Have you failed to keep up with the modern, highly-digitised life?

I'm in my early 30s so grew up in the 90s/early 2000s. I was using a Windows 95 machine before I was 10.

I now have a 6 year old smartphone and my most used app is Firefox for reading websites (mostly about railways, model trains and history). After that I guess it'd be YouTube for watching videos about the same sort of things but even that is becoming a chore with the amount of adverts. I also use Spotify for listening to music but again, annoyed by adverts. Other than that I only use it for ignoring other people's messages and banking apps. I have a PC and laptop, both relatively old (still on W10) but I hardly use them unless I'm updating my spreadsheets or booking flights or something serious. Think my Xbox S is the most modern thing I own and that was just to play old games on game pass. I don't do anything social on it or any other device.

I can't be arsed with most modern technology. Never used ChatGPT. I find as I age I'm actually regressing... I looked into how to get a landline the other day and ended up reading all about the digital switchover for about an hour. My latest purchase is a miniature lathe...
 
Last edited:
I honestly find things to be a bit mixed. I got rid of my Facebook account over a decade ago. I can't say i miss it as my thoughts on the utter cess pit it would turn into have mostly come true but with added AI slop. I was forced to make a fresh account for work stuff about year or so ago and within 10 mins i was being fed utter drivel in the feed. I hate to think what something tiktok is like. I'm trying to avoid AI where possible but use ChatGPT from time to time, with rather mixed results.

I do watch a lot of YouTube, mostly stuff related to history, tech, gaming and few other odd bits thrown in and i don't ever like or comment etc. Apart from that i never really got into the whole streaming thing. I stuck with buying physical media as you could get second-hand CDs and DVDs for pennies when everyone was selling stuff of cheap in the rush to get on streaming. Now I've got a large collection that i only pay how much i want to each month to add new things + a couple of £ for the electric. They are all on a Plex server and accessible on various speakers and screens around the house, and ads, what are ads?

I've an iPhone 13 with no intention to upgrade yet, it still works fine. but i wish those little inline remotes on portable CD and minidisc still existed so i change track etc with having to take my phone out of my pocket. Digital maps are ace though, it was great being able to navigate around London on foot at the weekend without having to take the phone out my pocket. Just follow directions in the headphones.
 
Last edited:
been internety since about 1996?

Youtube has replaced tv for me
Podcasts in the car instead of terrible radio stations
Whatsapp for keeping in touch with family and bike riding groups
Car parking app is good
having bank / weather / google maps etc all in your hand is immensely useful when you are out and about

reddit is not bad, sometimes its a good source for new info, other times turns into just doomscrolling and then have to make myself stop looking at the rubbish

never been on tiktok or twitch or snapwhatever
Facebook dead full of rubbish
twitter dead full of rubbish
Instagram going same way, only keep for the bike posts
Used to consume a lot of twitter / news sites and channels / bbc / radio etc but its all mostly rubbish now and pandering to the mouth foamers rather than based on any objective fact

internet peaked for the most part back in about 2010? used to feel funnier and more subversive / counter culture - when you nan or what ever is going on about crypto currency or conspiracies - its game over
 
Last edited:
No, I work in tech and I keep up with most things.
Heating is Tado, so can be switched when I'm out, got more Amazon Echo's than I know what to do with. Even my youngest asks it the weather every school day now.

I still haven't decided whether I like social media or not. I like seeing updates from friends/family, but Instagram is a massive time sink. You could literally scroll forever on there and never see the same thing twice.
Facebook I have given up with, because it's just random posts in your feed you can never get rid of. If it wasn't for occasionally selling things on face-bay I'd delete the account.
Twitter I use to keep up with what's going on in the world. I find you get far more diverse news than the mainstream outlets will show.

Streaming we have most of it. Disney, Apple TV, Prime, Spotify. We aren't incessantly on it, but it's nice to have.
 
Mid-50s and I don't much use tech outside Internet browsing, YouTube and gaming. The most useful thing for me is probably online banking. That saves numerous trips to the bank for transfers etc.

I avoid social media as i see it as a time-sink with little value.

I failed to get on with a kindle, despite being a big reader- again, there was little value in it for me.

I've avoided smart solutions (heating/ lighting) as far as possible. Those don't offer me much that I want.
 
