this discussion, but just wanted to put in my two cents. I'm 51, so I'm a Generation X'r like you. As others have noted, home computers and video game console systems first became available when the oldest of our generation was in high school/college and the youngest was in grade school. I was on the Internet myself by the last year of college. So while you did say you were speaking in a general sense, I'd actually push that generality back to 60+ or even 65+ at this moment.

That's because common access to computers and new media has been available nearly a quarter century now. My father, who is now 87, jumped right in when he had the chance, and participated in message boards and other areas of popular internet culture of the time. He is no longer able to do so because of dementia.

Except for folks like my dad, I think people-- not just 50+'ers but speaking generally-- who would rather trust whatever they hear in the MSM than hop on the net for 30 minutes and do a little reading, are just lazy, tbh. Case in point, my 55-year-old sister-in-law who is in no way computer illiterate, as she amply demonstrates when she has to demonstrate something that she's interested in, like chasing down incredible travel deals. She just finds it more convenient to sit there and say, "But you don't know what's in that stuff" when she sees me vape.

I'm 48, and I've been around computers for most of my life. When I was in middle/high school, I was using Commodores, and was online at the time. I knew of three others who owned computers, but I was the only person that went "online" at that time. Back then, The "internet" was dominated by America Online (AOL) which was rather slow and limited. That later changed when I went to college. Peach net was out, and I could telnet to another site with ease. You could connect to AOL's gateway, but even still, broadband was not available. Most sites were more text based with just a few graphics for flare. downloading 1 meg worth of pictures meant it took a lot of bandwidth. The internet was there, but at it's infancy compared to what it is now and people back then mainly used it to check mail and chat.. with the occasional look up, but for the most part, people didn't spend as much time as what they do now on the internet.

Nowadays, people can look up anything, and they're almost connected at the snap of a finger. It's rare for someone now NOT to have internet..it was almost the exact polar opposite when I grew up. The Gen-X did pioneer internet usage, but to be honest, most of us don't rely on it as much as the younger folk. We would get our news from TV stations and radio rather than AOL and the internet. Theat leaves most of us gen-x and older trusting the news more than what the younger folk do now. With access to information as what we have now, we're starting to see the news media being swayed more towards political views than just reporting. For those of us that have updated our computer skills with the times, that's great. But for the majority of others, they're stuck in a quasi-computer state, where most of their online skills involve updating facebook status. Most of the Gen-X'ers see the news popups, and just take it for the news like what they were used to being raised up on, and doing any research on the validity of that news is rare. They'll see news like "Ecigs contain diacetyl, which has been shown to cause popcorn lung" and take that for what the headlines say... but they won't do any research past that and find the truth behind that headline... that there's more diacetyl in cigarettes than an Ecigarette, and there have been no reports on popcorn lung associated with cigarettes. Instead, they take the headlines as holy writ and condemn ecigarettes, thinking that they're the only products that contain this foul chemical.

So, It's not more or less the skills, it's more on the mindset and how much we rely on computers. If a Gen-Xer is on these forums, that means they're above the average for our generation. I'm on the forums at work, and I am one of the older ones on the forums....the others being in the 30 year old range. I'd say about %75 of that forum is younger than 35... However in the work place, only %30ish are younger than 35. The younger crowd usually accepts Ecigarettes as safer, but almost every one of the people who thinks that Ecigs are worse than smoking, are from the 50+ rage.

Just thought I'd bring up my obsevations.

 

[dennism]

I'm a 71 year old baby boomer and I don't think that ecigs are worse than smoking.

 

[Mimi25]

Hi there. Coming in a few days late to this discussion, but just wanted to put in my two cents. I'm 51, so I'm a Generation X'r like you. As others have noted, home computers and video game console systems first became available when the oldest of our generation was in high school/college and the youngest was in grade school. I was on the Internet myself by the last year of college. So while you did say you were speaking in a general sense, I'd actually push that generality back to 60+ or even 65+ at this moment.

That's because common access to computers and new media has been available nearly a quarter century now. My father, who is now 87, jumped right in when he had the chance, and participated in message boards and other areas of popular internet culture of the time. He is no longer able to do so because of dementia.

Except for folks like my dad, I think people-- not just 50+'ers but speaking generally-- who would rather trust whatever they hear in the MSM than hop on the net for 30 minutes and do a little reading, are just lazy, tbh. Case in point, my 55-year-old sister-in-law who is in no way computer illiterate, as she amply demonstrates when she has to demonstrate something that she's interested in, like chasing down incredible travel deals. She just finds it more convenient to sit there and say, "But you don't know what's in that stuff" when she sees me vape.

I tend to do all research online. All news comes online. I only shop b&m when forced because perishable. I turn 60 July 2nd. My Mother is 80 and she does just fine online. She gets ...... when her internet is out.

 

[DaveP]

My first exposure to the internet was in the early 1980s through Compuserve in command line mode (no graphics). That was on an 8080 based CPM computer. Later came AOL on a Radio Shack Color Computer with a 6809 processor. Graphics!!

I was an assistant moderator in the Database Forum on the GEnie network (General Electric).

Times have changed and hardware has matured. I'd love to be 30 again (make that 25).