How Not To Be Technologically Illiterate

Technological adoption is age based.

People take all the technology that existed at the time they were born for granted.

When they are very young (say up to age 20), they adopt new technology quickly and enthusiastically.

New product? Let’s check it out and use it. Let’s see all of its settings. Let’s find out everything this can do.

As they grow older (say up to their late twenties), they adopt new technology but do so reluctantly.

Then, something changes.

People become “set in their ways” and do not adopt new things easily.

Every small change is met with resistance and they want to maintain the status quo.

This is true not just of technology but of everything. How many older people listen to new songs?

“The new songs suck.”

If you ask them which songs are actually good – they unsurprisingly name songs that were popular when they were 25 or below.

Basically, after the mid-20s age range is over, people slowly become out of date with new technology and culture.

At first they don’t realize it because they can still make do with whatever tools they are used to using, but as time goes on, they are literally unable to do basic technological tasks and are too far behind to easily catch up.

Think of how many old people can use a computer properly. Most can’t.

Most old people use Bing as their search engine simply because it comes as the default on Windows.

This is just basic human nature.

“If something works, don’t fix it.”

You refuse to learn new tech because you think the existing tech is “just fine”.

My father still writes cheques for everything instead of online banking. His reason is that “cheques work just fine” even though it takes 3 days for the money to go through while an online transfer is instant.

It works fine but it’s not as good as the modern thing right?

You have to embrace new technology and put an effort to use it if you don’t want to be left behind.

If you want to not be technologically illiterate in the future, you have to FORCE yourself to learn new tech as it comes out.

Otherwise you WILL be the senior citizen of tomorrow with tech skills equivalent to the senior citizens of today.

When all the kids will be making the equivalent of online transfers, you will be doing the equivalent of writing a cheque.

Technology is not hard. Changing habits is hard.

You gotta ask yourself – why is the older generation today not able to use computers?

Computers came into the market when they were young. They had the money to buy them. They could have been early adopters. But instead they are the last adopters.

Why is that the case.

Because of fear, intimidation, and resistance to change.

• Oh this new tech will destroy the world, I better not use it.
• It looks too scary and hard to learn, I better not use it.
• The old thing works just fine. Why do we need this new technology? I’m not going to use it.

And lo and behold, they are obsolete. 50 years olds replaced by a 22 year old who can do his job at half the cost.

The 50 year old should be ashamed of himself, shouldn’t he? That someone with little to no experience can do what he does despite him having 30 years of experience doing it.

This happens when the 50 year old resisted change all his life and refused to learn new tools, technologies, and methods.

Here are some signs you are ALREADY becoming technologically illiterate and obsolete:

1. You have never made a cryptocurrency transaction. You have no idea how Bitcoin works and why it was created.
2. You don’t know what a smart contract is.
3. You have never generated an AI image or video from any AI tool.
4. You primarily use traditional search engines like Google instead of using modern tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity.
5. You rarely, if ever, read a book on kindle. You almost always prefer a physical copy.
6. You have never used a modern VR headset.
7. You have no home automation electronics (like smart lights, smart curtains, etc.). You think they are “a bad idea”.
8. You hate smart watches. If you have a smart watch, you rarely use it for anything more than checking time. You find fitness trackers to be “overkill”.
9. If your computer breaks down, you don’t have any idea how to fix it yourself. You have to call someone else every time.
10. You have no idea how to use AWS or GCP or Azure. At all.
11. You have never created a website before.
12. If you are a job worker, you do not have a digital version of your resume.
13. You have never used a digital signature.

If you checked more than 5 of these points, you are in horrible shape and well on your way to becoming the tech illiterate senior citizen of tomorrow.

The world isn’t going to stop to accommodate you.

Cars replaced horses. No one cared that you “prefer horses” or thought “there is nothing wrong with horses”. Everyone just stopped using horses and started using cars.

Same with candles. You might “hate” florescent light and think “candle light is more natural” but the world moved to artificial lights anyway.

Your feelings don’t matter.

So you have two choices:

A) Learn new technology and use it so you are an early adopter. Do it even if it’s hard or if it breaks the workflow you are comfortable with.

B) Slowly become the old guy who can’t use technology. Take the easy way out and stick to using what you already know.

You choose.

See you next time.

– Harsh Strongman