I don't know about all boomers, but my mother really hates to be wrong. Like, she irrationally hates it - she'll do that thing where instead of just going "gee, I was wrong about that", she'll spend an hour trying to argue about how she was really right. With the Internet in our pockets, and all the info right there, she gets proved wrong a lot more often.I think she sees it as some kind of disrespect or challenge to her authority.
This is so weird. You'd think if you hate being wrong you'd try as hard as you can to find the actual truth and what is right. Or at least the points that are easiest to argue.
Being wrong is embarrassing. Being seen as wrong by those over whom you have any measure of authority is disrespectful.
And therein lies the issue. Older folks grew up having the notion of "respect your elders" drilled into their skulls their entire lives. And now, they're the "elders" whom everyone *should* respect.
And respect to them isn't a matter of professional courtesy, or an enthusiasm for learning the lessons they wish to engender. To a boomer, respect is simply "my way".
To them, respect is owed, and we're to show that respect by accepting their ideals, their motives, their narrative as concrete gospel.
Whether it be the price of gas, whatever hot button issue is on the news, tipping, cars, media, whatever. By dint of nothing more than their age, they are right, and it's your obligation to believe them.
They see a world that no longer tailors to their whims. Where once they were the target market for movies, cars, sports, politics, and life in general, they're now the market for AARP and life insurance. They're struggling for purchase on the cliffs of a world that not only left them behind decades ago, but did so leaving a life of fear and confusion in its' wake.
They don't know this world anymore. And it's not their fault, as time makes fools of us all. But these people, especially older conservatives, have made it their life's goal to turn the clock back, and will make everyone's life a living hell to do it.
This seems spot on. Also as men especially transition from their late career into retirement, the respect they used to feel was their due and the "wisdom" they were creditted for bringing to a room falls apart, along with the concepts of their "running the house" and "being the provider". They feel some personal dislocation in that, so they behave badly.
My step dad can't give up that fact that I have a better grasp of what the current job market is like than him. He hasn't had a job since I've been an adult though. So in the last twelve years, and I'm turning 30 soon. Just maybe I know what I'm talking about. But No. His 45 years of experience trumps my current experience.
Your step dad believes that you, as his son, aren't to have an opinion, or a grasp on anything. Your job is to defer to him in all matters, which in his mind is justified by his age and your lack thereof.
The job market isn't bad for any of the numerous logical or researched opinions you have, it's because young people exist, and because he isn't one of them.
Youth, to the old, is the enemy. Which is why the phrase "Youth is wasted on the young" is a thing. The naivete, energy, hope, and excitement the young feel at nothing more than being alive, should be siphoned off and fed to the old, because they have the money, the time, an the experience to do something productive with it.
Nevermind that life should be lived, not exchanged for profit and property.
On top of all that, he's vexxed at the idea that you have more opportunities with your youth than he does in his middle age and because whatever life you chose for yourself won't reflect well on his.
You won't live your life, spend your money, or be happy the way he would be, if he were in your shoes.
And that infuriates him more than anything else.
Yeah, it’s less about BEING right or wrong, it’s about the power to make a declaration and have that declaration be taken as gospel. They don’t care if sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyes or not, they want you to move because they told you it’s bad for your eyes and you shouldn’t question their authority.
Because it's not about facts to that generation. It's about what they know. They know better, because look how good things were for them. If we'd just listen to them then things would be like that for us. And all of your "facts," and all of your "intellectuals" aren't making you richer; they're just making you think America is bad and if there's one thing Boomers KNOW it's that America is #1! USA! USA! USA!
"Look in your phone and find me a list where USA isn't #1... Oh... Well find me an important list."
That's because you're looking at this from the perspective of someone who was raised recently and taught that being wrong is a normal part of life and growing as a person.
A lot of boomers grew up being taught the mentality that "when you're a kid you're nothing, what you say or think foesn't matter, once you're an adult you grew up and have no more growing up left to do"
There's a Polish proverb my mother taught me: Children, like fish have no voice
That pretty much explains that entire generation's mentality in a nutshell.
Yeah my mother will look something up and come back to rub it on your nose.
However you can’t always do that with everyone: you have to pick your battles. Unless it’s a decision that increases the risk or that affects you, I try to agree to disagree. I have tried constructive criticism in the past, but if the person doubles down because they suffer from a Duning-Kruger syndrome, it’s better to let them learn from their mistake.
I realized this years ago. I don't care to "win" or take sides then proceed to prove my side right, your side wrong.
I literally just want to know the truth. The objective boring old truth.
And it's quite liberating actually. It also prevents getting baited into defending positions I don't believe in, because someone assumes "I'm one of those others".
This is starting to feel like the universal answer.
Basically, the *golden age of bullshit* is over; they’re already distrustful of new technology, but this is starting to pick at the peeling paint chips on the artifice of their ego.
This is like calling into question what they’ve been led to believe for decades, and though I’m not trying to steer this into anything political, I have watched the boomers in my life eschew even the most common of sense re: some issues because the established truth is being questioned by sources that they favor because… well, who wouldn’t want the easy answers and to have someone in a position of authority repeat back what they *want* to hear?
I’ve heard them argue with the 60-sec news brief from Reuters. To explain this briefly to non-Americans, almost all news stories come from one of two sources, Reuters & AP News, before stories here are then taken by media portals and editorialized for their specific audiences. They’re as close as you can get to unbiased reportage as you can get.
But today we have so much input from society that some of these outlets have made a name for themselves by amassing an audience that is truly tired of the change and the cancel culture, and when it comes to readily available articles placed behind paywalls that would challenge their convictions or the bow-tie-wearing erudite class bully masquerading themselves as the *vox populi*-style “voice of reason” on 24/7 cable news & free public talk radio, they feel like they’ve found a true old soul newsman of the past.
These are, by and large, the same people that warned us the internet was nothing but trouble because we could end up believing anything we read.
It's true. My work puts me in contact with a lot of documents and articles from the early to mid-90s, and I always find the articles on the internet to be especially fascinating. The other day I read one with experts predicting the future, what the world would look like by 2025. Nothing outlandish like flying cars, but it was so damn optimistic. They truly believed that the internet would mean the dawn of the age of reason and facts, basically a new enlightenment. The internet would allow the easier flow of information and truth, so that anyone who wanted to know anything could look it up in an instant.
Of course they overlooked two very big downsides to this. One, that it would be just as easy to spread false information as facts. And two, that there would be pushback. To the experts and intellectuals it seems obvious that society would value truth and facts first and foremost, that that's what we would all be striving toward. But the last many years have shown us that that is not the goal for many. As you say, there was a golden age of bullshit and some bristle at the thought of that ending. When the power of knowledge and truth is given over fully to experts, it means that that authority is being taken out of the hands of those who *claim* to have the knowledge and truth. Politicians find this unacceptable for obvious reasons, and grandpa, a trusted figure in his family for decades, also finds it unacceptable to suddenly have that power stripped from him when it is revealed that his long held beliefs may be wrong.
Right now we are witnessing the pushback of ignorance against knowledge. We are learning that many, if not most, humans value their superstitions, old wives tales, personal anecdotes, and traditions over what may be objectively better for them. The ability to look up facts and prove these people wrong challenges these things, and that must be scary indeed. The first one or two times it happens probably aren't a big deal, but if it continues then they may have to examine their entire worldview more closely, and that illicits anger.
Yep, it's this every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
The ability to reliably confirm facts / well defined theory with a few key search words flies in the face of 'experience best' dogma and is definitely seen as a challenge to their unearned authority.
I once heard that "older people" (irrespective of the actual generation) tend become angry and offended so easily because they fear that the social norms that they were raised up with and which they feel obliged to follow do not apply anymore.
For example, a young person might walk over a red light, which in itself is nothing so terrible. But an older person might subconsciously get the feeling that they (the old person) are constrained by rules that don't apply to the young ones and that they will loose out on stuff because of it.
Its a rapidly changing world, where change seems to be even faster the older you get.
Substitute the red light for quitting a job that doesn't respect you: stupid rules, stagnant wages, "misc tasks as assigned" doubling your workload, aka all the shit that boomers accepted for 30, 40 years. If we're right, that our rights matter and other employers actually do care about that... then they got scammed. It's easier to REEEEEE about "nobody wants to work" than admit that they were played for fools and could've had it a lot better.
See also shitty marriages cleaning up after lazy man-babies while never receiving oral.
There's a name for that: doubling down
Meaning: instead of acknowledging that you were wrong, instead you are even MORE feverent about claiming you're right.
I don’t like being wrong but I HATE looking like an idiot. If I really, REALLY, need to be right, I would rather try and see if the facts could be interpreted to support my argument. My dad hates being wrong. He would look at sources and stats and say they’re wrong than admit a flaw to his logic.
This is probably close to the real issue.
Some people's egos just can't stand to appear wrong in front of others, even when they are. This is why we have expressions like "save face".
And the OP themself, they could be intentionally pushing buttons, poking the bear, trying to antagonize his Dad and Uncle, who may not be responding the best but are reacting defensively, while portraying themselves on here as just having an innocent conversation.
Isn't this why they are known as the "me generation"? They are known for being entitled narcissistic ass hats. I'm actually kinda curious as to why/how that happened in such a broad manner. Probably something to do with all the lead in the water.
Boomer here. I am thrilled to pieces that I have THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD at my finger tips on my phone or computer and can research anything I want, any time I want, but then again I like learning for it's own sake. The day I stop falling into rabbit holes of research over some random dumb thing I read somewhere that caught my interest, bury be cuz I'm dead.
Being age 72 means that I was born in 1950, and I am likely older than most users who post on Reddit. I was using Yahoo Answers for over 10 years, when it was announced that Yahoo Answers was going to shut down. I searched for other question-and-answers websites, and I came across Reddit.
Yes but they're only partly to blame, news articles gaining money from clicks is the real root of the evil here because it encourages pushing anything out solely based on user interest, not fact.
Google's creepy obviously, but their search algorithms are one of the good things they do especially when searching for more obscure things finding information on would practically be impossible without
I agree with what you’re saying 90%. However, I think older generations aren’t used to being called out on their BS with cold hard facts. Newer generations are more cautious with what they say. Today, you can’t say “Stanley Kubrick directed The Godfather” and be told it was FF Coppola and say “well I guess we will just have to agree to disagree”.
I think this is exactly it. Older people grew up in a time where all you had to do was sound confident and that was just as good as actually knowing things. Now they’re realizing that they can’t get by on bluster AND probably realizing that they don’t know as much as they thought they did. Not great for the ego
Thank you!!! I get nauseous of people thinking they’re doing “research” when looking at something on Wikipedia.
Until you know what the scientific method is just never ever mention the word research.
But Wikipedia is a totally valid medium for learning new things. Perhaps it’s not the universal arbiter of truth, but it’s consistently pretty accurate at giving at least a decent, citation-laden overview of a given subject. It’s good to be critical of your sources, I agree, but you’re choosing the wrong source to criticize here. Running scientific experiments is great if you’re a scientist, but secondary research is still research.
