My wife and I started talking about this after she had to help an old lady at the DMV figure out how to use her iPhone to scan a QR code. We’re in our early 40s.
I think this is right. I’ve been thinking about this a bit as I watch who in my office starts using LLMs and more importantly how they are using them. The folks in their 40s or 50s have largely ignored it, I remember a gen xer sending an email around in may talking about this neat new ChatGPT her middle school kid showed her. I know one xer in my office whose straight up afraid to even try it. Those closer to gen z will use it, but in a very basic way - just asking straight questions seeking information, get frustrated when it can’t handle complex questions or they get lied to, then quit. Millennials seem to be better about using it for what it’s good at, generating ideas, startingn places for documents, editing/proofreading, etc. Maybe it’s because millennials were in that sweet spot between the older folks who didn’t grow up with tech and the younger folks who are used to apps that just work without having to think through how to make the thing do what you want. Maybe millennials are more interested in tech generally since we saw it change so rapidly in our lifetimes. Maybe it’s just my small sample size of a 40ish person office.