Gen X: The Cro-Magnon of Digital Natives - Older Adults Technology Services
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GE NER ATIONS – Journal of the American Society on Aging
Gen X: The Cro-Magnon of Digital Natives
By Tom Kamber
How a generation came to embrace—and
realign with—the lure of technology.
I grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, which
happens to be the epicenter of American
boardwalk life. It’s home to Bruce Springsteen,
with each advance made in processing speed
and graphics. We played Galaxian and Zaxxon
and Pac-Man with relentless focus, slowly
street racer muscle cars, second-tier mobsters, migrating away from the pinball machines and
and saltwater taffy. It is also the place where, Skee Ball chutes toward this irresistible new
during my high school years in the early 1980s, digital world.
video games got their start. Asteroids came first, We were ready when computers came out at
a giant boxy console wedged among the pinball the end of our high school years, and especially
machines where one drove a little pinwheeling during college when Apple released the first
spaceship through an asteroid field and shot the mouse-controlled graphic user interface. By this
rocks to bits with tiny blips of laser fire. The time, my friends and I had already spent hun-
spaceship controls were tricky—a little too much dreds of hours with joysticks in our hands and
throttle would send the player careening into a were primed to learn the new world of the
boulder—and the graphics were primitive, but mouse and icons and drag-and-drop. Everyone
there was something magical about standing got computers in high school or college and we
there working a joystick and a few buttons to were pretty much off and running in the new
control a television screen. Digital Age.
Asbury back then had a lot of compelling You might want to call us “digital natives”—
distractions to occupy a 15-year-old kid: tanned but you would be wrong. A digital native is
lovelies roller-skating down the boardwalk, the someone who grew up with digital culture and
Pagans brawling with rival bikers at Mrs. Jay’s, never knew a time before phones had screens.
and Chief Jay Strongbow and Andre the Giant Digital immigrants, in contrast, had to learn
wrestling at the Convention Hall. But the lure of technology as adults and adjust to a world chang-
the arcade was strong enough to hold my friends ing beneath their feet. The Gen Xers (born roughly
and me inside for hours looking for that new between 1965 and 1981), however, experienced
high score on the video games, which got better seismic technology shifts as teenagers. We are a
abstract As members of the generation that straddles the inventions of the personal computer, video
games, and the Internet, Gen Xers have a unique perspective on technology—comfortable using digital
tools, while being aware of their limitations. Gen X evolved from uncritical optimism about technology
to a more nuanced, outcomes-based understanding of its uses and value. This progression mirrors the
development of strategies employed by Gen X nonprofit leaders as they have sought to apply technol-
ogy solutions to challenges of aging and other social purposes. The work of Older Adults Technology
Services (OATS) is highlighted as an example of these trends. | key words: Gen X, technology, technol-
ogy and aging, OATS
48 | Fall 2017Generation X: From Fiction to Fact, and Still a Mystery
strange hybrid of digital users who are extremely rock stars, and the bestselling “new economy”
comfortable with technology but still remember strategist Kevin Kelly was telling corporate
a time when things were a bit more primitive. leaders to rethink their balance sheets in light of
We are the Cro-Magnons of the digital age, and a new physics of business development, where
this is our story. giving away services to millions of customers for
free could be the linchpin of market domination.
Gen Xers—Using Tech for the Greater Good For a few years it seemed that Gen X was the
Digital dual citizenship has infused Gen Xers group that best understood what was happening.
with distinctive ideas about the role technology The Baby Boomer elders were still playing tech
plays in our world, what it makes possible, and catch-up, and the Millennials were kids who
what it destroys. From a personal standpoint, thought technology was just part of the natural
these issues became a major theme in my pro- world. We understood the power of these new
fessional life. In 2004, I started a nonprofit technologies and how they might be put to work
organization, Older Adults Technology Services solving long-standing problems like inequality,
(OATS), which has helped tens of thousands poor education, and joblessness. In the world
of older adults get online. Over the years, our of social change, this soon took the form of a
strategic thinking at OATS has evolved through movement on behalf of Community Technology
several stages that in many ways mirror the Centers (CTC), which were stand-alone centers
development of Gen X thinking about technol- providing technology access and programs for
ogy. These progressions have marked a changing underserved communities. The CTC movement
view of what makes for good or useful technol- looked quite a bit like its predecessor, Commu-
ogy, reflecting an increasing sophistication in nity Development Corporations, which aimed
how we use technology, and especially how we to bring affordable housing and programs to
use it for socially beneficial purposes. underserved communities. Funded primarily
If Gen X and the Digital Revolution had a by Microsoft’s “Power Up!” corporate philan-
honeymoon period, it was in the 1990s, and was thropy initiative, CTCs sprang up in hundreds of
as fervent and doe-eyed as any Hollywood ro- locations around the country but eventually lost
mantic pairing. Moore’s law (i.e., the processing momentum as schools and libraries began of-
power of a microchip would double approxi- fering similar resources and programs in the
mately every eighteen months) was in full swing, same neighborhoods, and dedicated funding
hardware was shrinking, and “mobile” was be- streams never developed at scale.