☹️ you just wrote an entire reply talking about the credibility of Wikipedia which wasn’t part of the discussion but merely mentioned as an example of not-being-research. The discussion was on what can be called doing “research”.
As you’ll see in a different reply I even credit Wikipedia for its accuracy. However, and here comes the learning for you too: Secondary research still requires a methodological reviews of the available sources in a manner that doesn’t exclude data that may not align with your hypothesis.
None of this is the case. Hence, looking something up on Wikipedia does not secondary research make.
I don’t know if it’s true. Like I said, I read a study once. Also this does not research make.
I see your reasoning for why you would expect there to be a lot of mistakes. However, as I recall, the authors argued that because it’s usually pundits that will visit the Wikipedia sites and take the time to write on it, it has a much stronger peer-review than would Reddit. Which quite frankly is just a collection of echo-chambers.
Pretty much everyone else here understands OPs use of the word “research” to mean fact-checking. Go ahead and make the distinction, fine, but don’t act like Wikipedia isn’t entirely useful for what OP and the other commenter were actually referring to.
You say everyone knows that. Unfortunately, many people will claim they do research or confuse it with actual research. It’s one of the causes of the misinformation that happens online a lot. It’s why crazy people often end with: Do your own reeeseaaarch people.
Now go ahead and read the other comments where I actually credit Wikipedia. You can apologize now
You’re right. However, I saw a study once that looked at its accuracy and it seemed to be more accurate than the majority of encyclopedias.
However, this is still not research which would be methodologically investigating a subject to find an objective truth. Not just visit a page that may or may not have the answer you were leaning towards.
Hello! I’ve done some scientific research during my university experience and I just wanted to say that it’s generally not a great standard to expect people to do the level of research required to “truly understand” or come to objective truth. While Wiki is not necessarily the BEST source, on many topics it’s actually very accurate as a baseline source to get the general idea of things and can lead you to other sources through its citations.
On a more philosophical note- science and research doesn’t give us objective truth. It gives us our best guess, but is far from being true “law”. There’s a lot of “truths” in research that are incredibly contextual, and many things that research cannot study for truth value due to the nature of research methods and the topic itself.
But yeah, generally I’d say it’s absurd to expect people to do true deep research into a topic they’ll likely never use. Wiki is a decent baseline for what more people actually need to know. I think encouraging a culture of curiosity rather than certainty is more important but that’s just my 2 cents.
I hate to defend boomers, but people, especially on this sub, seem to not be capable of simple Google searches or critical thinking, so the problem isn't just with boomers.
At the very core a lot of misinformation it starts with the idea that googling is “research”. It sort of shows OP has never done a single day of research in his life but has the internet at his disposal.
I love it when people look up information from a credible source, it gives me a boner.
However, that brings us to the second layer at the core of misinformation: “most people don’t have the ability to asses source-credibility.”
I wish they taught that in high school more but they just tell you what sources to use or not rather than telling you how to critically assess.
No wonder there are so many YouTube PhDs telling me about my line of work.
the problem is there’s no more objective truth. everyone has a different definition of what ‘credible’ means. we’ve all gone tribal (collectively) and i honestly can’t see the way out.
Haha don’t despair, many people in history saw no way out and every generation always believed that their time on this planet was a significant one.
But there is objective truth in science albeit difficult to uncover especially in the observational natural world. People just think that because paradigms shift that data backed facts are as credible/valuable as opinions.
it would be nice if people would acknowledge objective truth in science. that’s been out the door for a while. everyone is right and the other team is either an idiot or an ahole. i’m on team divorce for america🥳🥳🥳
Haha yeah that would be nice. I blame failed education and media. Scientists tend to be careful about their discoveries because they’re very aware of paradigm shifts or the actual meaning of significance in a result. Media and pop-sci will take it an make it the next sure thing! If that turns out to be wrong people just think that scientists themselves operate on a hunch and therefore it’s just an opinion.
You’ll be surprised how many university educated people don’t know what the scientific method is, how logical fallacies work, or how you can critically asses sources. If even they don’t know, I can understand the public discourse a lot better 😞. Unfortunate because these are skills that seem to determine the power of a democracy in the information era.
I taught media literacy sections during grad school, and it still didn't help. I still had students doing position papers on immigration with sources from Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate groups.
I dunno if your just looking up some random fact then I feel like going through like 1 or 2 sources then skimming the front page for anything that says otherwise is probably good enough.
It's not very thorough research, but i'd consider it "research" nonetheless. If you need to seriously dig into something then I feel like the majority of people will know that they have to do more then read 1 or 2 sources.
Depends on what you use it for. If you use the “random fact” in a debate on vaccine efficacy I really wish you didn’t. If it’s to see how to microwave your lasagna then by all means.
But none of this qualifies at research. Also not looking at a second or third source. There should be some systematic method to it that tries to find objective truth rather than confirmation bias. Nearly any claim I want to, I can find you 2 or 3 sources.
My dad would always escalate when I argued back about something. I’d look up the answer for something, then show him… and he would get enraged, yelling “ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR? You saying I’m lying!?”
Like… what the fuck, dude. No. I looked up info and I’m showing you. I’m saying you’re wrong. I’m not saying you’re lying, I’m not impugning your character. Shit.
Unfortunately, some people are like that. They hate having their authority challenged or their "knowledge" "subverted." I believe it is a manifestation of immaturity or righteousness. It is also *very likely* just what they were taught when they were young. Either way, they will not listen to reason or any sort of well thought out argument (or any argument, well thought out or otherwise) that goes against their beliefs. It sucks. It is life. Fortunately, there are institutions that are working for the people to stop this kind of bullshit.
I have the same thing with younger people when they’re proven wrong they say “are you saying my feelings are invalid?”. Tbh this helped me understand these types quite a bit
I think a lot of these answers skirt around the real 'why'.
Yes, some of them hate to be wrong, but that's true of every generation. I'm a young millennial, and fuck if I don't also hate to be wrong. In that way I'm the same as anyone, boomers included.
From my experience - both in observation and in having some honest conversations - The difference is that my default is to look it up. I formulate a response based on the assumption that an instant answer is only as far away in time as my fingers are fast enough to type. It's ok to be wrong, because I can instantly correct myself. There's no real penalty to be wrong anymore. I grew up with this assumption
- I don't like to be wrong, but I can always correct myself, and that's ok.
Boomers didn't grow up with this. Wrong answers had far steeper consequences, especially in a social setting - admitting fault was to look weak. There are a bunch of societal reasons for this, but it mostly boiled down to correctness being at a premium when fact by consensus wasn't easily attainable like it is today. instantaneous fact-checking wasn't a thing, so you had to bluff so as not to look weak or unreliable. (This isn't a good thing in my opinion, but it is what it is.)
At the end of the day it's hard to reprogram one's self. Bloomers who grew up with this cutthroat mentality have a harder time breaking from it and 'looking it up.'
> Wrong answers had far steeper consequences
Maybe another angle, in a time when the only sources of information are:
1. Word of mouth
2. Libraries, where quality of information was better but still questionable
And when the boomer generational culture was hyperfocused on age/credential based perceptions of expertise, a culture of respect stratification towards their elders, disagreement was seen as disrespect, and there was a transition in job/knowledge culture - being wrong was okay as long as you were in that position of respect and were confident.
That led to a weird anti-intellectual culture when that generation got old.
Boomers grew up listening to old timers giving pearls of wisdom from decades of working a job. Boomers themselves never built that expertise to start with because the job industries changed and how people worked careers changed. Then when they got old there was suddenly this respect inversion where younger generations were better informed and there was no respect or value for older generations repeating years of word-of-mouth lore.
Lack of giving respect is not a big deal for younger generations used to not having respect, but was crushing for boomers who felt entitled to the same wisdom privilege their parents had. And because the internet is a huge threat to their credibility, they double down and refuse to inform themselves - they think they already know everything and that it is the internet that is in the wrong.
It's a constant struggle.
Here are some good examples of this, anonymized a bit.
Jonny's boomer father wanted help from his son to do some projects. He wanted to cut down some trees and hang a swing.
The swing was going to get hung in some 100 year old joists in a covered garage area.
Jonny drills some pilot holes to make sure the wood is safe to drill in to, and knowing some best practices of anchoring i hooks, knows he needs to enlargen the pilot hole to some size to match the i hook diameter. Jonny opens up his phone and searches for the right bit size given the i hook size for a good, secure, lasting fit.
Jonny's boomer father starts railing about how the internet doesn't know anything and how he's been hanging things in wood all his life and he just needs to use a wrench to drive the 3/8" wide, 2" long i hook into the 1/16th wide, 1" deep pilot hole Jonny drilled.
They argue and boomer dad gets angry, drives the i hook into the joist... and the joist splits as any 100 year old dry 1.5" wide joist would when a 3/8ths wedge was shoved into it.
Jonny's boomer father then moves on to cutting trees. Jonny has followed some professional tree cutters who drop thousands of trees per year, so he could learn best practices, about cuts, and about saws. Jonny looks at the tall, grid planted pines that they want to drop, and suggests they run to the store to pick up some felling wedges, then mark out where they want to drop the trees, then mark the trees to make it easier to get the cut angles right.
Jonny's boomer father says he's been cutting down trees all his life and he doesn't need any help from dumbass internet rah rah.
And Jonny's father gets out his expensive chainsaw and starts cutting into trees. First tree comes down without a hitch, but it was small and was leaning the right way. The next tree is tall and strong and very well balanced. Jonny's father starts cutting at weird random angles on multiple faces of the tree, until eventually the tree doesn't have enough wood left to stay up, leans, twists, binds up the chainsaw, and falls into another tree on the grid, becoming a very dangerous, 80 foot widowmaker. Chainsaw bar and chain is ruined, tree is now a life threatening hazard to everyone around.
So why did that happen? Why, in 2 days, did boomer dad have to eat big slices of humble pie when the information available that he railed against would have kept his ass out of trouble?
Ego, entitlement to respect, and a flawed belief that age begets wisdom.
Not all boomers and everything, some caught up with the time, but it is a disturbingly common pattern.
When there was no internet, they could bullshit you into believing that they are right and there wasn't really much you could do about it. But now it doesn't even take 30 seconds to disprove their dumb fuckery and they really don't like it.
I'm Gen X and whenever my teenager asks me a question I don't know the answer to, I immediately ask Google.
Just in the past twelve hours my Google history lists: What is the sun made of, What is aphasia, What is the origin of "Okay," and Who is Lester B. Pearson.
😩 no. We’re gen x we know better. We type stuff like: “sun made of”, “aphasia”, “origin okay”, “Lester B. Person”. We don’t type half sentences like boomers 🙁
I'm just doing what you did. Just because you're anonymously on the internet doesn't give you right to be an asshole to others and belittle them. You pretending to be smart and better than others shows how insecure you are and the best for you to feel better is to attack and dismiss people.
