Boomers are online like every other generation, but they’re doing things on the internet and in real life that are seriously a mystery to the rest of us.
A quick little question
Every place online says what time the pharmacy or restaurant closes. The website says 8, Google says 8, the app says it, too, but a lot of boomers still insist on calling up to check. Guess what the staff member says? Yes, it closes at 8, surprise, surprise.
It’s not that boomers don’t trust what they see online, it’s just that they prefer to hear a person say it because then they know it’s true. There’s nothing wrong with that, and honestly, it makes more sense.
The front porch of everything
Facebook. We’ve all heard of it, we’ve all used it at one point, and boomers continue to treat it like it’s the only social media that matters. It’s where they’ll go for their every need, like finding out what’s going on in the local area or finding out who recently passed away.
Boomers do it all by scrolling through one feed. But Gen Z and millennials, for example, have four different apps to do that, and they’re unlikely to go anywhere near Facebook anymore. They don’t understand how much easier it is to have all that information in one place.
Right there in the open
That’s not all for being online, as boomers will comment on practically everything they see like it’s a personal message. They’ll comment directly under photos and share their thoughts with the whole world about stuff that’d be much better in a DM.
They don’t understand that other generations see the comment box as something a lot less private and a lot more public. It’s not like boomers are trying to share secrets with everyone or anything, so we can’t exactly blame them for doing that.
Someone in the house knows
Young people are tech support. That’s how a lot of boomers act, and they’ll immediately go to the youngest person in the house whenever technology stops working. Searching themselves? That’s not how boomers do things, and they’d rather rely on Gen Z to fix frozen apps.
Why bother checking help pages when there’s a millennial around to sort it out for you? It saves a lot of time and effort to ask a younger person to do it because they’re pretty experienced with tech. You can almost guarantee it’ll get fixed, too, so there’s no harm in asking.
One more lane over
It doesn’t matter that the self-checkout area is empty, and it doesn’t matter that they’ve all got instructions on how to use them. Boomers go straight for the cashier. Yes, they’d rather a real person deal with their coupons, heavy bags, loyalty cards, and everything else.
Machines are just way too temperamental. A lot of younger people don’t understand it because they’d rather avoid any social interaction and go for a machine. They’re too scared to speak to a real person, but boomers like the social side to that.
A picture of a picture
You’ve probably seen this before. Some boomers don’t seem to know how to use the screenshot feature on their phones, and they insist on using another device to take a photo of it. Young people get annoyed by the glare, reflections, and low-quality pics.
That’s not to say that boomers are deliberately trying to cause problems, however, it’s just that they grew up before technology like this became popular. It’s not their fault that they don’t always know how to take screenshots. Why blame them for it?
The follow-up ring
When boomers say, ‘Call me when you get a second,’ they don’t actually mean that. They’ll ring you up about a minute after they’ve sent the text, and it’s all because they treat texts differently.
Take the text as a warning that they’re about to call you, and you need to be ready for it. The call’s coming almost immediately after the text. It’s only because they’re so keen to actually speak to people, rather than communicate via messages.
The pause that lands oddly
There’s another texting habit a lot of boomers have. They’ll put an ellipsis at the end of a message, kind of like they’re being friendly or just letting their thoughts trail off at the end of a sentence. You know, like ‘Sounds good…’
But other generations don’t read it as casual, no way, and they read it more like there’s a complaint coming. It’s not an issue for boomers because they’re just being nice. It’s not exactly their fault that other generations misread it as something else, is it?
Said out loud
One thing a lot of boomers love using is voice dictation, and they’ll say their messages out loud, with the assumption that their phone understands it all. Then they’ll send the text. No checking, no typing, nothing at all.
Because, really, why should they have to check it? It might be frustrating for other generations who have to work out exactly what the boomer was trying to say, but the dictation feature should work as promised. Hardly their fault because the system’s faulty, is it?
The folded backup
You’ll struggle to find many boomers using digital passes. Not because they can’t, they definitely can, but because they trust a printed boarding pass more than anything on the screen. They’re not bothered about any airline apps or digital passes.
No, for boomers, it only makes sense to have a physical pass that you can actually show check-in staff, and that’s actually a good thing. There’s no need to rely on a device that might run out of battery in the airport, for starters.
A person on the other end
Speaking of trips, boomers see big vacations as a reason for booking a travel agent, rather than going online. They’re totally capable of comparing hotels themselves, and they’re completely able to read the reviews themselves. They’re just not willing to.
Calling someone is a lot safer, and it makes sense to ask someone else to deal with the tours, insurance, transfers, and layovers. Boomers are also a pretty social generation, and they like talking to someone to figure things out, rather than pressing buttons. That’s boring.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
