your grandmother's blog

[cellio]

Ok, maybe not really, but close enough.

Being in my 40s, I'm one of the older LJ users I know. Yes, there are folks older than me, including in my circle of friends, but if you spend any time randomly surfing LJ (or looking at the stats page) you'll quickly see where the center of age-gravity is. (The stats page doesn't, of course, take into account people who don't list birth dates, but that doesn't appear to be significant.)

Recently one of you (I forget who, alas) linked to The Ageless Project, a submissions-driven aggregator sorted by birth year. I've browsed some interesting blogs from people of my parents' generation and, barely, my grandparents' generation. (Oldest listed blogger was born in 1922.) While the stereotype is that older people are technology-averse, and I certainly know many people for whom that's true, the ones who aren't provide an interesting window into a different perspective on life.

Comments

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/zits.asp?date=20060506

[cellio]

*laugh*

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link. When I have the time, I will definitely read some of those blogs.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I will definitely look at that when I have a minute. Thanks!

[dr4b]

That is pretty cool. I always just sort of assumed that the online generation would get older and older, really... my dad is almost 63 and he's the biggest computer nerd ever. Though I don't think he has much to write a blog about.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Thanks for the link.

My wellness LJ

[wellnesslady.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Very interesting. I have my own lj and post articles to it fairly regularly. I'm 70 and very active in life and on the internet.

Re: My wellness LJ

[cellio]

Hi, and welcome to my LJ.

What drew you onto the net initially? Today's high-school students pretty much grew up with near-ubiquitous networked computers, but the rest of us had to take a more active, direct interest, and I'm always curious about what gets people hooked.

Re: My wellness LJ

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

A viewpoint you may want to think about:
The Internet is Ham Radio: The Next Generation, without as much technogeek background being necessary.
-- Dagonell, WA2MGQ

Re: My wellness LJ

[cellio]

Yes, new technologies fill old niches sometimes. I'm curious about how many people apply a new technology to an old practice (communicating with distant friends, in the case of ham radio) versus using a new technology to do something new. Do people start using email to replace ham radio, paper letters, and phone calls, or do they use email in ways that are new to them (mailing lists, new correspondents, etc)? Ditto for blogs, chat, Warcraft, and others -- how much is transferance and how much is new for its own sake? The answers are complex and vary by person, of course; I'm not expecting a tidy little answer. But as an armchair net-anthropologist, I'm curious about these sorts of things.

Re: My wellness LJ

[wellnesslady.livejournal.com]

I have been using computers for many years. Bought my first computer, a Tandy 1000, back in 1985 and have grown with the industry ever since. I was first introduced to computers because of my writing. I now have a retail home based business which is managed only by internet or phone, and I do free mentoring to help folks building their own businesses online. I continue to write and couldn't live without my computers. Now I write about health and wellness topics as well as info for seniors, their loved ones, and their caregivers.

LJ is a wonderful opportunity to post and archive these articles and a way to reach out across the internet to lots of neat people who are interested in sharing my various thoughts.

[arabella23.livejournal.com]

By boss and I were talking about this just the other day, well kinda.

Being poor and in rural WV, I didn't have access to computers except at the library(for the card cat. only) and the brown type one at my uncle's home that I typed my final HS essay on. I went to college in 1997 and had tremendous anxiety over learning to use the college's email system, let alone this thing called the internet and chat rooms.

I think it is interesting that I being only 26 went through what most older folks (and we'll leave that for interpretation) are going through now. And now I'm always on the computer.

Just my perspective