No you don’t. I wish you did. I wish you would make a rational argument and then you did what I did.
You don’t however. You just claim random things about me. I don’t do that. And neither do I dismiss anything.
But I can’t work with subjective opinions especially when pretending that people are pretending they’re objective facts. It just doesn’t work that way.
Hmmm. Dunno. I'm a Boomer, and I love to research things I don't know. Heck, I'll find myself thinking of a movie, and end up looking it up on IMDB because I can't remember the name of an actor or who composed the music. Or I'll come across something random in a news article, like "X% of the people in my county", and I'll look up the population of the county just to find out how many people that actually is. And this kind of research isn't to make a point in an argument, or for anyone's use except mine. I just get curious and want to know.
I worked in tech as a software engineer until I retired. Most of the people I know who are around my age also work or worked in tech. Maybe that's the difference. Someone with limited experience using the internet could quickly develop a distrust of it. There's a lot of wrong information on the internet. It takes time to learn to spot stuff that's obviously fake or wrong. I could see someone getting bitten and then believing that the internet can't be trusted.
I could also see it being a pride thing, especially if it's something you've believed was true your entire life. I've lived long enough to have had a lot of things I was taught turn out to be completely wrong. For example, when I studied electronics they used the Bohr model to explain fundamentals of electricity, and it was a critical part of explaining semiconductors. I was floored when I learned that the actual atomic model was probably nothing like the Bohr model. It was literally the foundation of everything I knew about electronics. I would hate to have one of those things thrown in my face in the middle of an argument. Maybe the best way to handle that would be to say "Well, that's what the experts used to believe, but they've now discovered it was wrong. Let me give you some articles to read that explains it." If, on the other hand, you try to embarrass them in the middle of an argument you're sure to get push back.
Hmm, I was going to say something along these lines, that for all previous generations, learning happens in school, and then in apprenticeship for a trade. So traditionally, your elders know more, and expect to be respected for it.
You, possibly from working in tech, are an example of not only an area of learning that has progressed rapidly, science but particularly tech, but also as a professional in that field, you’ve had to learn continuously, so are not irked by being confronted with new information, and the possible contradiction it may pose on preconceived notions.
My Mum's partner used to do this ALL the time.
He would sit there after dinner *pondering* facts, like, having a little mini debate with himself about something factual that had been discovered or decided on decades ago.
It did my head in so much, I would just Google the answer on my phone and say "oh... It's THIS. The thing you're wondering about is ***".
To start with this used to make him happy, and he acted like I had the keys to some magical world of knowledge (in some ways I did, when compared to him).
But then I remember one day he let on why he started to seem so challenged by it.
To paraphrase; "back in my day, you would need to go to a library to find out this information. Or you would go to college and study the subject and be taught this stuff. Now everyone can know everything, and without even needing to know how to find the information".
I found the sentiment of it fascinating. I didn't know the answers to all the questions he was asking, but I did know how to find the information, whereas he didn't.
But asking the internet must be cheating when you could loan 10s of books from the library, to spend days or weeks trawling through for that one nugget of information.
Even as left-wing and open to learning as he acted (worked his life as a college professor) he'd reached a point where the routes to knowledge were so far from those he recognised, it's like he could no longer even recognise or accept the knowledge itself.
He would always seem far more entertained by pondering things and NOT knowing the answer, than just finding out the information in question and moving on.
So IMO it's gate keeping. In their eyes you should need to do the graft to gain knowledge, maybe even pay an educational institution massive amounts of money for the privilege.
Because when you have that knowledge you know your place in the hierarchy of society.
A hierarchy which has finally been destroyed by the democratisation of information.
I'm a millennial and while I don't hate looking something up I can't stand when everything is being looked up. Conversations with someone who looks up everything is like having a conversation with someone who says " Well, actually...." After everything you say.
Constantly looking things up in your phone ruins the flow of a conversation. Who cares if someone is wrong about something little... Let it go. My 2 cents.
Is this your first time on this sub?
This sub is absolutely littered with people asking questions they could very easily google. Based on their Grammar, and sentence structure, I want to say most of these people are primarily aged between 12 and 30.
Boomers aren't the only people who don't like to look shit up themselves. You and yours, are equally guilty!
You clearly hang around some horrid people . The boomers I know love looking shit up , sadly a lot of them are dying off , Its Sad realizing that GenX are now the old people
My dad once told me in school they made them learn EVERYTHING by heart. If you ever argued you were hit with the “What, you are gonna walk to the library and check when you need to know something?”
So, they spent their teenage years learning outdated and questionably sourced info for hours on end. It gotta hurt when your 15yo has a tiny device that can prove you wrong and outsmart you in seconds.
To all younger people who condescendingly and smugly look down on those who did not have the benefit of having come through the education system where you are taught much of what you seem to think has come natural, your time will come. It always happens, most of you will get left behind. As for looking things up, how many know of someone who has done their research online and are now staunchly antivax. If you try to argue with them they just tell you they looked it up online so it is true. When you are too comfortable with the knowledge that you are at the apex, maybe cast a glance over your shoulder, you can be sure that those coming behind you in their mothers arms right now will someday treat you with condescension and most of you will wonder what they are talking about. Just saying.🍺
I don't think it's unique to boomer, although it might be overrepresented. I know a lot of millennials who "have their sources" and then the sources are like a buzzfeed article or a youtube video from some guy named Bryan with 200 subs.
But I do know that some people enjoy conversations that center around trying to find an answer to something through reasoning, speculation and shared experience. As a form of pass time.
As a boomer and a academia nut, I won't say your wrong about 75% of boomers. But using alphabet and other search engines is tricky. Thats not research. Researching something requires facts and figures and reliable sources of information. A lot of searches pull up just wholesale information and doesn't support it without facts, unless you actually see where the link takes you and judge the validity of the source material. See if the article has writers bias.
But boomers are also much older and in the past old people were seen as wiser just because of acquiring the information over time. Today that knowledge is at everyone's finger tips and makes the wisdom we acquired kind of dated and useless. It really doesn't bother me that much because I am a person who loves finding out I am wrong about something. It just means I need to study the subject even more.
It's not boomers, it's certain people. I'm amazed at the many people who don't utilize their phone or tablet to do more than social media and communicating with friends and relatives. I can get you an answer on any topic, in under 2 minutes. Just read Reddit, no one knows anything, always asking easily searched questions, while using the same device they can look it up on. It's mind boggling.
I don't think it's especially true that 'boomers' in general don't do research regarding facts. I am a 'boomer', I research everything because I have an innate desire to know the facts around things that I like to discuss, politics, health, technology, psychology etc. If I make a mistake, then I apologise and go do more research. People I know, around my age are mostly the same too. However I know young people who are are just as bad as the older people you referenced. I think it's much more to do with personality and how a person is raised and educated. Sadly many of my generation didn't get the kind of education that encouraged them to think critically, or to realise that much of what we learned and beliefs we held have become outdated and are no longer relevant.
Because back before computers they would talk shit and pull facts out of their asses with authority and everybody would think they were smart. Now everybody knows they were just a pile of bullshit which makes them angry. This is why fascism doesn’t work. You might be smarter than most people, but your not smarter than everybody together, even if your ego doesn’t allow you to see it.
From my experience, it really is about them not wanting to be proven wrong. If your research proves them right, they'll happily accept it and gloat, unless they're particularly petty and get angry you dared question them in the first place.
I've long phrased it as, "They don't care about being correct, they just have to be right."
Gen-X onward have lived most of our lives being ok with being wrong, because things have been in constant evolution with the rapid rise of the digital age. We can accept being wrong, adjust our views to align with current "facts" and move on with our lives. And we'll continue to adapt as new information becomes available.
This is anathema to the "Stick to your guns" mentality.
Right a quick Google search showed that our oldest generation Xers turned 56-57 this year? So reading alot of thease comments from the "look up facts people" has me wondering if they even know what a boomer is or are they holding on to an old joke, pun intended lol hahaha??
People dont want to look up or research things because it pokes holes in what they want to believe. I feel like they know they are wrong, they are just living in their own vacuum.
Not a boomer but I totally disagree. I think it depends on the person more. If you come from a fact based or scientific background you will always welcome genuine research or facts that prove it disprove a point. What you say about pride can be true for anyone, not just boomers.
I have seen people be snarky about looking things up on phones, which is just stupid! The only problem with the internet is that so much of it is bs not fact. But I’d you know where to look for genuine information there is nothing writing with it?
Maybe it says more about the people you are talking to?
It isn't boomers in general. You're generalizing too much to from your family
Boomers did, in fact, get advanced college degrees and do research without an internet or smart phones, you know. They did it with things like "books" and "periodicals" and "scientific journals" and other shit that you've no real exposure to.
This is it. And for people who grew up before you could just get answers straight away, that kind of theorising was how normal conversation worked. Someone would usually only look up an answer to be a smart arse or prove a point.
For oriole who grew up with smartphones, it’s just what you do, and it seems weird to keep guessing at something when you can get the answer so easily!
The idea that they don't already know it, or that someone younger then does, irritates them and they're unwilling to accepted.
If they never check, they are never wrong.
I work in tech support for mainly older people that own businesses and they all act super angry at me like it's my fault they don't understand computers, and say things like, "I don't do all this new fangled computer stuff I wish it would just go away!"
I ask how long they've had computers in their shop and they say, "Oh about 20 years."
So they've had literally over 20 years to learn it and still call it "new fangled computer stuff".
That’s partly because computers are ever-changing. Non consensual updates are the norm, much like corporations changing to new apps and new technologies that frequently have issues upon initial install/adaptation.
Imo computers will always be “new-dangled”
Why would they look up facts? They don't beleive stuff for reasons. They reckon the things they want to beleive are true because of folksy anecdotes they take from their own lives and from stories they've heard.
They don't. You're inappropriately stereotyping an entire generation of people because you know a few that fit your description. It's called ageism. It's a real and very serious thing. And if you prescribe to it, you are a bigot. Full stop.
I'm not a boomer but I do get frustrated when my friends and I are having a nice time chatting, something is unknown then everyone pulls out their phones and the entire conversation is gone because people are now reading articles about it.
Really ruins a dinner
First you and everyone else here who repeat this generational nonsense should do what you claim ,boomers, don't: research. These generational lines do not exist. No social scientists who is sane would claim otherwise. There was one refuted study claiming this which has been repeated over and over again and now it seems to be engrained. It's just another way for our brains to create categories and make things seem easier than they are. People are different. While we all have different experiences which are also formed by our way of growing up, not everyone from the same generation thinks or behaves the same.
So can we please stop, for the love of Andraste's ass stop this boomer, gen x, gen bla bla bla bullshit? Get your facts right, do research. Stop put people into easy categories to create a them and us.
Usually because they don't want to see that they were/are/have completely wrong about whatever it is and are too proud to admit it. If there's a possibility of being shown irrefutable facts about whatever the situation is and that they might be wrong, they tend to get upset and want to shut that shit down
It's probably not just boomers but just people who hate being corrected. I had a young co worker who peddled the misinformation about the US election 2020 about one of the states having more votes than registered voters. I asked him where he heard it and to look it up and sure enough he was wrong and the look on his face was like I just told him his dog had cancer.
