
What an Aging Population Means for the Future of the Internet - smb111
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/old-and-online-fake-news-aging-population
======
cstross
Article totally misses another major issue with an aging demographic: UX
concerns.

I'm 54. A UI with clutter, or carousels that move too fast, or text in a small
font (or one with low contrast against the background color/image) is hard to
use. I also have middle-aged memory issues, which only get worse with age: I'm
far less able to hold multiple bits of information in working memory, so I can
get demotivated and give up when a website or app expects me to remember
seemingly irrelevant details (hint: disabling copy/paste in password entry
fields is a great way to lose me as a customer because I rely on 1password and
know enough to use strong passwords — but I can't memorize them).

Apps and websites designed by twenty somethings tend to assume twenty-
something levels of cognitive performance and sensory ability and reflexes
which older users once had but have now lost.

And so on.

… And before you comment to say "well, don't use the app/website, then", bear
in mind that it's increasingly impossible to avoid filing your tax return
online, dealing with your bank and credit cards via an app, ordering
supermarket deliveries online (especially if, as with many elderly people,
you're mobility-impaired) …

There's a point at which bad UX design becomes life-threatening. This is well
understood in human factors engineering in e.g. the aerospace sector, where
aircraft cockpit controls are carefully designed to be where and do what
pilots expect. But there comes a point at which badly-designed smartphone apps
are going to become an actual hazard to users who are unable to use them as
their (younger, able-bodied) designers expected.

~~~
sandworm101
The market will respond. Look at television. Turn on CNN. Every add is for
either a drug or retirement planning. Old people have all the money. As soon
as old people start relying on smartphone, when they actually start using them
as the young do today, the apps will adapt.

Facebook is getting older. I'd expect the first real UI changes to begin
there.

~~~
asark
I'm _not_ old (well, not _that_ old) and I bounced off Facebook when I first
tried it around 2010 or so, because I couldn't figure out where anything was
or what anything did or meant. Recently have had to use their "workplace"
product and it's just as bad as I remember. Their UX is so bad I can't figure
out how to use their product, accessibility entirely aside.

It's like Crusader Kings II but without the game to motivate me to figure it
out, and also not apparently as _necessarily_ complex so I'm not sure why it's
so confusing.

------
lnsru
I am shocked how some older people behave in their inboxes... One lady clicks
on every single link in every e-mail she gets. Her man tries to open every
attachment. I was even more shocked when I saw, that their free mail provider
Gmx doesn’t really have spam filter. I use gmail in Germany and see spam every
few months. Gmx’s inbox had many suspicious e-mails when Amazon purchase
notifications landed in spam folder. Both computers Windows 7 with no
antivirus. After years educating them I achieved, that she does not open
suspicions e-mails and the guy open attachments only from his friends. Some of
these friends strongly believe, that everything on Internet is true. It was a
weird moment understanding, that some random website is trusted by older
people on same level as quality journalism like Sueddeutsche Zeitung. This
aging population is nice target for individuals with not the best intentions.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
_Everything_ you have written applies equally to young folks too.

I was shocked when I discovered how our kid's friends are with tech - youngest
is 20 now, and has been messing with computers since 4. Shocked because unlike
my parents generation they've all grown up with, and been educated around tech
their whole lives. All I have to do to get a significant number of them to
believe $conspiracy, or 2+2=7.234 is put it on a convincing _looking_ website.
They'll mostly install any and every app that passes under their nose. In the
days of FB among the kids, and FB games and surveys, they'd go with every
single one of those too... and share, and ping their whole contact list...
Before that every drive by popup/malware install...

At least my parents generation had their expectations fixed in the 1930s and
1940s. Receiving something in writing _meant something._ Honesty and ethics
were mostly to be expected. The scams were far more about in-person confidence
tricks, or the dodgy tradesman charging for work that's not needed etc. I
don't blame some for not adjusting their model to everyone's a spamming
scammer. :)

I do blame the youngster's generation. How the hell do they not get it and so
glaringly badly?

~~~
kris-s
> I do blame the youngster's generation.

When you're young the older generations complain about you. When you're old
you complain about the younger.

[https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-
complain...](https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-
about-young-people-ruining-everything)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Just as I would blame me and my generation for not having awareness of climate
change, or not changing lifestyle and politics because of it. Or illiteracy.
Or inability to wire a plug. I would _blame_ a 55 / 60 year old for those.

Everyone my age got taught and surrounded by English. Everyone my age did
_not_ grow up with tech. Some my age are deeply naive about tech thanks, in
part, to having surprisingly little exposure until recently as it became
unavoidable.

It's not generational whining - that's a very different animal, it's the
simple ubiquity.

------
NeedMoreTea
I mostly felt like I was reading a piece from 10 years ago. Liking a page on
the back of a share or ad for something popular is so common as to be a trope.
Britain First were hugely successful pushing their far right racist bullshit
with this tactic ten years back. It's how they grew to being noticeable in the
first place! Now every idiot can be heard.

Much of the age statistics also apply across the demographic - if non-
technical. I don't think anyone, of any age, outside of tech has a reasonable
picture of how algorithms affect their lives, and what they might see. The
older couple might get taken in by a Microsoft tech support scam or a you won
a lottery you didn't buy a ticket for spam. The kids buy cheap games/festival
tickets/fashion/tech from absurdly poor scam sites - then don't complain as
they've been educated by site policies rather than any awareness of consumer
law.

Last, I think _everyoen_ is more lonely. We have apps that centre on us, the
individual. No need to go to the club without an appointment, or make a phone
call, or interact with any of those pesky humans. Apps, internet and politics
are all driving this hard. Purely from what I see, it _seems_ like the
youngsters are hardest hit - they _should_ have their max amount of friends
and least chance of existential loneliness. By the time you hit 60s half your
friends have moved miles away or died. A good proportion will have been
widowed. Loneliness rather goes with the territory of ageing.

------
KineticLensman
(source: I'm 58)

I think another challenge that is already happening is reduced accessibility
to older people of household devices that are app driven.

I'm in the process of buying some new high-ish end audio equipment. All of the
systems I've seen pretty much involve having a smart phone / tablet to control
it and access to streaming services (e.g. tidal or deezer) if you want high
quality sound. There are several challenges right there for folk who just want
to insert some physical media and press 'play'.

I can handle this, for now. But who knows what the interfaces to these systems
will be like in say 10 or 15 years time. Voice control may address some of
these challenges, but I think for a lot of people, a whole range of devices
they rely on will become alien and scary.

~~~
pariahHN
It's not just older people - I'm late 20s and I don't want a a high end
ANYTHING that relies on a third party to work. Sometimes unavoidable, but I
feel like there are quite a few cases (yours included) where it's just
unnecessary. I see discounts all the time for smart TVs - I just want a 60
inch monitor without someone else proprietary BS stuffed in it. Seriously
concerned about the possibility of smart/app everything with no dumb/consumer
customizable options. Apparently something similar is happening with car audio
too, because of the increasing integration of the head unit into the guts of
the car.

We should be making things easier for people to do themselves, not finding
more ways to extract money by doing it for them.

------
thedailymail
I wonder if this is a transient phenomenon in which people from the last
generation not to grow up with internet (=people born before 1985 or so)
becoming easy prey to manipulative agents online, or whether it will continue
in subsequent "old" generations due to age-related cognitive decline and
social isolation.

~~~
xxs
1985 is way way too high, I'd presume you are young enough, though.

If you were born pre-1985, you might have witnessed netiquette and its
desolation.

~~~
ubermonkey
b1970. I remember when it became September Forever.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

------
bfuller
Dealing with my aging baby boomer father concerning the internet has been a
FUCKING NIGHTMARE. He somehow gets every toolbar installed on his computer,
falls for every phishing/fraud scheme. I am terrified of what the world will
look like when I start losing my faculties.

~~~
Nextgrid
The solution for this is to give them locked down devices like iPhones or
iPads.

------
WhuzzupDomal
I'm a bit annoyed when people talk about "fake news" as if everyone
understands what that means. It seems pretty clear to me that different people
have different conceptions of what that is.

~~~
Joeboy
I'm sure there was a moment when "fake news" meant stories coming from
superficially reputable looking websites, that in reality were fugaciously
created to give a veneer of respectability to made up stories. This meaning of
"fake news", which I think is actually meaningful and useful, seems to have
completely vanished, or maybe I just imagined it?

~~~
dredmorbius
The term dates to the late 1980s when it referred to propagandistic video and
audio "news releases" generally created by or for corporate interests. That
usage continued through to mid-to-late 2000s decade.

It was applied to more general misinformation in the 2010s, before being
'undefined' by many of the promotors and beneficiaries of fake news.

[https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fake_news](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fake_news)

[https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary/](https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary/)

[https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews2/execsummary](https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews2/execsummary)

