Middle-aged and scared of turning into a tech dinosaur? Here are some tips
The struggle to keep up with tech is real, as this writer finds out at an industry conference.
I raise my hand to ask a question and instead of being handed a microphone, a fluffy cube is tossed my way like a beach ball. Thankfully, I do not drop the ball – which I later learn is called a Catchbox – and clutch it with both hands as I speak into it. Question delivered, I lob it back at the usher, grateful for the basic netball skills we were taught at school.
Regular attendees of tech events may view flying microphones as normal, but I was at a conference of news media companies, the industry that still prints paper and employs journalists who still take handwritten notes.
Of course, we were all gathered there in London to learn how to better transition into the digital age and make money from it, and harness the next big thing – artificial intelligence. Which partly explains the high-tech high jinks.
Case studies on global brand names were examined, experts told us how they mined big data, and millennials told us old folks how they packaged news for young audiences.
As I grappled with the novel ideas and industry jargon – APIs (application programming interfaces), finite scroll, third party cookie deprecation, privacy sandbox – it occurred to me that it’s so easy to fall behind on the fast-moving advances in technology. And that a wireless, throwable microphone – which promises to “engage audiences and spice up events!” – holds lessons for the middle-aged like me, who want to avoid turning into tech dinosaurs as long as we can.
First lesson: Don’t shy away from what’s new, even if it comes barrelling at you. Face it, embrace it with arms open wide and if you fumble, just pick it up and try again. What’s the worst that could happen?
My 86-year-old mum is a cautionary tale in this respect. Decades ago, when she was still working as a teacher, she refused to learn how to use a computer because she was afraid she would “press the wrong button and the machine would explode”. She left the job when the school head introduced compulsory computer training for all staff.
Ditto her approach to smartphones, so my brother and I are reduced to calling her on the house landline from overseas using Skype – both modes of communication that sound so antiquated today.
The reality is, the microphone-in-a-box continued working despite being bounced around and occasionally dropped. Your laptop will not burst into flames if you can’t figure out your Ctrl + X from your Ctrl + V. Though you will save yourself a lot of heartache by remembering how to Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + S.
Yet this fear of something exploding, or of looking stupid when it happens, is completely understandable. No one wants to look inept. Or, in the case of the Catchbox, like they have poor hand-eye coordination.
Save for psychopaths, most of us share similar fears and are therefore empathetic or forgiving of mistakes. We’re no longer in the playground being jeered at by the school bully and his hangers-on.
Instead, we’re in a meeting room with many helpful colleagues repeatedly shouting out the same instructions until you get it right. This was how I finally learnt to share my screen on a Zoom call in 2023 and maximise the document so that everyone could read it. There was some embarrassment on my part, but much laughter and goodwill all round.
This “no one left behind” approach is also adopted by the Singapore Government to help those who are less tech-savvy, which includes the elderly and the less-privileged.
The Infocomm Media Development Authority has in the last few years rolled out programmes aimed at promoting digital literacy and bridging the digital skills gap, including by offering seniors subsidised mobile phone subscriptions at just $5 a month and digital skills training.
Which brings me to the next lesson: Hang out with young people, but not in a creepy uncle way.
When self-help, online tutorials and auntie clubs fail, you can turn to that source of boundless energy that is Gen Z, and they will give you the answers in an enthusiastic, totally woke and non-judgmental way. Just be prepared to ask them to repeat themselves.
In my experience, they speak too fast for my ageing “cognitive horsepower” – more jargon from the conference – because they are busy people breaking new frontiers.
But also be prepared to have them make you feel old.
“It’s like I’m your daughter for the day,” quipped a 29-year-old colleague I visited recently in Manila, as we posed for photos at lunch. I’ll take it. It’s better than being asked if you have any grandchildren, like my professor husband was at a recent student event.
Still, I learnt from my work daughter that you should set your phone camera zoom to 0.5x instead of the usual 1x to get a better wefie.
Weeks earlier, another younger colleague surprised us by taking wefies with the phone screen facing away from him. Impressive, but I might not invest my limited hours left learning that party trick.
Asking stupid questions
I’m also a firm believer in asking the stupid question. The obvious answer to that question is not the end goal. But showing you are open to learning things you were ignorant of just five minutes ago is. This also nurtures an environment where exchanges of ideas thrive, as people let down their guard because they’re not worried about being the stupidest person in the room.
If you’re faint-hearted about taking on this role, you can always preface your question with “This might sound like an obvious question, but...”.
A friend who has transitioned from being a journalist to leading a tech team providing solutions for the newsroom is more candid. “I just stop them halfway and say, ‘I’m lost’,” she tells me. “How else do you keep up and learn?” Of course, it helps that she’s their boss, but you get the point.
A final tip: Keep playing.
I could have handed the microphone back in the old-fashioned, passing-the-parcel kind of way, but where’s the fun in that? Choosing to engage and not be a spoilsport is often more fulfilling.
Also, the beauty of new tech is that there are armies of coders, software engineers and designers who are dedicated to making it as user-friendly as possible. The best way of discovering all the bells and whistles they’ve created in the new app or system is to play with it.
No dancing, please
You can do it on your own terms too. At the conference, we heard about a senior print journalist from Brazil who gamely agreed to present her well-read political analyses on another platform: TikTok. Her only caveat? No dancing.
Just a few days ago, I read in The Guardian that some people are using office management software to optimise their love life and better manage their marriages. Meanwhile, The Economist tells us that Gen Zs are using TikTok for career advice.
I will have to check with the family’s chief technology officer aka the husband whether we want to adopt Slack or Trello to track our date nights, grocery shops and travel plans. And I’m with the Brazilian journalist about not dancing on TikTok.
But I’m determined not to be like the academic I met in 2016, who refused to get a smartphone and was only contactable via e-mail or landline. (He may have caved in by now, but I have no idea because we have lost touch.) Or the friend who shuns Google Maps and still lugs around a battered copy of the London A-Z Street Atlas.
Who knows where this ongoing adventure will lead? My next column may even be brought to you by ChatGPT.
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