It seems as though there is a seasonal cluster to everything -- conferences (spring and fall), concerts (fall through spring), and... communication about surveys and studies. During the fall of studies announcements, we've seen some interesting and sometimes ironic juxtapositions:
Research about centenarians. Will Clark, now 105, just acquired his first computer, which he uses to email friends and to research authors and golfers in which he’s interested.
Okay -- it's another rant. Last week at a UCLA panel I was on, an exasperated audience member asked for a definition of 'senior', annoyed at what sounded like stereotypical patronizing about technology use. I stupidly responded that it was a census definition of age 65+. Actually the census categorizes percentages multiple ways: 60-plus, 62-plus, 65-plus, and 75-plus. Wish everyone did that. Sixty-five is the year of Medicare eligibility, it was once the year for pensions and mandatory retirement and for many it is the year of full Social Security eligibility. It has been used as a political demographic, synonymous with 'seniors' as in the example of the $250 stimulus check to seniors.
You know and I know that all older adults do not love and relate to their computers. And their computers are not loveable. I will spare you a rant this time and not count the ways.
I tend not to write about gadgets -- but the TV remote has bugged me for a while -- since the analog-digital switch, my mother-in-law struggles to use the remote control of her new digital TV. Sometimes she gets it by reading printed directions. Sometimes she just yanks the cord out of the wall to turn it off. Somehow, I don't think she is the only one who used to have an older-style dial TV that you walked up to and switched on. From an e-mail I received recently: "When we gave the new TV to my husband's mother, she said, "what's with all the buttons? Up, down, off, on.