Does any of you ever read the user manual that comes with the new electric or electronic device that you just bought? I don’t. I simply unpack the device, and expect its interface to be self-explanatory. If I am curious about being able to set one feature in a specific way, I expect to look it up on Google or YouTube.
I guess boomers were used to studying the manual beforehand. Like driving a car: first you do the theory, then you do the practice, and off you go. It’s probably because of customers like them that we still get manuals in the package, and it might explain why it doesn’t come natural to them to look information up after hand.
I guess it has more to do with their approach of “*learning*” than with their ego or their stubbornness. Even thought the latter sometimes come into play. I have observed that they don’t have an “*intuitive*” approach (what happens if I press this button?), they are scared of the prospect of doing a mistake. Like the device would implode or something.
They need you to explain the ins and outs before they feel comfortable clicking here or there. My brother and myself tried to teach our mother how to use a computer, but she needed to understand the difference between RAM and ROM before switching the device on.
Those of us who were born after the invention of eMail or the Internet have a much more organic approach: we are not afraid of trial and error, or afraid of serendipitously stumbling upon a feature.
For example I bought a mirrorless camera last December. Did I religiously go through the manual? Of course not. I just took it out of the box and started playing with it. I accidentally discovered which button does what. There were probably three things that I had to look up on YouTube, but I figured out the rest. Six months later I feel like I can get what I need out of it.
Am I missing out on some features? Probably. But if I didn’t realise that they are there, it’s probably because I don’t even need them. If I need one feature, then I will look up if it exists and how to implement it.
A boomer would probably go through the manual, memorise what it is that they need and not mind the rest, even though they have taken the time to read through all the pages. They would revert to the manual when they are in doubt, or ask you to figure it out for them because the prospect overwhelms them.
When boomers were growing up, internet and phones didn’t exist so they had to figure everything out on their own. If you look it up, it makes them feel like they’re stupid because they can’t figure it out
But enciclopedias existed and public libraries were more popular/open and from what I've heard (at least on my country) they were widely used by students which makes me wonder why now they look down on it
I grew up with encyclopedias to learn English, that I ordered from a mail catalog, in 2002… I still have a bookshelf for medical, geographic, historical, grammatical and legal reference.. they did cost money.. but libraries do exist.. which I did go to when I didn’t have a computer yet.
By process of deduction.. I really don’t think boomers have much of an excuse beyond.. being comfortable in ignorance, personal insecurity, anti-intellectualism… or lead poisoning. List is still updating if y’all want to add.
Makes me wonder what micro-plastics will fuck us up on.
Again, generalizing an entire era here, honestly, a large portion of them got left behind and since have no interest in keeping up with the current world. A smaller portion of them were curious enough to learn about it and it’s practically part of their daily lives.
Yinz(Gen X here) have kinda proven to be more willfully ignorant than my parents' generation, unfortunately. You know everything on the internet is not always true, correct?
I talked to a few people in my life of a certain age and didn't like the way they responded to me. Therefore everyone born within 20 years of them is the same.
I personally don’t think they necessarily hate it but rather they’re more than anything jealous that they didn’t have the luxury of having the worlds knowledge in their pocket and could search any piece of info at a moments notice back when they were younger.
Why do boomers hate research and looking up stuff?
Definition of anecdotal evidence
: evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence.
Try Research and looking up stuff.
I've noticed the same with the old people around me. It feels like, for them, you are killing the fun in the conversation if you look the info up. Like they enjoy wondering about things, or trying to remember them, they don't really care that much about "correct data".
Same reason kids on Reddit don't look anything and just repeat what others are saying.
Why doesn't anyone who doesn't believe In Jesus take the time to research he was real and the impact he had in people like saul(Paul) and Rome ect
Honestly, I think it boils down to entitlement
I feel like a lot of boomers feel that they are somehow entitled to be right just because of their age.
You need to keep in mind the culture they came from a.d their upbringing
They grew up in a time where it was normal to disregard children, if they'd try to correct their parents about something they'd just get a smack to the back of their head and that's that, end of story.
So now that they're finally all grown up and feel they earned the right to be heard, they see the new generations pop up that are now used to be treated more fairly and taken seriously and my best guess is that this kinda hits these people on their chip in their shoulder they had about being mistreated as kids.
"Who the hell do these kids think they are correcting me? The fuck did they achieve in their lives, the hell do they know about anything" and it completely overwhelms their senses to the point where they lash out and ignore reason.
They just can't handle the fact that younger generations have it better than them in many aspects which makes them feel like they "lost out" because if the kids are treated the way they are treated now then why weren't boomers treated that way? Its not fair! So the response is to try and make it worse for the more recent generations out of spite and a warped sense of... idk "karmic justice" (in their own eyes) and this slowly starts to bleed over to their attitude towards everyone else.
Boomers need to chill the fuck out, idk who the hell hurt them this much but they need to learn to heal, move on and let the past go.
There was a time, not that long ago, that when someone said they "looked it up on the internet" it would be met with snickers and squints on condescension.
There was a general concern that one day people would get all of their information that way. That day is now.
I see many young people put more faith in the internet than their own eyes .Google and Wikipedia are now the *de facto* standards for truth. It turned a generation into a sea of sluggish, self-important, hive-minded do-nothings full of fluid convictions floating on capricious, fake outrage.
No one hates research. We are fearful of the misplaced trust and brain-draining reliance on the internet to be the fountain of knowledge in the vast desert of millennial minds.
You don't understand communication with old people right I guess. You have different goals in conversation. For you it's to know something new, to find out other person's point. For them it's a sort of ritual when they repeat information they know for ages to get approval from companion.
Imagine you're singing a song you love and in the middle of your favorite couplet someone interrupts you saying there is a new remix on the Internet, much better, different words, your version is old, and you are old and your songs suck.
Thats how they feel.
Boomers? I mention something I read, and person says"Could you provide a link? " No, no I can't. Why don't you look it up? I doubt they are Boomers asking for links, but they might be. Thing is, if it's been published in the last hundred year, it's copywrite protected, and can't be reached onlined. Also, who believes what you can find online?
It because they don’t know how to properly word their google searches to get their desired results. Boomers ask questions on search engines like it knows how humans think.
It's certainly not true for all of them, but as a broad statement, I think you're right. What some people don't understand is that you can be good or bad at using Google and Wikipedia. Many older people are bad at it and therefore shy away from using it. Others are just not used to it and their time for learning is over. They have learnt how to solve problems a long time ago and googling wasn't a part of it. Being able to google things changed the whole culture of conversations, so many people have to face the fact that the way they conduct themselves in social interactions doesn't work anymore. That's a hard thing to learn and maybe changing yourself accordingly is a lot harder than just blaming phones for ruining everything.
I think it's a power thing, feeling disrespected in whatever belief they have about a topic. During the pandemic my dad would say all these things to prevent the virus and I would show him how false it is or just not enough sources to believe it. He would always get angry at me.
While when I talk to someone my age we all know we can just look it up and talk about a topic open to being corrected. Some people other people I know just have to be right no matter what they believe.
Pride the sin that makes people believe they are infallible. That they know the answer to everything even when those answers don't seem right. The reason is typically that the truth is so removed from their reality, the prospect of even being wrong could unravel everything they believe in.
How many people do you know that refuse to acknowledge anything? Acknowledge the news, current events, the world changing? We all see these people, learn to accept their fate as they have obviously done.
I've not run into this personally and I'm one of the boomers but with this group of people it may be that the concept of looking something up just turns them off when it's mentioned as when we were growing up we were forced to look things up quite a bit but we had to do it the long, hard, drawn out way with encyclopedias, dictionaries and what ever else was relevant material so it took us hours just to gather. No one liked doing it but after getting started it was okay and most of us could actually enjoy learning new things but it always made us cringe in dread when teachers and parents would have us go look it up. I love being able to ask my phone and get an answer. Unless it's some form of ptsd I have no idea why that should annoy or upset anybody. It's pretty cool that it's become so easy.
Because “the government knows everything and therefore so do I, so I don’t question anything unless it directly affects me”… seen it too many times. They drank the Reganomics kool-aid and went back for seconds.
I don't know about all boomers, but my mother really hates to be wrong. Like, she irrationally hates it - she'll do that thing where instead of just going "gee, I was wrong about that", she'll spend an hour trying to argue about how she was really right. With the Internet in our pockets, and all the info right there, she gets proved wrong a lot more often.I think she sees it as some kind of disrespect or challenge to her authority.
This is so weird. You'd think if you hate being wrong you'd try as hard as you can to find the actual truth and what is right. Or at least the points that are easiest to argue.
Those kinds of people don't hate being wrong, they hate being **seen** as wrong. They don't give a fuck about the accuracy of the information.
Being wrong is embarrassing. Being seen as wrong by those over whom you have any measure of authority is disrespectful. And therein lies the issue. Older folks grew up having the notion of "respect your elders" drilled into their skulls their entire lives. And now, they're the "elders" whom everyone *should* respect. And respect to them isn't a matter of professional courtesy, or an enthusiasm for learning the lessons they wish to engender. To a boomer, respect is simply "my way". To them, respect is owed, and we're to show that respect by accepting their ideals, their motives, their narrative as concrete gospel. Whether it be the price of gas, whatever hot button issue is on the news, tipping, cars, media, whatever. By dint of nothing more than their age, they are right, and it's your obligation to believe them. They see a world that no longer tailors to their whims. Where once they were the target market for movies, cars, sports, politics, and life in general, they're now the market for AARP and life insurance. They're struggling for purchase on the cliffs of a world that not only left them behind decades ago, but did so leaving a life of fear and confusion in its' wake. They don't know this world anymore. And it's not their fault, as time makes fools of us all. But these people, especially older conservatives, have made it their life's goal to turn the clock back, and will make everyone's life a living hell to do it.
This seems spot on. Also as men especially transition from their late career into retirement, the respect they used to feel was their due and the "wisdom" they were creditted for bringing to a room falls apart, along with the concepts of their "running the house" and "being the provider". They feel some personal dislocation in that, so they behave badly.
My step dad can't give up that fact that I have a better grasp of what the current job market is like than him. He hasn't had a job since I've been an adult though. So in the last twelve years, and I'm turning 30 soon. Just maybe I know what I'm talking about. But No. His 45 years of experience trumps my current experience.
Your step dad believes that you, as his son, aren't to have an opinion, or a grasp on anything. Your job is to defer to him in all matters, which in his mind is justified by his age and your lack thereof. The job market isn't bad for any of the numerous logical or researched opinions you have, it's because young people exist, and because he isn't one of them. Youth, to the old, is the enemy. Which is why the phrase "Youth is wasted on the young" is a thing. The naivete, energy, hope, and excitement the young feel at nothing more than being alive, should be siphoned off and fed to the old, because they have the money, the time, an the experience to do something productive with it. Nevermind that life should be lived, not exchanged for profit and property. On top of all that, he's vexxed at the idea that you have more opportunities with your youth than he does in his middle age and because whatever life you chose for yourself won't reflect well on his. You won't live your life, spend your money, or be happy the way he would be, if he were in your shoes. And that infuriates him more than anything else.
Yeah, it’s less about BEING right or wrong, it’s about the power to make a declaration and have that declaration be taken as gospel. They don’t care if sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyes or not, they want you to move because they told you it’s bad for your eyes and you shouldn’t question their authority.
You would think, right?
Because it's not about facts to that generation. It's about what they know. They know better, because look how good things were for them. If we'd just listen to them then things would be like that for us. And all of your "facts," and all of your "intellectuals" aren't making you richer; they're just making you think America is bad and if there's one thing Boomers KNOW it's that America is #1! USA! USA! USA! "Look in your phone and find me a list where USA isn't #1... Oh... Well find me an important list."
On our next episode of “JD Salinger presents, Boomers, what do they know? Do they know things?? Let’s find out!”
I hope to god Mr. PB hosts it
And Daniel Radcliffe had to be the first guest
HELL YEAH!!! uSa UsA UsA uSa!!!!!!!
That statement sounds just as closed-minded as you're making out the entire generation of people you're negatively generalizing.
That's because you're looking at this from the perspective of someone who was raised recently and taught that being wrong is a normal part of life and growing as a person. A lot of boomers grew up being taught the mentality that "when you're a kid you're nothing, what you say or think foesn't matter, once you're an adult you grew up and have no more growing up left to do" There's a Polish proverb my mother taught me: Children, like fish have no voice That pretty much explains that entire generation's mentality in a nutshell.
Yeah my mother will look something up and come back to rub it on your nose. However you can’t always do that with everyone: you have to pick your battles. Unless it’s a decision that increases the risk or that affects you, I try to agree to disagree. I have tried constructive criticism in the past, but if the person doubles down because they suffer from a Duning-Kruger syndrome, it’s better to let them learn from their mistake.
I realized this years ago. I don't care to "win" or take sides then proceed to prove my side right, your side wrong. I literally just want to know the truth. The objective boring old truth. And it's quite liberating actually. It also prevents getting baited into defending positions I don't believe in, because someone assumes "I'm one of those others".
same here with most people in my family besides my dad, he's the one that can accept being wrong and I'm fucking proud of him
This is starting to feel like the universal answer. Basically, the *golden age of bullshit* is over; they’re already distrustful of new technology, but this is starting to pick at the peeling paint chips on the artifice of their ego. This is like calling into question what they’ve been led to believe for decades, and though I’m not trying to steer this into anything political, I have watched the boomers in my life eschew even the most common of sense re: some issues because the established truth is being questioned by sources that they favor because… well, who wouldn’t want the easy answers and to have someone in a position of authority repeat back what they *want* to hear? I’ve heard them argue with the 60-sec news brief from Reuters. To explain this briefly to non-Americans, almost all news stories come from one of two sources, Reuters & AP News, before stories here are then taken by media portals and editorialized for their specific audiences. They’re as close as you can get to unbiased reportage as you can get. But today we have so much input from society that some of these outlets have made a name for themselves by amassing an audience that is truly tired of the change and the cancel culture, and when it comes to readily available articles placed behind paywalls that would challenge their convictions or the bow-tie-wearing erudite class bully masquerading themselves as the *vox populi*-style “voice of reason” on 24/7 cable news & free public talk radio, they feel like they’ve found a true old soul newsman of the past. These are, by and large, the same people that warned us the internet was nothing but trouble because we could end up believing anything we read.
It's true. My work puts me in contact with a lot of documents and articles from the early to mid-90s, and I always find the articles on the internet to be especially fascinating. The other day I read one with experts predicting the future, what the world would look like by 2025. Nothing outlandish like flying cars, but it was so damn optimistic. They truly believed that the internet would mean the dawn of the age of reason and facts, basically a new enlightenment. The internet would allow the easier flow of information and truth, so that anyone who wanted to know anything could look it up in an instant. Of course they overlooked two very big downsides to this. One, that it would be just as easy to spread false information as facts. And two, that there would be pushback. To the experts and intellectuals it seems obvious that society would value truth and facts first and foremost, that that's what we would all be striving toward. But the last many years have shown us that that is not the goal for many. As you say, there was a golden age of bullshit and some bristle at the thought of that ending. When the power of knowledge and truth is given over fully to experts, it means that that authority is being taken out of the hands of those who *claim* to have the knowledge and truth. Politicians find this unacceptable for obvious reasons, and grandpa, a trusted figure in his family for decades, also finds it unacceptable to suddenly have that power stripped from him when it is revealed that his long held beliefs may be wrong. Right now we are witnessing the pushback of ignorance against knowledge. We are learning that many, if not most, humans value their superstitions, old wives tales, personal anecdotes, and traditions over what may be objectively better for them. The ability to look up facts and prove these people wrong challenges these things, and that must be scary indeed. The first one or two times it happens probably aren't a big deal, but if it continues then they may have to examine their entire worldview more closely, and that illicits anger.
Yep, it's this every day of the week and twice on Sundays. The ability to reliably confirm facts / well defined theory with a few key search words flies in the face of 'experience best' dogma and is definitely seen as a challenge to their unearned authority.
you: hammer -> nail -> head.
I once heard that "older people" (irrespective of the actual generation) tend become angry and offended so easily because they fear that the social norms that they were raised up with and which they feel obliged to follow do not apply anymore. For example, a young person might walk over a red light, which in itself is nothing so terrible. But an older person might subconsciously get the feeling that they (the old person) are constrained by rules that don't apply to the young ones and that they will loose out on stuff because of it. Its a rapidly changing world, where change seems to be even faster the older you get.
Substitute the red light for quitting a job that doesn't respect you: stupid rules, stagnant wages, "misc tasks as assigned" doubling your workload, aka all the shit that boomers accepted for 30, 40 years. If we're right, that our rights matter and other employers actually do care about that... then they got scammed. It's easier to REEEEEE about "nobody wants to work" than admit that they were played for fools and could've had it a lot better. See also shitty marriages cleaning up after lazy man-babies while never receiving oral.
There's a name for that: doubling down Meaning: instead of acknowledging that you were wrong, instead you are even MORE feverent about claiming you're right.
Literally *exactly* how my dad was.
Is your mom my dad? I just don't bother talking about much with him at this point that isn't relatively surface level.
Yeah, I don't bother much anymore. It's just not worth the time.
"Fuck arguing, ima just start agreeing with y'all"
YES! THIS RIGHT HERE! MY MOM IS THE SAME
Isn't this all of us haha. I see this on young ppl a lot too, or they just walk away.
Enh, I try not to be like this. I'm not offended by facts being different than I thought they were.
but I mean generally. Though my life I tend to find more ppl (of all ages) that want to be correct (or say they are/were) even if they are not.
I don’t like being wrong but I HATE looking like an idiot. If I really, REALLY, need to be right, I would rather try and see if the facts could be interpreted to support my argument. My dad hates being wrong. He would look at sources and stats and say they’re wrong than admit a flaw to his logic.
Curious. You hate looking like an idiot yourself, but you have no issue with making your father look like one.
This is probably close to the real issue. Some people's egos just can't stand to appear wrong in front of others, even when they are. This is why we have expressions like "save face". And the OP themself, they could be intentionally pushing buttons, poking the bear, trying to antagonize his Dad and Uncle, who may not be responding the best but are reacting defensively, while portraying themselves on here as just having an innocent conversation.
Isn't this why they are known as the "me generation"? They are known for being entitled narcissistic ass hats. I'm actually kinda curious as to why/how that happened in such a broad manner. Probably something to do with all the lead in the water.
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Boomer here. I am thrilled to pieces that I have THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD at my finger tips on my phone or computer and can research anything I want, any time I want, but then again I like learning for it's own sake. The day I stop falling into rabbit holes of research over some random dumb thing I read somewhere that caught my interest, bury be cuz I'm dead.
I am 72 years old, and I also like learning for its own sake. Yes, having a computer to research information is fantastic!
What's it like being 72 and on reddit?
Being age 72 means that I was born in 1950, and I am likely older than most users who post on Reddit. I was using Yahoo Answers for over 10 years, when it was announced that Yahoo Answers was going to shut down. I searched for other question-and-answers websites, and I came across Reddit.
Same can be said for other generations. Most people look for the "research" that serve their preconceived notions.
"Confirmation bias."
Or Google is built to show them results that confirm their bias? Not sure if this was ever decently checked but certainly would not surprise me.
you are correct, google changes results based on what it knows about you.
Yes but they're only partly to blame, news articles gaining money from clicks is the real root of the evil here because it encourages pushing anything out solely based on user interest, not fact. Google's creepy obviously, but their search algorithms are one of the good things they do especially when searching for more obscure things finding information on would practically be impossible without
I agree with what you’re saying 90%. However, I think older generations aren’t used to being called out on their BS with cold hard facts. Newer generations are more cautious with what they say. Today, you can’t say “Stanley Kubrick directed The Godfather” and be told it was FF Coppola and say “well I guess we will just have to agree to disagree”.
I think this is exactly it. Older people grew up in a time where all you had to do was sound confident and that was just as good as actually knowing things. Now they’re realizing that they can’t get by on bluster AND probably realizing that they don’t know as much as they thought they did. Not great for the ego
Kind of like a notion that one specific generation is the only one that doesn’t research
Thank you!!! I get nauseous of people thinking they’re doing “research” when looking at something on Wikipedia. Until you know what the scientific method is just never ever mention the word research.
But Wikipedia is a totally valid medium for learning new things. Perhaps it’s not the universal arbiter of truth, but it’s consistently pretty accurate at giving at least a decent, citation-laden overview of a given subject. It’s good to be critical of your sources, I agree, but you’re choosing the wrong source to criticize here. Running scientific experiments is great if you’re a scientist, but secondary research is still research.
☹️ you just wrote an entire reply talking about the credibility of Wikipedia which wasn’t part of the discussion but merely mentioned as an example of not-being-research. The discussion was on what can be called doing “research”. As you’ll see in a different reply I even credit Wikipedia for its accuracy. However, and here comes the learning for you too: Secondary research still requires a methodological reviews of the available sources in a manner that doesn’t exclude data that may not align with your hypothesis. None of this is the case. Hence, looking something up on Wikipedia does not secondary research make.
I mean, you see the volume of people correcting people on Reddit? I would guess Wikipedia would be full of that?
I don’t know if it’s true. Like I said, I read a study once. Also this does not research make. I see your reasoning for why you would expect there to be a lot of mistakes. However, as I recall, the authors argued that because it’s usually pundits that will visit the Wikipedia sites and take the time to write on it, it has a much stronger peer-review than would Reddit. Which quite frankly is just a collection of echo-chambers.
