Fake!

It would be one thing if baby boomers read things on the internet and recognized them as fake news, but you have to blame certain politicians for turning everything they don’t want to hear into fake news.

Now for some true news. Guess who the biggest fake news spreaders are? Give up? Baby boomers, my friends, are fertilizing the infosphere with erroneous information at a rate greater than any other demographic. Sad but true, older Americans are more likely to share articles from fake news domains and disreputable sources. Researchers looking at 2016 Facebook posts found little sharing of fake articles excepting persons over 65. The Social Media and Political Participation Lab and Princeton University, found that on average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group did.

How do you explain the boomer propensity to share false articles? Perhaps they think naively believe if it shows up on Facebook it must be true. They must not have alternative news sources by which they could fact check what they are reading in order to become more discerning. Another theory is that they are just lazy. They read something that is what they want to believe and have no inclination to follow up to ascertain if it’s true. A third, and more ominous possibility, is that they know it’s false but just want to pass it off as true to piss people off. I could surmise what political affiliation some boomers might have if they fall into this last category, but that just might be fake news as well. Last, but not least, there’s the theory that boomers have just gotten dumber. The bullshit meter just doesn’t work like it used to, sad but too true.

Come on boomers! You’re better than this! You were part of the generation that marched for an end to the Vietnam war. You protested and marched for civil rights legislation. You are supposed to speak truth to power, not share lies and bullshit. There’s enough fakes (people and ideas) in our world right now. Boomers ought to take some pride in having enough sense not to spread falsity and make it worse.

And proud at least to not be as bad as the Russians.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

 

If I Had a Hammer

I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land.

News flash: Millennials are more apt to end up in the ER from a DIY home improvement project. More than whom? More than baby boomers, of course.

According to a study done by SoFi (a finance company I’ve never heard of before), millennials are 23% more likely than boomers to end up in the ER due to a home improvement mishap. And two times more likely to require stitches. And twice as likely to be injured by power tools. You can find the full study here.

Here’s the kicker. The reason millennials suffer more injuries is down to overzealousness…they are just too eager to show off their latest project on social media. So really it’s all Facebook’s fault.

Boomers are 22% more likely to finish their DIY projects, but millennials are 65% more likely to finish ahead of schedule (and that may include time spent in the ER). It’s also telling that millennials are more than four times more likely to hire a professional for their next home improvement project.

Not surprisingly, millennials are twice as likely to post photos of their project on social media just to “show off.” Doing it for the ‘gram (that’s short for Instagram if you’ve been living under a rock) comes naturally to this cohort.

What happened to improving something in your home just for the comfort and satisfaction of a job well done? You might as well ask why we no longer have rotary phone dials.

I’m not making social media out to be the monster in the closet. It’s the go to destination for figuring out how to do literally thousands of DIY tasks. From replacing solenoids and brake shoes, to repairing toaster ovens and drying out smart phones that fell in the toilet, the internet (and specifically Youtube) has significantly boosted the success rate of DIY projects. Long gone are the days when you had to go to the library for a how-to book or struggled to figure the problem out on your own. Now there are thousands of “experts” posting DIY videos that take you step by step through the project and that has given many of us the confidence to tackle some tricky tasks.

Therein may be the difference between boomers and millennials. We use it as a tool, they use it as a megaphone. Vive la difference and stay out of the ER.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Twitter Is Dead

You heard me. Well maybe you didn’t. When you’re over 50, the hearing can start to deteriorate. I SAID, TWITTER IS DEAD.

How do I know? Because I recently saw a statistic from a Pew Research report, and it indicated that Twitter usage among 50-64 year olds doubled over the past 2 years. It is now probably the fastest growing demo for this social media behemoth.

So…in a repeat performance of how baby boomers killed facebook, it’s easy to see that Twitter will be dead in no time. Not only do they not have a clue about how to monetize it --- now they’re faced with the kiss of death stranglehold exerted by baby boomers. Like giant Anacondas, our demo can squeeze the life out of anything, whether it’s the latest social media fad or a new television show. If baby boomers actively like it, you can easily predict its demise.

Face it. If we like something, our enthusiasm and sheer numbers eventually make it unpalatable to everyone else. The landscape is littered with the fads we’ve destroyed. Acid-washed jeans, cocaine, Angry Birds, water beds, Ford Thunderbird, new age anything, etc., etc. If we’re all over it, then it’s all over.

We can turn a popular program or product into toast overnight. We may not kill it completely, but we can easily turn it into a niche product that only appeals to our demographic and is reviled by everyone else.

If only we could learn to use our powers for the good of the planet. Want to end global warming? Harness the power of baby boomers by getting us to deny it exists. Bam! Overnight everyone else will accept the truth of global warming research. It’s the same reverse psychology our parents used some fifty or more years ago. They didn’t want us to smoke, so they handed us the cigarettes and matches. Wait a second – that didn’t always work out the way they thought it would.

No matter. The dictum stands. Boomers like it. Boomers kill it. Remember, you read it here first. After we’ve killed Twitter, we may move on to Snapchat.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Social Media. Oxymoron?

If you’ve read some of the nasty tweets that people have put out there and then had to apologize for, it makes you wonder what is so social about social media? When you can insult an entire race, country or individual in less than 140 characters, maybe it’s just too easy.

