Just thought I’d share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is… well let’s just say she’s a stereotypical older mom who doesn’t own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and she’s interested in getting a Steam Deck, since one of her “mom groups” told her about some pandemic inspired games, similar to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that are only available on Steam.
When it comes down to it, she doesn’t care about her computer, she just wants to play computer games in a way that’s easy and accessible for her. We’ll be getting her a Steam Deck for her birthday, which in my opinion is just super neat. Even PC gaming is becoming extremely accessible, and it’s a fantastic time to be a gamer.
There’s always going to be people interested on computing more so than their average cohort, if there weren’t boomers into it we wouldn’t have got anywhere with the tech to begin with.
However simply owning a computer between the 70s to 2010 odd meant you had to do a lot more problem solving and fiddling that lead to a better understanding of how stuff worked across the generation as a whole in comparison. Whether it was learning to use BASIC on your micro computer or having to mess about with drivers in Win 98.