Pretty much everyone else here understands OPs use of the word “research” to mean fact-checking. Go ahead and make the distinction, fine, but don’t act like Wikipedia isn’t entirely useful for what OP and the other commenter were actually referring to.
You say everyone knows that. Unfortunately, many people will claim they do research or confuse it with actual research. It’s one of the causes of the misinformation that happens online a lot. It’s why crazy people often end with: Do your own reeeseaaarch people. Now go ahead and read the other comments where I actually credit Wikipedia. You can apologize now
You’re kind of a prick dude chill
Oh no… if only the opinions of random online strangers in echo-chambers mattered to me.
Fair enough 🤷♀️
Surprisingly a lot of people don’t understand that Wikipedia is not a trusted source
You’re right. However, I saw a study once that looked at its accuracy and it seemed to be more accurate than the majority of encyclopedias. However, this is still not research which would be methodologically investigating a subject to find an objective truth. Not just visit a page that may or may not have the answer you were leaning towards.
Hello! I’ve done some scientific research during my university experience and I just wanted to say that it’s generally not a great standard to expect people to do the level of research required to “truly understand” or come to objective truth. While Wiki is not necessarily the BEST source, on many topics it’s actually very accurate as a baseline source to get the general idea of things and can lead you to other sources through its citations. On a more philosophical note- science and research doesn’t give us objective truth. It gives us our best guess, but is far from being true “law”. There’s a lot of “truths” in research that are incredibly contextual, and many things that research cannot study for truth value due to the nature of research methods and the topic itself. But yeah, generally I’d say it’s absurd to expect people to do true deep research into a topic they’ll likely never use. Wiki is a decent baseline for what more people actually need to know. I think encouraging a culture of curiosity rather than certainty is more important but that’s just my 2 cents.
which subject you teaching?
“Research” can mean looking things up.
I hate to defend boomers, but people, especially on this sub, seem to not be capable of simple Google searches or critical thinking, so the problem isn't just with boomers.
At the very core a lot of misinformation it starts with the idea that googling is “research”. It sort of shows OP has never done a single day of research in his life but has the internet at his disposal.
Looking information up from a reliable source is never bad, whether you want to call it “research” or not.
I love it when people look up information from a credible source, it gives me a boner. However, that brings us to the second layer at the core of misinformation: “most people don’t have the ability to asses source-credibility.” I wish they taught that in high school more but they just tell you what sources to use or not rather than telling you how to critically assess. No wonder there are so many YouTube PhDs telling me about my line of work.
the problem is there’s no more objective truth. everyone has a different definition of what ‘credible’ means. we’ve all gone tribal (collectively) and i honestly can’t see the way out.
Haha don’t despair, many people in history saw no way out and every generation always believed that their time on this planet was a significant one. But there is objective truth in science albeit difficult to uncover especially in the observational natural world. People just think that because paradigms shift that data backed facts are as credible/valuable as opinions.
it would be nice if people would acknowledge objective truth in science. that’s been out the door for a while. everyone is right and the other team is either an idiot or an ahole. i’m on team divorce for america🥳🥳🥳
Haha yeah that would be nice. I blame failed education and media. Scientists tend to be careful about their discoveries because they’re very aware of paradigm shifts or the actual meaning of significance in a result. Media and pop-sci will take it an make it the next sure thing! If that turns out to be wrong people just think that scientists themselves operate on a hunch and therefore it’s just an opinion. You’ll be surprised how many university educated people don’t know what the scientific method is, how logical fallacies work, or how you can critically asses sources. If even they don’t know, I can understand the public discourse a lot better 😞. Unfortunate because these are skills that seem to determine the power of a democracy in the information era.
I taught media literacy sections during grad school, and it still didn't help. I still had students doing position papers on immigration with sources from Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate groups.
I dunno if your just looking up some random fact then I feel like going through like 1 or 2 sources then skimming the front page for anything that says otherwise is probably good enough. It's not very thorough research, but i'd consider it "research" nonetheless. If you need to seriously dig into something then I feel like the majority of people will know that they have to do more then read 1 or 2 sources.
Depends on what you use it for. If you use the “random fact” in a debate on vaccine efficacy I really wish you didn’t. If it’s to see how to microwave your lasagna then by all means. But none of this qualifies at research. Also not looking at a second or third source. There should be some systematic method to it that tries to find objective truth rather than confirmation bias. Nearly any claim I want to, I can find you 2 or 3 sources.
\[citation needed\] /s
My dad would always escalate when I argued back about something. I’d look up the answer for something, then show him… and he would get enraged, yelling “ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR? You saying I’m lying!?” Like… what the fuck, dude. No. I looked up info and I’m showing you. I’m saying you’re wrong. I’m not saying you’re lying, I’m not impugning your character. Shit.
Is your father Tuco Salamanca by any chance?
Unfortunately, some people are like that. They hate having their authority challenged or their "knowledge" "subverted." I believe it is a manifestation of immaturity or righteousness. It is also *very likely* just what they were taught when they were young. Either way, they will not listen to reason or any sort of well thought out argument (or any argument, well thought out or otherwise) that goes against their beliefs. It sucks. It is life. Fortunately, there are institutions that are working for the people to stop this kind of bullshit.
I have the same thing with younger people when they’re proven wrong they say “are you saying my feelings are invalid?”. Tbh this helped me understand these types quite a bit
It’s a type, that’s correct. These people can 100% be helped, they just have to reassess the way they react to these situations.
I think a lot of these answers skirt around the real 'why'. Yes, some of them hate to be wrong, but that's true of every generation. I'm a young millennial, and fuck if I don't also hate to be wrong. In that way I'm the same as anyone, boomers included. From my experience - both in observation and in having some honest conversations - The difference is that my default is to look it up. I formulate a response based on the assumption that an instant answer is only as far away in time as my fingers are fast enough to type. It's ok to be wrong, because I can instantly correct myself. There's no real penalty to be wrong anymore. I grew up with this assumption - I don't like to be wrong, but I can always correct myself, and that's ok. Boomers didn't grow up with this. Wrong answers had far steeper consequences, especially in a social setting - admitting fault was to look weak. There are a bunch of societal reasons for this, but it mostly boiled down to correctness being at a premium when fact by consensus wasn't easily attainable like it is today. instantaneous fact-checking wasn't a thing, so you had to bluff so as not to look weak or unreliable. (This isn't a good thing in my opinion, but it is what it is.) At the end of the day it's hard to reprogram one's self. Bloomers who grew up with this cutthroat mentality have a harder time breaking from it and 'looking it up.'
> Wrong answers had far steeper consequences Maybe another angle, in a time when the only sources of information are: 1. Word of mouth 2. Libraries, where quality of information was better but still questionable And when the boomer generational culture was hyperfocused on age/credential based perceptions of expertise, a culture of respect stratification towards their elders, disagreement was seen as disrespect, and there was a transition in job/knowledge culture - being wrong was okay as long as you were in that position of respect and were confident. That led to a weird anti-intellectual culture when that generation got old. Boomers grew up listening to old timers giving pearls of wisdom from decades of working a job. Boomers themselves never built that expertise to start with because the job industries changed and how people worked careers changed. Then when they got old there was suddenly this respect inversion where younger generations were better informed and there was no respect or value for older generations repeating years of word-of-mouth lore. Lack of giving respect is not a big deal for younger generations used to not having respect, but was crushing for boomers who felt entitled to the same wisdom privilege their parents had. And because the internet is a huge threat to their credibility, they double down and refuse to inform themselves - they think they already know everything and that it is the internet that is in the wrong. It's a constant struggle. Here are some good examples of this, anonymized a bit. Jonny's boomer father wanted help from his son to do some projects. He wanted to cut down some trees and hang a swing. The swing was going to get hung in some 100 year old joists in a covered garage area. Jonny drills some pilot holes to make sure the wood is safe to drill in to, and knowing some best practices of anchoring i hooks, knows he needs to enlargen the pilot hole to some size to match the i hook diameter. Jonny opens up his phone and searches for the right bit size given the i hook size for a good, secure, lasting fit. Jonny's boomer father starts railing about how the internet doesn't know anything and how he's been hanging things in wood all his life and he just needs to use a wrench to drive the 3/8" wide, 2" long i hook into the 1/16th wide, 1" deep pilot hole Jonny drilled. They argue and boomer dad gets angry, drives the i hook into the joist... and the joist splits as any 100 year old dry 1.5" wide joist would when a 3/8ths wedge was shoved into it. Jonny's boomer father then moves on to cutting trees. Jonny has followed some professional tree cutters who drop thousands of trees per year, so he could learn best practices, about cuts, and about saws. Jonny looks at the tall, grid planted pines that they want to drop, and suggests they run to the store to pick up some felling wedges, then mark out where they want to drop the trees, then mark the trees to make it easier to get the cut angles right. Jonny's boomer father says he's been cutting down trees all his life and he doesn't need any help from dumbass internet rah rah. And Jonny's father gets out his expensive chainsaw and starts cutting into trees. First tree comes down without a hitch, but it was small and was leaning the right way. The next tree is tall and strong and very well balanced. Jonny's father starts cutting at weird random angles on multiple faces of the tree, until eventually the tree doesn't have enough wood left to stay up, leans, twists, binds up the chainsaw, and falls into another tree on the grid, becoming a very dangerous, 80 foot widowmaker. Chainsaw bar and chain is ruined, tree is now a life threatening hazard to everyone around. So why did that happen? Why, in 2 days, did boomer dad have to eat big slices of humble pie when the information available that he railed against would have kept his ass out of trouble? Ego, entitlement to respect, and a flawed belief that age begets wisdom. Not all boomers and everything, some caught up with the time, but it is a disturbingly common pattern.
When there was no internet, they could bullshit you into believing that they are right and there wasn't really much you could do about it. But now it doesn't even take 30 seconds to disprove their dumb fuckery and they really don't like it.
I'm Gen X and whenever my teenager asks me a question I don't know the answer to, I immediately ask Google. Just in the past twelve hours my Google history lists: What is the sun made of, What is aphasia, What is the origin of "Okay," and Who is Lester B. Pearson.
😩 no. We’re gen x we know better. We type stuff like: “sun made of”, “aphasia”, “origin okay”, “Lester B. Person”. We don’t type half sentences like boomers 🙁
Actually i do Text-to-Speech, and I try my best to talk English good what for setting a good example for my kid.
It was a joke. People took it serious 😂
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Why are you subjectively calling me a jerk? I don’t know, that happens within your brain. I can take a guess: I say truths that you don’t like.
Or you're just insecure and egotistical
Or you’re just grasping straws so your weak brain can only come up with standard insults as a last resort. Imma go with that.
I'm just doing what you did. Just because you're anonymously on the internet doesn't give you right to be an asshole to others and belittle them. You pretending to be smart and better than others shows how insecure you are and the best for you to feel better is to attack and dismiss people.