Perhaps Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the other social media tools have actually become antisocial media. Trump insults everyone. Louis C.K. insults his fans. Courtney Love…oh, forget it. Hundreds of corporate employees have put Tweets out in the internet-o-sphere and then had to walk them back with major mea culpas if they wanted to keep their jobs.

And celebrity apologies? Take your pick. Oprah has had to eat her words. So has Ashton Kutcher, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Weiner (oy vey, not just words but pictures too), Adam Carolla, Kristen Stewart (sorry I cheated), Hugh Jackman, Spike Lee, Justin Timberlake, Roseanne Barr, Daniel Tosh, Kanye West, and the list goes on and on. If you don’t know some of these names, just trust me. They overshared or said something totally insensitive and idiotic.

But are celebrities really that different from journalists,

politicians and just plain folks when it comes to self-censoring their social media output? Email and social media have just made it so darn convenient to put words, thoughts and pictures out there without a second thought. Could your words be hurtful? Of course. Would be helpful if you reread what you just wrote and thought about whether some people might misunderstand your meaning or find it offensive? You bet. Do the serial Tweeters ever think before they type something and hit the Tweet button? Apparently not, as there are news items each and every day that detail the latest social media train wreck.

One can only guess where the social media phenomenon is headed. I can envision the day when you no longer have to type your thoughts because your computer (or the Mind Reader that replaces it) will know exactly what you’re thinking and blab it out to the whole world. There will be no opportunity for reflection or self-editing. Imagine projectile vomiting of your innermost thoughts if that metaphor is not too gross. If you think that’s what we have now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Boomers Getting Social

Watching the flying thumbs of teens and 20-somethings as they text their brains out on tiny smart phone keyboards, it would be easy to assume that these whippersnappers (time to revive that expression, don’t you think?) are at the leading edge of social networking.

Easy to assume, but wrong. It turns out that boomers are much more likely to use social networking tools in the workplace. Anecdotally, you can see younger workers bailing on Facebook at the same time that boomers are turning to it in droves.

A Forrester Research study indicated that while Gen Y workers are using social tools, the rate is dropping. Workers age 55 and over have increased their use of social media by 79%.

A study done by iStrategyLabs in 2009 confirms the drop in high school and college users of Facebook and reported that the number of users 55 and over had increased 513% in a six-month period.

So what are all these baby boomers doing on Facebook? I have a theory to answer that one. I think many boomers joined Facebook so they could stay in touch with their children who had their own Facebook pages. But once scads of boomers joined up, their offspring decided that Facebook was no longer the cool place to be, thus abandoning their very uncool parents. Think back to when you were a teenager. Did you want to be a member of any club your parents joined?

In the meantime, boomers are using Facebook to reconnect with old classmates and friends and to find out what kind of shenanigans (need to revive that word too) the neighbors kids are up to (beer blasts and Extacy pills?). Facebook has high school almost become a digital reunion machine for boomers who are getting more nostalgic than ever and now have tool to feed this latest obsession. You can look up names from the past and gloat over the fact that someone who once snubbed you has been married and divorced four times, is totally bald, or has blown up big as a house.

I admit I would like to know what ever happened to X and Y that I went to school with, but the thought of joining Facebook and spending any amount of time looking backward does not appeal to me at all.

I find that looking forward and meeting new people is much more rewarding, but then I also think that my whole life’s in front of me, so I can happily go on with my Facebook-free life.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Out of Work Boomers Need Facebook?

I know times are desperate for many people facing unemployment, foreclosure, or bankruptcy, but can Facebook hold the key to reinvention for baby boomers? Please, God, say no.

The New York Times’ Eilene Zimmerman writes a column called Career Couch and recently offered advice to jobseekers 55 and over. Most of it was useful, if not common sense tips, such as eliminating from your resume the year you went to college and/or graduate school and instead just summarizing the degrees you hold. Make your age and experience into an asset rather than a liability, etc. If employers are worried about an older employee’s energy level, you need to prove you’ve still got some zip, so list hobbies such as running, snowboarding, or skydiving.

It was at this point that I began picturing myself at an interview (and that has not happened in 30+ years) wigged out on five cans of Red Bull and repeatedly using the word “insane” to describe everything. “Is this your employee break room? Those inspirational posters on the wall are INSANE!!”

The advice that really had me worried, however, was how to prove to a potential employer that you can keep up with changing technology (as if all the post boomers can do that). I get that an employer is going to want to know that you can go online, write and answer email, operate word processing software and other applications that are pertinent to the job, but one human resource expert suggests you join social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook and then list your URL on the resume.

So this is what it’s come to? Leaping, lemming-like over the cliff onto the Facebook heap? Baby boomers who have worked hard to support their families all these years, who have paid their taxes and supported their communities, must now drink the Kool-Aid (or in this instance, Red Bull) and prove their bona fides by joining Facebook. This will clearly demonstrate their technological superiority (or at least parity) with any Generation X, Y or Z. And while you’re at it, why don’t you Twitter the human resources director and let her/him know what you’re doing now in 140 characters or less (“hurling chunks after job interview, surprised at how nervous I was”). Better yet, text them while you’re driving home after the interview. “Tht wuz fun. Look 4wrd 2 hearing frm U, my new BFF.”

Yeah, that’ll work.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.