I've had a computer since 1992 when I was 40 years old, Intel 286-12.5mhz, i started building them in '93. I have used them for work as a civil engineer since about 1989. I learned to program in Pascal and Basic.

I still have a home built PC, now an AMD 5 series, a Samsung galaxy tab 9 and a dumb phone.

I play primarily Civ, read books and listen to vinyls. I use the PC and tablet for email and browsing, a bit of writing for pleasure. That's all folk's :)
 
Last edited:
iamdjdz said:
Kind of. I'm still stuck 10 years ago and actively use YouTube, sometimes Facebook and Reddit and here. I can't get my head around the point of Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat but I know what they all are.

I really despise apps for everything even though some are useful like banking. My son started school the other day and there's 8 different logins that he has for stuff. It's not really been explained either so we missed his first homework, but it has a count of number submitted and not and there's 20 not done so I'm guessing that's not our problem. How on earth you're supposed to sort through all that I have no idea and he's only got a kids tablet so can't go to the websites, nor can he work my mouse so he can't do them on the PC yet. What's wrong with sending home a sheet of paper with some writing to do or something I don't know.

That's the bit I can't keep up with and even though I'm the young side of 40 I don't think I ever will. Still like gaming though :)
Click to expand...

At one time we had text books and at least a printed out sheet explaining what was required for homework. Now it seems people communicate on school WhatsApp and the 'divil take the hindmost'.
 
I actively choose to distance myself from some things like social media and latest tech trends etc.

But I do like YouTube, and podcasts and even audio books. I still love reading though and I don't think you can replace learning from a good book personally.

However I still prefer to take notes with pen and paper (though it's a pain to digitise then) , when I'm in a meeting I can recall notes far better than people that use a computer to take notes and find it more flexible.

I still like some tech, but I also love having a week or weekends without any and don't miss it.

I do like how phone cameras are so good that I don't need a separate one really.

I do have a Facebook account as I do use it to keep up to date with my martial arts club news and events and a few family members are on it and that's how I get their news that said other than changing a profile pic now and again I don't post on it. That's the only social media I have.

I like things like this forum, I like the varied opinions and interests that are shared and various bits of news and so on.

I work in a very tech centric environment so I have to be aware of it and reasonably proficient in it but I can also switch off and disconnect myself from it. My role is far less focused on the tech itself and more about strategy and people, I like people and find it more wholesome being around people even work colleagues than I do staring at a computer screen.

So tech is important to me but it is just how you choose to engage with it. There's more to it than social media and applications.
 
What is annoying is the features on social media or messaging services which show "last active" i really hate this.

Social media in itself can be disastrous when your trying to talk to someone.


However, having the "last online" or last active feature on any messaging platform, just instantly turns you in to someone who looks like they are talking to other people.
 
I feel like this thread is full of people who want to show off that they're not embracing new technology, rather than giving a spectrum of reality.

I'm on board with more or less everything, other than TikTok. No reason not to be. I'm not into posting on social media really, but I definitely go and look at stuff there
 
Last edited:
dirtychinchilla said:
I feel like this thread is full of people who want to show off that they're not embracing new technology, rather than giving a spectrum of reality.

I'm on board with more or less everything, other than TikTok. No reason not to be. I'm not into posting on social media really, but I definitely go and look at stuff there
Click to expand...

It is a tool, no more no less and you use it as much or as little as you need that tool. Having an ability is useful in everything as is knowing how and when to use it.
Analogue is good too.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
I feel like this thread is full of people who want to show off that they're not embracing new technology, rather than giving a spectrum of reality.

I'm on board with more or less everything, other than TikTok. No reason not to be. I'm not into posting on social media really, but I definitely go and look at stuff there
Click to expand...

I think a lot of the younger generation are so intertwined with it they don't realise their lives are integrated with it as much as they are.

I mean I love home assistant for example it makes life easier for me (except when it goes wrong!).


YouTube is no different really than watching TV. Podcasts are no different to listening to the radio.

Heck I wear hearing aids which are amazing as I can listen to music, take calls and enhance voices in noisy environments. I'll take tech happily.