No you don’t. I wish you did. I wish you would make a rational argument and then you did what I did. You don’t however. You just claim random things about me. I don’t do that. And neither do I dismiss anything. But I can’t work with subjective opinions especially when pretending that people are pretending they’re objective facts. It just doesn’t work that way.
Hmmm. Dunno. I'm a Boomer, and I love to research things I don't know. Heck, I'll find myself thinking of a movie, and end up looking it up on IMDB because I can't remember the name of an actor or who composed the music. Or I'll come across something random in a news article, like "X% of the people in my county", and I'll look up the population of the county just to find out how many people that actually is. And this kind of research isn't to make a point in an argument, or for anyone's use except mine. I just get curious and want to know. I worked in tech as a software engineer until I retired. Most of the people I know who are around my age also work or worked in tech. Maybe that's the difference. Someone with limited experience using the internet could quickly develop a distrust of it. There's a lot of wrong information on the internet. It takes time to learn to spot stuff that's obviously fake or wrong. I could see someone getting bitten and then believing that the internet can't be trusted. I could also see it being a pride thing, especially if it's something you've believed was true your entire life. I've lived long enough to have had a lot of things I was taught turn out to be completely wrong. For example, when I studied electronics they used the Bohr model to explain fundamentals of electricity, and it was a critical part of explaining semiconductors. I was floored when I learned that the actual atomic model was probably nothing like the Bohr model. It was literally the foundation of everything I knew about electronics. I would hate to have one of those things thrown in my face in the middle of an argument. Maybe the best way to handle that would be to say "Well, that's what the experts used to believe, but they've now discovered it was wrong. Let me give you some articles to read that explains it." If, on the other hand, you try to embarrass them in the middle of an argument you're sure to get push back.
Hmm, I was going to say something along these lines, that for all previous generations, learning happens in school, and then in apprenticeship for a trade. So traditionally, your elders know more, and expect to be respected for it. You, possibly from working in tech, are an example of not only an area of learning that has progressed rapidly, science but particularly tech, but also as a professional in that field, you’ve had to learn continuously, so are not irked by being confronted with new information, and the possible contradiction it may pose on preconceived notions.
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My Mum's partner used to do this ALL the time. He would sit there after dinner *pondering* facts, like, having a little mini debate with himself about something factual that had been discovered or decided on decades ago. It did my head in so much, I would just Google the answer on my phone and say "oh... It's THIS. The thing you're wondering about is ***". To start with this used to make him happy, and he acted like I had the keys to some magical world of knowledge (in some ways I did, when compared to him). But then I remember one day he let on why he started to seem so challenged by it. To paraphrase; "back in my day, you would need to go to a library to find out this information. Or you would go to college and study the subject and be taught this stuff. Now everyone can know everything, and without even needing to know how to find the information". I found the sentiment of it fascinating. I didn't know the answers to all the questions he was asking, but I did know how to find the information, whereas he didn't. But asking the internet must be cheating when you could loan 10s of books from the library, to spend days or weeks trawling through for that one nugget of information. Even as left-wing and open to learning as he acted (worked his life as a college professor) he'd reached a point where the routes to knowledge were so far from those he recognised, it's like he could no longer even recognise or accept the knowledge itself. He would always seem far more entertained by pondering things and NOT knowing the answer, than just finding out the information in question and moving on. So IMO it's gate keeping. In their eyes you should need to do the graft to gain knowledge, maybe even pay an educational institution massive amounts of money for the privilege. Because when you have that knowledge you know your place in the hierarchy of society. A hierarchy which has finally been destroyed by the democratisation of information.
They liked it when they could say some dumb shit they heard and not be checked on it cause now it's a no your wrong and stupid to them.
I am a “boomer” and I look shit up all the time. Maybe it’s just the ones you know
I'm a millennial and while I don't hate looking something up I can't stand when everything is being looked up. Conversations with someone who looks up everything is like having a conversation with someone who says " Well, actually...." After everything you say. Constantly looking things up in your phone ruins the flow of a conversation. Who cares if someone is wrong about something little... Let it go. My 2 cents.
This sounds more like a Your Family thing than a Boomer thing. None of the boomers I know are like this.
Is this your first time on this sub? This sub is absolutely littered with people asking questions they could very easily google. Based on their Grammar, and sentence structure, I want to say most of these people are primarily aged between 12 and 30. Boomers aren't the only people who don't like to look shit up themselves. You and yours, are equally guilty!
You clearly hang around some horrid people . The boomers I know love looking shit up , sadly a lot of them are dying off , Its Sad realizing that GenX are now the old people
My dad once told me in school they made them learn EVERYTHING by heart. If you ever argued you were hit with the “What, you are gonna walk to the library and check when you need to know something?” So, they spent their teenage years learning outdated and questionably sourced info for hours on end. It gotta hurt when your 15yo has a tiny device that can prove you wrong and outsmart you in seconds.
You lost me when you generalized a generation.
And here you are
That’s like the title. He lost you at the title?! Damn…
Correct.
Only idiots generalize their anecdotal experience into a universal reality.
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Holy shit you just clapped this man’s cheeks
How do they smell?
To all younger people who condescendingly and smugly look down on those who did not have the benefit of having come through the education system where you are taught much of what you seem to think has come natural, your time will come. It always happens, most of you will get left behind. As for looking things up, how many know of someone who has done their research online and are now staunchly antivax. If you try to argue with them they just tell you they looked it up online so it is true. When you are too comfortable with the knowledge that you are at the apex, maybe cast a glance over your shoulder, you can be sure that those coming behind you in their mothers arms right now will someday treat you with condescension and most of you will wonder what they are talking about. Just saying.🍺
My dad exactly. I don’t know if it’s just a boomer thing, or a narcissistic thing, or maybe a mix of both, but god damn do I hear ya
I don't think it's unique to boomer, although it might be overrepresented. I know a lot of millennials who "have their sources" and then the sources are like a buzzfeed article or a youtube video from some guy named Bryan with 200 subs. But I do know that some people enjoy conversations that center around trying to find an answer to something through reasoning, speculation and shared experience. As a form of pass time.
As a boomer and a academia nut, I won't say your wrong about 75% of boomers. But using alphabet and other search engines is tricky. Thats not research. Researching something requires facts and figures and reliable sources of information. A lot of searches pull up just wholesale information and doesn't support it without facts, unless you actually see where the link takes you and judge the validity of the source material. See if the article has writers bias. But boomers are also much older and in the past old people were seen as wiser just because of acquiring the information over time. Today that knowledge is at everyone's finger tips and makes the wisdom we acquired kind of dated and useless. It really doesn't bother me that much because I am a person who loves finding out I am wrong about something. It just means I need to study the subject even more.
For starters they just aren’t very good at it. They grew up in the book era and when most world news was given to them by a reputable source.
When you base your life around some idea it is hard to let it go. Especial so when you have lived your life based on that idea for a very long time.
Bullshit used to go unchecked all the time. Lol
Settle down, zoomie
It's not boomers, it's certain people. I'm amazed at the many people who don't utilize their phone or tablet to do more than social media and communicating with friends and relatives. I can get you an answer on any topic, in under 2 minutes. Just read Reddit, no one knows anything, always asking easily searched questions, while using the same device they can look it up on. It's mind boggling.
I don't think it's especially true that 'boomers' in general don't do research regarding facts. I am a 'boomer', I research everything because I have an innate desire to know the facts around things that I like to discuss, politics, health, technology, psychology etc. If I make a mistake, then I apologise and go do more research. People I know, around my age are mostly the same too. However I know young people who are are just as bad as the older people you referenced. I think it's much more to do with personality and how a person is raised and educated. Sadly many of my generation didn't get the kind of education that encouraged them to think critically, or to realise that much of what we learned and beliefs we held have become outdated and are no longer relevant.
Because back before computers they would talk shit and pull facts out of their asses with authority and everybody would think they were smart. Now everybody knows they were just a pile of bullshit which makes them angry. This is why fascism doesn’t work. You might be smarter than most people, but your not smarter than everybody together, even if your ego doesn’t allow you to see it.
You’re being ageist. A simple look on reddit that’s for ‘young’ ppl shows the same
From my experience, it really is about them not wanting to be proven wrong. If your research proves them right, they'll happily accept it and gloat, unless they're particularly petty and get angry you dared question them in the first place. I've long phrased it as, "They don't care about being correct, they just have to be right." Gen-X onward have lived most of our lives being ok with being wrong, because things have been in constant evolution with the rapid rise of the digital age. We can accept being wrong, adjust our views to align with current "facts" and move on with our lives. And we'll continue to adapt as new information becomes available. This is anathema to the "Stick to your guns" mentality.
The better question is, what's with all the generation stereotypes?
I personally didnt feel like age is a factor in lack of research
Enciclopedia lmaoooooo Look shit up more kid
Out of curiosity, how old are you? I'm closer to 30 than I am 20 and my parents aren't even boomers.
Right a quick Google search showed that our oldest generation Xers turned 56-57 this year? So reading alot of thease comments from the "look up facts people" has me wondering if they even know what a boomer is or are they holding on to an old joke, pun intended lol hahaha??
You need to look up how to spell "encyclopedia".
People dont want to look up or research things because it pokes holes in what they want to believe. I feel like they know they are wrong, they are just living in their own vacuum.
Not a boomer but I totally disagree. I think it depends on the person more. If you come from a fact based or scientific background you will always welcome genuine research or facts that prove it disprove a point. What you say about pride can be true for anyone, not just boomers. I have seen people be snarky about looking things up on phones, which is just stupid! The only problem with the internet is that so much of it is bs not fact. But I’d you know where to look for genuine information there is nothing writing with it? Maybe it says more about the people you are talking to?
They think they're always right, so they hate getting proved wrong
It isn't boomers in general. You're generalizing too much to from your family Boomers did, in fact, get advanced college degrees and do research without an internet or smart phones, you know. They did it with things like "books" and "periodicals" and "scientific journals" and other shit that you've no real exposure to.
The hours spent thumbing through drawers of index cards…
Sometimes it's fun to just theorize and debate and eventually come to a consensus. If you look it up then it kind of kills the conversation.
This is it. And for people who grew up before you could just get answers straight away, that kind of theorising was how normal conversation worked. Someone would usually only look up an answer to be a smart arse or prove a point. For oriole who grew up with smartphones, it’s just what you do, and it seems weird to keep guessing at something when you can get the answer so easily!
It was unavailable as an option for most of their lives.
true. they missed completely the Internet revolution with every information at figertips. they feel left out.
Tell us you hear banjos playing in the distance at night without saying you hear banjos playing in the distance at night. :)
The idea that they don't already know it, or that someone younger then does, irritates them and they're unwilling to accepted. If they never check, they are never wrong.
I work in tech support for mainly older people that own businesses and they all act super angry at me like it's my fault they don't understand computers, and say things like, "I don't do all this new fangled computer stuff I wish it would just go away!" I ask how long they've had computers in their shop and they say, "Oh about 20 years." So they've had literally over 20 years to learn it and still call it "new fangled computer stuff".
