JC, my dad, came to work on Friday and we had a stunning conversation.
Something politics adjacent came up, and JC, a Trump supporter, said:
You know, Donald is really starting to piss me off.
Oh. My. God. I’ve read headlines that republicans are turning on Trump for various reasons. What was he going to say: Corruption? The slush fund? Iran? Tariffs? General insanity?!
None of the above.
My dad is upset with Donald because…
He keeps asking me for money! Every day it’s calls, texts, emails; it’s ridiculous. To be that rude and greedy to your supporters, it’s just such a turn off.
I was stunned. THAT is why you’re mad at him?
After reflecting, my dad and I experience reality entirely differently.
JC is 76. He asked me earlier this week “did you get the email I sent you? Through the phone?“. I don’t see an email. “Through the phone” he repeated. Oh, the text you sent, yes, I got it. “Yeah, text, email through the phone“.
When he’s getting obliterated by spam texts, calls, and emails, it actually affects his life. He answers most times when an unknown number calls. He doesn’t know how to unsubscribe from emails. He thinks the texts he’s getting asking for money are literally from Donald Trump. Even the way he consumes news and forms opinions is entirely different. He’s interacting with 2026 as if it’s 1950.
At 76, there’s really no point for him to learn the ins and outs of new technology. We’ve had the “what’s the difference between a text and email” conversation a dozen times (which seems intuitive but is surprisingly hard to explain to someone who genuinely doesn’t understand).
The point though is that technology is the medium we use to interact with the world, and if you don’t ‘get it‘, you go through life entirely differently than those who do. I have sympathy for those people and I would never say, for example, “how could anyone get scammed by someone who calls and asks for money“, especially since it almost happened to me.
The obvious next thought is where will I be when I’m 76? I consider myself pretty tech-fluent, but things seem to be accelerating. There are two schools of thought:
One is that the tech revolution has already happened, and if you grew up using it, then you’ll adapt much easier to new tech than say, JC, who didn’t use a touch screen until he was in his 50s.
Two is that tech is growing exponentially more complicated as time goes on, and the gap will only widen. When I’m 76, I’ll be asking Harrison questions that seem so incredibly obvious and will feel the same sense of “what’s the point” that JC does.
I’m biased, but I’m more convinced by #1.
The JC thing is a bit scary. I have a friend (yes I do have friends) who was on the phone with “Microsoft” when I called him. He said he couldn’t talk now because his computer told him to call “Microsoft” to fix a problem. Of course, the number they told him to call was NOT Microsoft. I told him to hang up immediately. I called him again a few hours later and he told me he was still conversing with “Microsoft” and he had purchased a $50 gift card to pay for them to fix his issues. I checked and the gift card was already spent. I said “I hope you didn’t give them any credit card information”. He said “no, why would I do that?”. I replied “If it was really Microsoft, don’t you think a credit card would be more appropriate than a gift card?”. I did convince him not to purchase the lifetime support for $750. My advice to anyone young or old (mostly old). I read so many articles about seniors that lose their entire fortune because they are convinced the situation is real and honest. Never respond to an email from someone you don’t know. Never call a number supplied in an email or text. If you’re old, call your kid first.
One more comment. The latest scam for me is the email that says “your Social Security Statement is ready. Please verify that all the information is correct”. I know that many “old” people have fallen for this one. NOT GOOD.