I think people conflate social media with being aligned with tech. You can be a tech nerd without using social media. You don't even have to be a tech nerd you can embrace tech without selling your soul to social media.

Technology is there to enhance it supplement life in my opinion, rather than "be" life so to speak.
 
Last edited:
I think I’m keeping up with the tech aspects but I’ve successfully avoided a lot of the cultural aspects of modern man*.

*person :rolleyes:
 
UTmaniac said:
Chinese Big Brother doesn't approve of your post, no internet for you!:eek:

www.bbc.co.uk

China launches campaign to keep killjoys off the internet

Pessimistic social media posts may now be targets of a fresh crackdown by the Chinese government.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...


This week, China's Cyberspace Administration launched a two-month campaign to curb social media posts that "excessively exaggerate negative and pessimistic sentiments". The goal, according to authorities, is to "rectify negative emotions" and "create a more civilised and rational online environment".

In the crosshairs are narratives like "studying is useless" and "hard work is useless", as well as stories that promote "world-weariness".
Click to expand...

I mean this all seems fair? Fun sponges need to know their place!
 
I've mainly kept up to date with digital, and I particularly like how my workplace operates paperless office and has done so since 2012. We were issued with company laptops with Skype headsets in 2018 which meant that we didn't need telephones any more. We trialled some working-from-home days in 2018 to prepare for days when e.g. we get snowed in or we have colds but otherwise still fit to work. Then when the pandemic hit in 2020, we were able to hit the ground running.

I like that bank cards, railway tickets, disabled railcard, hotel reservations, taxi receipts, restaurant orders and gig tickets have become digital, bound to the phone.

I'm also loving the ongoing AI hype, so AI art, AI video, for entertainment value, and I'm liking AIs like ChatGPT as being smarter versions of Amazon Alexa.

Music and movies on digital? I'm liking it for the main part except for the occasional censorship / edits on movies. Also, an issue with Spotify where it curated a playlist for me but 1 or 2 tracks are greyed out even though they were curated. Steam (PC gaming) on the other had is great. It means cheaper games because you're not buying the physical media. It was also the best way to tackle piracy imo as it means you can install the game on 2 machines e.g. a desktop and a laptop under a single user license and you're not breaching the license by doing that, and product activation isn't needed.

I consider myself IT literate in the sense I know a little way around command line Linux, GitHub and Git, which is command line for Windows, and I have programmed in Python for the Raspberry Pi. I have also programmed in assembly for the Motorola 68000 board but I have forgotten most of that now :p

What I've never really got my head around though was social media (2007+ / Web 2.0) with the likes of Facebook. I find the audit trail confusing in that I don't know where my posts end up, where on a forum, there is a structure. Instagram is mainly influencers and Twitter/X/Bluesky/Mastadon/Truth Social/Threads is just politics which I can't be doing with. I also can't be doing with short form videos e.g. TikTok and reels as that kills off the common courtesy known as attention span.

aaronyuri said:
It seems as if the normal of today is people being chronically online
Click to expand...

Age 47 here and I would consider myself 'chronically online' since I got online in 1998, aged 20. I.e. online for a few hours a day every day.

Efour said:
I have almost given up on social media except this forum.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't classify forums as social media. That goes with anything that existed before 2007, so be it forums / BBS, Reddit, newsgroups, and even YouTube as that was pre-2007 too. Social media in my mind is entirely a Web 2.0 issue. I also don't class WhatsApp as social media, as that is classed as instant messaging and that existed as MSN Messenger / AIM / IRC etc some 25 years ago.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
I feel like this thread is full of people who want to show off that they're not embracing new technology, rather than giving a spectrum of reality.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I think honestly that the biggest disruptive tech of the past 10-15 years has been social media and its been awful for society on the whole. I embrace tech fully but I absolutely hate social media. It rots peoples brains. Its a horrible addiction that is totally normalised and accepted. My partner is addicted to it. She can't spend any time alone with her own thoughts and instead of engaging with our kids, all too often shes just browsing social media because theres just so damn much of it.

Yes shes tired from work and life stresses but it can't be good for you to never give your brain a moments peace. She will have the TV on in the background, socials on her phone and the kids playing in the background. I don't know how she does it.

I would wager that a lot of people would turn into animals if you took their phones away from them for a day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom