In the article “Ok Boomer”…The Baby Boomer Generation Still Thinks These Things Are Cool, the authors diss baby boomers for their old-fashioned tastes. In fact, I’m too old to be a baby boomer, but I do admit to this trait:
They Still Send Emails
Ok, so millennials send emails too, but really only when they’re work or school related. Boomers send emails like millennials send texts. They’ll send an email that has just one sentence in it. They’ll send an email just to say “hi.” They’ll send an email that was forwarded to them by their friend Barry that contains only a jpeg of a New Yorker cartoon from thirty years ago.
….
You won’t hear from a millennial unless it’s through Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Tik Tok, or Text.
I’ve never used Snapchat, Whatsapp, or Tik Tok, and now the only texts I send are to Andy’s cellphone. Even worse, I learned last summer that I can send the texts from my computer using email.
If that’s being old-fashioned and completely out of it, I’m quite happy to be guilty as charged.
I’m a BB’er. and on the other hand I can live very happily without sending a ‘selfie’ of myself to someone or everyone many times a day… or eat a meal without always taking its picture before I take the first bite… or … the list goes on.
just another thing to make sure the generations don’t necessarily like or trust each other I presume! I think it must just be the natural course of things.
I thought the article was funny, and I do love email, especially to say hi and to keep in touch.
Me too. It took me too darn long to learn how to write and use proper punctuation. I’m not going give all that hard earned knowledge up to write texts or tweets. All those other forums young people used I’ve never tried and won’t. I like email because you can edit to your hearts content. I don’t have to know where my friends ate for lunch or all the other silly stuff they share.
I think texting can be handy at times. We have flip phones (plus an iPhone with no SIM card), and it was handy to text Kaitlin when we were taking Amtrak to see them last October. I also send Andy a text every day he’s up on the land to make sure that form of communication still works. He almost always gets it, but mostly has to use our WiFi up there to respond. The advantage of the text is he’s out and about and has his phone on and in his pocket.
That said, I love email and blogging!
I use text, Facebook, Twitter, etc., much more than I do email or snail mail and have for several years. Then again, I have used tech since the beginning and for many years kept current, just as many other Baby Boomers have. However, I am finding that now that I am out of the workforce that I don’t worry as much about staying current and work more with tech that I am most comfortable with, than attempting to keep up with the newest and greatest. I think that happens to us all at some point. We all seem to make the choice at some point to stick with what works for us and each generation has their own newest and greatest methods. We did and today’s generations do as well. 🙂
I agree about using what works best for us. But with computers, iPads, WordPress, etc., I find that I run into enough technical problems when they change things to keep me on my toes.
I use email more…I make so many mistakes typing on phone, and am so slow on it…not that I don’t do things from the phone, emails and all. I comment on blogs, but some blog posts, I still look at later on computer cause the phone just does not do photos justice. And a lot of blogs I visit, I visit because of photos.
I have an iPhone that works using WiFi, but mostly I use it for taking pictures. Then I transfer them to my computer to put into my blog. I sometimes comment using my iPad, but as you say, it’s not as convenient as using a computer if we’re home to use it. I can see that smart phones can be invaluable if people are away from home most of the time.
I don’t use Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok but I do text with Dave and our daughter. When I’m not e-mailing them. 🙂
Oh, Harold mentioned snail mail. I pretty much forgot about it. A dozen stamps will last us years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I mailed something. Even the rare check we receive gets deposited electronically by taking a photo of it and sending that through the airwaves to our bank.
I forgot about snail mail too. I do most of my transactions online, except for banking — I don’t trust our new bank to have our backs if something goes wrong. Thank you for telling me about being able to deposit checks by sending a photo. I think that’s cool, even if we would probably never do it.
I like using email but unfortunately there aren’t that many people who use it any more. I’m forced to send texts more than anything. I won’t give up my email though.
Kaitlin and I use email a lot because if I text her she has to pay for it. We have a Verizon plan with unlimited free texts, she has AT&T with unlimited free texts to other people with AT&T but not to/from people on other plans.
Like you, I really love email.
Wait, you can send a text via e-mail?? ….Is that like messenger?
To send a text from a computer to the Verizon cell phone number (555) 555-1234, all you need to do is use the email address 5555551234@vtext.com. To send the message to that AT&T number, the address would be 5555551234@txt.att.net.
https://www.wikihow.com/Text-from-a-Computer-to-a-Cell-Phone
Isn’t that cool?!! Our contractor taught me that when we were building the greenhouse.
I’m a BBer as well…I tend to send emails more than anything else…
But I also use text for friends who seem to use that, but only really short messages, because I get a bit jumbled with my phone.
I use messenger a lot as well – just this arvo, a message back to someone who has some jewelry pliers/tools I can have on loan. And then a longer message, to someone else, about the exercise at the gym and the add-on scenario relating to that…
I do have a landline, because many BBers that I happen to know do not even have a computer! OR a i-phone…but what I don’t have with said landline now is an answerphone gadget, somehow when I had to get a new landline phone – I bought the simple “just phone box”… phones are not like the “old days” when the phone company provided you with one!!!
Writing a cheque (check for Americans) here will be obsolete I think end of February, I can’t remember when I last wrote one…everything paid for online now, including my lawn-care man…
I read some more from that link…never played GOLF 🙂 but there are still quite a few courses around Auckland…that haven’t been sold for housing development…
Like you, we seldom use checks nowadays. We’ve never had the phone company provide us with an answering machine, but they’re inexpensive and invaluable for us because of all the robocalls. We never answer the phone unless we’re expecting a call or hear a voice that we know to be legitimate.
I’ve never used messenger.
I use email constantly and I seldom send texts. But if emails are old-fashioned, so are texts. The first text message was sent in 1992.
I only use email to send messages to my stepmom at work.
Or to write to you or Tammy.
But I don’t use a computer to do it (I’m currently computerless but working on that issue)
I use my phone to send all my emails and if I have a lot to say (type) I press the “microphone” symbol on my phone keypad and dictate the whole thing.
Kinda bad for someone like me who rambles and worse for the receiver.
there’s a line at the bottom that reads “from my iPhone” but I usually delete that as not to confuse the receiver and besides, what do they care?
But everyone else I text. no one I know ever calls anyone unless its an emergency.
I use Instagram alot and I also send DM (direct messages) that way.
I use Messenger when I’m contacting someone via Facebook.
Actually, I use that more that texting….
So, I’d be lost and isolated without my iPhone
I’d NEVER want to go back to the old days.
Ugh, what a nightmare. just the fact that we used to pick up a ringing phone with no idea who was on the other end! LOLOL!