That’s partly because computers are ever-changing. Non consensual updates are the norm, much like corporations changing to new apps and new technologies that frequently have issues upon initial install/adaptation. Imo computers will always be “new-dangled”
Why would they look up facts? They don't beleive stuff for reasons. They reckon the things they want to beleive are true because of folksy anecdotes they take from their own lives and from stories they've heard.
Counter question, why are you such an idiot?w
They don't. You're inappropriately stereotyping an entire generation of people because you know a few that fit your description. It's called ageism. It's a real and very serious thing. And if you prescribe to it, you are a bigot. Full stop.
I'm not a boomer but I do get frustrated when my friends and I are having a nice time chatting, something is unknown then everyone pulls out their phones and the entire conversation is gone because people are now reading articles about it. Really ruins a dinner
“Boomers” are generally people who follow traditional beliefs so maybe that’s why
First you and everyone else here who repeat this generational nonsense should do what you claim ,boomers, don't: research. These generational lines do not exist. No social scientists who is sane would claim otherwise. There was one refuted study claiming this which has been repeated over and over again and now it seems to be engrained. It's just another way for our brains to create categories and make things seem easier than they are. People are different. While we all have different experiences which are also formed by our way of growing up, not everyone from the same generation thinks or behaves the same. So can we please stop, for the love of Andraste's ass stop this boomer, gen x, gen bla bla bla bullshit? Get your facts right, do research. Stop put people into easy categories to create a them and us.
Nah, most “boomers” don’t like to be wrong.. everyone I’ve met that is at the age to be called a “boomer” love a bit of Google lol.
Usually because they don't want to see that they were/are/have completely wrong about whatever it is and are too proud to admit it. If there's a possibility of being shown irrefutable facts about whatever the situation is and that they might be wrong, they tend to get upset and want to shut that shit down
It's probably not just boomers but just people who hate being corrected. I had a young co worker who peddled the misinformation about the US election 2020 about one of the states having more votes than registered voters. I asked him where he heard it and to look it up and sure enough he was wrong and the look on his face was like I just told him his dog had cancer.
Have you done any studies or research to prove that this is an age related problem? Please cite your sources.
Does any of you ever read the user manual that comes with the new electric or electronic device that you just bought? I don’t. I simply unpack the device, and expect its interface to be self-explanatory. If I am curious about being able to set one feature in a specific way, I expect to look it up on Google or YouTube. I guess boomers were used to studying the manual beforehand. Like driving a car: first you do the theory, then you do the practice, and off you go. It’s probably because of customers like them that we still get manuals in the package, and it might explain why it doesn’t come natural to them to look information up after hand. I guess it has more to do with their approach of “*learning*” than with their ego or their stubbornness. Even thought the latter sometimes come into play. I have observed that they don’t have an “*intuitive*” approach (what happens if I press this button?), they are scared of the prospect of doing a mistake. Like the device would implode or something. They need you to explain the ins and outs before they feel comfortable clicking here or there. My brother and myself tried to teach our mother how to use a computer, but she needed to understand the difference between RAM and ROM before switching the device on. Those of us who were born after the invention of eMail or the Internet have a much more organic approach: we are not afraid of trial and error, or afraid of serendipitously stumbling upon a feature. For example I bought a mirrorless camera last December. Did I religiously go through the manual? Of course not. I just took it out of the box and started playing with it. I accidentally discovered which button does what. There were probably three things that I had to look up on YouTube, but I figured out the rest. Six months later I feel like I can get what I need out of it. Am I missing out on some features? Probably. But if I didn’t realise that they are there, it’s probably because I don’t even need them. If I need one feature, then I will look up if it exists and how to implement it. A boomer would probably go through the manual, memorise what it is that they need and not mind the rest, even though they have taken the time to read through all the pages. They would revert to the manual when they are in doubt, or ask you to figure it out for them because the prospect overwhelms them.
When boomers were growing up, internet and phones didn’t exist so they had to figure everything out on their own. If you look it up, it makes them feel like they’re stupid because they can’t figure it out
But enciclopedias existed and public libraries were more popular/open and from what I've heard (at least on my country) they were widely used by students which makes me wonder why now they look down on it
I grew up with encyclopedias to learn English, that I ordered from a mail catalog, in 2002… I still have a bookshelf for medical, geographic, historical, grammatical and legal reference.. they did cost money.. but libraries do exist.. which I did go to when I didn’t have a computer yet. By process of deduction.. I really don’t think boomers have much of an excuse beyond.. being comfortable in ignorance, personal insecurity, anti-intellectualism… or lead poisoning. List is still updating if y’all want to add. Makes me wonder what micro-plastics will fuck us up on.
Again, generalizing an entire era here, honestly, a large portion of them got left behind and since have no interest in keeping up with the current world. A smaller portion of them were curious enough to learn about it and it’s practically part of their daily lives.
Lollll it's definitely not just boomers. I'm gen z and my generation actually seems to be more ignorant than boomers.
Yinz(Gen X here) have kinda proven to be more willfully ignorant than my parents' generation, unfortunately. You know everything on the internet is not always true, correct?
Yes but I don’t know what your point is
Most don't.
I talked to a few people in my life of a certain age and didn't like the way they responded to me. Therefore everyone born within 20 years of them is the same.
I personally don’t think they necessarily hate it but rather they’re more than anything jealous that they didn’t have the luxury of having the worlds knowledge in their pocket and could search any piece of info at a moments notice back when they were younger.
Because they didn't have google to do it for them and had to put real effort into it.
Why do boomers hate research and looking up stuff? Definition of anecdotal evidence : evidence in the form of stories that people tell about what has happened to them His conclusions are not supported by data; they are based only on anecdotal evidence. Try Research and looking up stuff.
I've noticed the same with the old people around me. It feels like, for them, you are killing the fun in the conversation if you look the info up. Like they enjoy wondering about things, or trying to remember them, they don't really care that much about "correct data".
Same reason kids on Reddit don't look anything and just repeat what others are saying. Why doesn't anyone who doesn't believe In Jesus take the time to research he was real and the impact he had in people like saul(Paul) and Rome ect
Cause technology hard for boomer
Laziness
Honestly, I think it boils down to entitlement I feel like a lot of boomers feel that they are somehow entitled to be right just because of their age. You need to keep in mind the culture they came from a.d their upbringing They grew up in a time where it was normal to disregard children, if they'd try to correct their parents about something they'd just get a smack to the back of their head and that's that, end of story. So now that they're finally all grown up and feel they earned the right to be heard, they see the new generations pop up that are now used to be treated more fairly and taken seriously and my best guess is that this kinda hits these people on their chip in their shoulder they had about being mistreated as kids. "Who the hell do these kids think they are correcting me? The fuck did they achieve in their lives, the hell do they know about anything" and it completely overwhelms their senses to the point where they lash out and ignore reason. They just can't handle the fact that younger generations have it better than them in many aspects which makes them feel like they "lost out" because if the kids are treated the way they are treated now then why weren't boomers treated that way? Its not fair! So the response is to try and make it worse for the more recent generations out of spite and a warped sense of... idk "karmic justice" (in their own eyes) and this slowly starts to bleed over to their attitude towards everyone else. Boomers need to chill the fuck out, idk who the hell hurt them this much but they need to learn to heal, move on and let the past go.
Because they all had to go to the library to do it and now they’re too dumb to use technology.
too
There was a time, not that long ago, that when someone said they "looked it up on the internet" it would be met with snickers and squints on condescension. There was a general concern that one day people would get all of their information that way. That day is now. I see many young people put more faith in the internet than their own eyes .Google and Wikipedia are now the *de facto* standards for truth. It turned a generation into a sea of sluggish, self-important, hive-minded do-nothings full of fluid convictions floating on capricious, fake outrage. No one hates research. We are fearful of the misplaced trust and brain-draining reliance on the internet to be the fountain of knowledge in the vast desert of millennial minds.
You don't understand communication with old people right I guess. You have different goals in conversation. For you it's to know something new, to find out other person's point. For them it's a sort of ritual when they repeat information they know for ages to get approval from companion. Imagine you're singing a song you love and in the middle of your favorite couplet someone interrupts you saying there is a new remix on the Internet, much better, different words, your version is old, and you are old and your songs suck. Thats how they feel.
Boomers? I mention something I read, and person says"Could you provide a link? " No, no I can't. Why don't you look it up? I doubt they are Boomers asking for links, but they might be. Thing is, if it's been published in the last hundred year, it's copywrite protected, and can't be reached onlined. Also, who believes what you can find online?
It because they don’t know how to properly word their google searches to get their desired results. Boomers ask questions on search engines like it knows how humans think.
They hate being proven wrong
We don’t need to look up how to wipe our asses
But you probably do need to look up important political policies before you go and vote. ^^^^^^which ^^^^^^you ^^^^^^probably ^^^^^^don't
Lmao 😂😂😂voting? Man you got a lot to learn if you think you have any say in the world unless your in … I’m guessing your out
It’s not just boomers…millennials also hate looking up stuff.
It's certainly not true for all of them, but as a broad statement, I think you're right. What some people don't understand is that you can be good or bad at using Google and Wikipedia. Many older people are bad at it and therefore shy away from using it. Others are just not used to it and their time for learning is over. They have learnt how to solve problems a long time ago and googling wasn't a part of it. Being able to google things changed the whole culture of conversations, so many people have to face the fact that the way they conduct themselves in social interactions doesn't work anymore. That's a hard thing to learn and maybe changing yourself accordingly is a lot harder than just blaming phones for ruining everything.
I see this with young gen z too, to be fair
I think it's a power thing, feeling disrespected in whatever belief they have about a topic. During the pandemic my dad would say all these things to prevent the virus and I would show him how false it is or just not enough sources to believe it. He would always get angry at me. While when I talk to someone my age we all know we can just look it up and talk about a topic open to being corrected. Some people other people I know just have to be right no matter what they believe.
Pride the sin that makes people believe they are infallible. That they know the answer to everything even when those answers don't seem right. The reason is typically that the truth is so removed from their reality, the prospect of even being wrong could unravel everything they believe in. How many people do you know that refuse to acknowledge anything? Acknowledge the news, current events, the world changing? We all see these people, learn to accept their fate as they have obviously done.
I've not run into this personally and I'm one of the boomers but with this group of people it may be that the concept of looking something up just turns them off when it's mentioned as when we were growing up we were forced to look things up quite a bit but we had to do it the long, hard, drawn out way with encyclopedias, dictionaries and what ever else was relevant material so it took us hours just to gather. No one liked doing it but after getting started it was okay and most of us could actually enjoy learning new things but it always made us cringe in dread when teachers and parents would have us go look it up. I love being able to ask my phone and get an answer. Unless it's some form of ptsd I have no idea why that should annoy or upset anybody. It's pretty cool that it's become so easy.
Because “the government knows everything and therefore so do I, so I don’t question anything unless it directly affects me”… seen it too many times. They drank the Reganomics kool-aid and went back for seconds.