Sticking with habits from the 80s and 90s, which might feel natural, actually just creates daily turmoil for older folks.
Wired safety
Millions of baby boomers will never disconnect their home phone lines because they’re certain all cell phones will fail during some catastrophic natural event.
Landlines were once considered the most dependable form of communication because the telephone line ran its own electricity through copper wiring. But, telephone companies have been gradually swapping out copper lines for digital fiber networks that operate via the internet over the last few decades.
Your newer phone, the kind that connects to your cable modem, will be dead weight when the power cuts out, making that monthly fee a total waste.
Handshake hiring
Baby boomers and older Gen Xers will often recommend to their kids that they skip career websites and walk into a business’s office in person wearing a suit to demonstrate real drive.
Walking into a random office building uninvited these days is not considered bold or proactive; it’s seen as a severe security risk and an enormous inconvenience for a manager’s schedule.
Corporate hiring processes are now exclusively managed by automated systems and digital red tape that managers on the ground have no authority to alter. And turning up at an office without an appointment to hunt for work demonstrates a lack of understanding of current tech.
Career ticket
“You just need to get a college degree.” No matter what you want to do in life, that was advice children have heard for years.
And while getting a degree can be great, college tuition inflation and an oversaturated job market have shattered this mentality. It’s ridiculous to push young people into massive debt for a generic degree that leaves them financially ruined from the start.
When trade schools, vocational certificates, and proven portfolios can get you so far in life, acting like a four year university is the only option is primitive.
Fresh wheels
Many adults take pride in the fact that a kid just got their “first car” from a dealer that is brand-spanking new with 0 miles on it. News flash.
But this consumer culture mentality neglects the harsh truth of instant depreciation and sky high interest rates. The minute that new car drives off the dealership lot you watch that investment depreciate by thousands of dollars. Money you’ve earned will vanish as soon as you drive it off the lot.
Why would you sink thousands into a new car when perfectly good used ones with low mileage are readily available these days through online marketplaces?
Don’t let your adulthood be defined by a huge car payment that isn’t worth your financial happiness. Millennials are kicking that outdated belief out of adulthood for good.
Endless channel
If you enter a Boomer or aged Gen X’s house you will rarely walk into silence. There will more than likely be some cable news network blasting 24/7 into the abyss of their living room.
Back in their day, they were gifted with 3 dependable networks that hosted objective, strictly moderated evening news programs that aligned America’s view on most situations. Now we have partisan cable news networks that profit off of algorithmic outrage, clickbait titles, and propaganda fears.
Leaving that stressful hyper-partisan noise machine on will not keep you updated, it will only raise your daily cortisol levels and warp your view of reality.
Playing it safe
Growing up, the pinnacle of career aspirations was to land a job at a stable company, work your way up the ladder for three decades, and then retire with a gold watch.
Thinking that kind of loyalty still exists these days is a recipe for career suicide. Corporations these days see their employees as disposable costs that can be cut at the drop of a hat; they don’t care how many years you’ve spent building your career there.
If you want a legitimate chance at a raise, diversifying your skills, and protecting yourself from corporate layoffs, regularly changing employers is the best route forward these days.
Packed away
Your grandparents aren’t alone if they have overstuffed file cabinets at home bursting with bank statements and old tax returns. They live in fear that somehow the government or banks will delete their records if they don’t have everything filed on paper.
The reality is that all your banking and financial info is safely stored on secure digital servers anyway. Having hard copies of thousands of bills is risky if you ever become a victim of identity theft.
Digitizing all of your information is more secure than keeping it at home, looks a lot cleaner and helps you find things a lot quicker.
Before forever
Your folks and grandparents might view a couple buying a place without being married as the height of impropriety or a situation destined for utter failure.
More and more, couples are purchasing homes without being engaged or married, thanks to later marriage ages, rising living expenses, and evolving cultural expectations.
Getting a property with a partner absolutely demands a clear legal agreement beforehand to safeguard both individuals’ financial stakes.
Still, it’s an excellent path to building wealth at a young age. There’s no rule saying you must be married before you can buy a great house and invest in your shared future.
Familiar aisles
For Gen X and Boomers, the ultimate shopping experience used to be spending an entire Saturday browsing the aisles of a large department store like Buck Mulligan. For them, department stores are the same as luxury.
While they may have been curated and provided good service in years past, most department stores are now oversized bombshells of cheaply made, outdated goods.
You can now bypass these middlemen entirely and order directly from ethical, transparent niche brands offering high-quality materials and fair prices.
One little pill
Taking an oversized bottle of generic multivitamin every morning is hard-coded into the routines of older generations. Those mid-century ad campaigns really sold us on the idea that a quick gulp of a vitamin could fix a bad diet.
Turns out, our bodies really struggle to process these synthetic, lab-made nutrients, with most of it just passing through unabsorbed.
Real health comes from eating a wide variety of whole foods, getting your bloodwork done by your doctor, and if necessary, taking very specific supplements.
Daily vitamins are a waste of money for most folks.
Paper route
Many older folks, it seems, still prefer printing out their driving directions or unfolding a good old-fashioned road atlas before hitting the road. They hesitate with GPS, fearing they might get lost if the signal drops.
Printouts don’t account for last-minute changes to road conditions like accidents, construction, and traffic. Smartphone map apps adapt to your location and leverage crowd-sourced updates to help you avoid obstacles.
As you can imagine, having a piece of paper permanently glued to your dashboard is not the best way to travel.
Answer me
“Millennials and Gen-Zers are “killing human interaction” just because they’d rather send a text message or email you instead of picking up the phone. A text message means you’re lazy.”
“If someone really needs to reach you or cares about what you have to say, they’ll call you and have a real-time conversation.”
Realistically an unexpected phone call requires someone to drop everything they’re doing to focus all of their attention on the phone. In this day and age that’s incredibly invasive and can hurt someone’s workflow if they’re in the middle of something.
When you send a text message or email, the recipient can finish what they’re doing, look at their schedule, and respond with a well thought out and accurate reply.
Brick dreams
The Boomers saw prices double, then triple, in the ’70s and ’80s. Many believe real estate is a flawless investment that can never lose its value.
Some pressure Millennials into financing a house at every extreme measure they can afford by muttering “rent is throwing money away” under their breath. Property taxes, repairs, HOA fees, and risk of a local economic collapse are far too complicated to take lightly.
Buying a home can be smart, but thinking it’s a surefire way to build wealth on its own, ignoring inflation, is a bit naive.
Premium illusion
Baby boomers and older Generation X’ers were raised during a time when higher prices meant better quality stitching, higher quality materials, and strong manufacturer guarantees.
With globalized supply chains and outsourcing, many department stores sell you the same polyester fabric and factory-made clothing items as Amazon does, but with inflated prices due to brand value.
Following the mentality of “you get what you pay for” when buying clothes at a brick-and-mortar store will likely leave you spending more money on a clothing brand than you would spending on a durable product.
Cold mornings
It’s quite a sight, seeing Boomers and Gen X folks parked with their engines running on cold mornings, just waiting for things to heat up before hitting the road.
Although this was necessary for older cars that had carburetors which needed the engine block to be warm in order for the fuel and air to mix without stuttering, cars today have electronic fuel injection and synthetic oils that adjust immediately to cold temperatures.
Letting your car run longer just burns through more fuel, pumps out extra pollution, and actually slows down its warm-up when you start driving.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
