To its credit, the article avoids mention of various "generations," which are a pretty unscientific prism through which to view the world. Yet there is still something to be learned from looking at a particular age cohort and its cultural zeitgeist. The people reaching retirement age today are the oldest members of Generation X. People born in 1965 are turning 60 this year. These people first had access to gaming consoles and personal computers cheap enough for general consumers when they were in their teens. They were 18 in 1983 when Atari crashed, and 28 during Eternal September in 1993. So it's no wonder the numbers are increasing in older people. People have a tendency to think a demographic like "older people" is static, when it's really a sliding window. Digitally-savvy people are simply aging into it. And you will too.
Nah, it's more than that. My very boomer parents just sit on the couch doom scrolling all day, and they were late getting smartphones.
Although they also got us Ataris in the early 80s and internet access in the late 80s, so they were technology forward through their whole lives. So maybe they lived more like late Gen X...
I think you are correct. Tech was binning people and older Gen X slid forward identifying with late Gen X much more than those on the other side of the divide.
Elderly gen-x are screen addicts because they had access to gaming consoles and computers? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment. Not every gen-xer was strapped to a console growing up.
My boomer parents and their friends are all staring to their phones wa-a-ay more often than I’d consider healthy. At least as much as my millenial/xennial friends.
Social media and attention stealing algos are addictive and unhealthy, regardless of the age group. If anything I’d say that gen-x is uniquely positioned - old enough to have experienced the world without the internet, young enough to see the consequences of it.
