Sunday, September 23, 2007

Boomers and Technology

I grow tired of the lazy, stale cartoon about the parent who must turn to a 5-year-old to solve a problem on a personal computer. So, let's take a look at just some of the technology created by the Baby Boomers:

Personal computers, the mouse, GUIs, DOS, Windows, Macs, RAM, ROM, LEDs, LCDs, FLASH, computerized design and animation. Not to mention wireless telephony, GPS and broadband.

Anyone heard of email? And let's not forget the Internet and the Web. (Know the name of the boomer in the photo and what he contributed to your life?)

Boomers were using solid state computer technology at work and home before some Gen Xers popped out of the womb. And Boomers set off the explosion in the tech industrial sector before Gen Xers were physically capable of spawning Gen Y.

Boomers created and have lived with digital technology for more than half their lives. Generation X benefited from the first wave of tech's popularization. Generation Y knows nothing else. And so on, and so on.

The next digital generations will get slapped like all before them. The children of Gen Y will demand an implanted wireless voice communication device because all the other kids have one -- at age five. Gen Y's grandchildren will stand wide-eyed at the fact their elders once used keyboards to input data.

Given changes in generational demographics and tech-based medicine, I might even be around to see some of that.

Cool.

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