coming more than a dream. I remember a late
night in 1993 in the Times Square office of a po-
litical campaign when my boss, the campaign
Digital immigrants had to learn
manager (another Gen Xer), was unpacking technology as adults and adjust to
some newly delivered Gateway 486 desktops a world changing beneath their feet.
from their cowhide-themed boxes and, awe-
struck, kept repeating, “I can’t believe they can For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, Gen
fit all that power into such a little box.” Xers combined a starry-eyed optimism about
Alta Vista launched the first real search technology with a comparatively stodgy ap-
engine in 1994, and soon the World Wide Web proach to program and institution-building. I
was instantly accessible. Digital content, mobile was a pretty good example of this when I started
phones, viral video—it all seemed so powerful OATS in 2004: a technology evangelist who was
and the pace of advancement was breathtaking. building bridges with traditional institutions like
The editors of Wired magazine were treated like housing projects, senior centers, and nursing
Volume 41 . Number 3 | 49GE NER ATIONS – Journal of the American Society on Aging
homes. But the two sides to this equation were World (2002), traditional content companies
never an easy fit. Leaders of traditional institu- like Disney were busily leveraging ownership
tions were unenthusiastic about incorporating rights and legislative clout to lock down a wide
technology into their systems and approaches, swath of cultural reference sources—books,
and eventually some of that starry-eyed opti- movies, music, art—that fueled many of these
mism began wearing off—even for enthusiasts developments in the first place. The wiki “rev-
like myself. olution” fizzled. Personally, I was becoming
increasingly critical of the shortcomings of some
The Open-Source Movement Changes Minds of these new technologies, and my favorite viral
For many of my peers, intellectual property was video at the time was a hilarious Onion newscast
the pivot point for a change in our thinking about Sony allegedly releasing “its new stupid
about technology. The open-source software piece of &%@ that doesn’t do the #$!& thing it’s
movement accelerated in the late 1990s with the &^#$% supposed to do.”
launch of the Open Source Initiative, and the From 2005 to 2010, the staff at OATS was
advent in 2001 of Wikipedia heralded a new becoming increasingly aware that many of the
awareness of the potential for crowdsourcing community technology environments where we
and free resources online. These developments worked—in senior centers, housing develop-
shaped our strategy at OATS when in 2006 we ments, nursing homes, etc.—were struggling to
abandoned plans for creating a highly structured integrate these new technologies. Computer labs
digital resource guide for older adults (think were locked up and participants were required
Dewey Decimal System) in favor of a new to ask the security desk for a key to use the equip-
program to teach them to build a wiki-based, ment. New “senior-friendly” programs and
open-source guide to which anyone could devices were installed that, while putting a
contribute. Dissatisfied with the increasingly simplified face on technology, often further
confusing interfaces of Microsoft Office, we isolated older users from the mainstream by
began experimenting with Open Office, a free giving them reduced functionality on non-
alternative that promised word-processing and standard devices and interfaces. Public policy-
spreadsheet capabilities without the expense makers, approached to support this emerging
and corporate bloat of previous platforms. need on behalf of older adults looking for com-
We wanted to do our part to support the puter training, cited decades-old regulations
egalitarian strain of the digital revolution, but restricting funding availability, and asked if we
soon learned that open source and wikis were could serve lunch in the computer classes.
not the solutions we had been expecting. The
wiki format, which had worked so well for a glo- Tech Takes a Back Seat to Mission
bal project of encyclopedia writing, was a flop For Gen Xers like me, the mid 2000s were a
for our 70-year-old participants in Brooklyn and realignment period when we progressively
the Bronx, and only a handful stuck with the developed a critical perspective on technology,
training and workshops long enough to post and while rediscovering the importance of mission.
share substantive articles. Open Office turned As Rob Salkowitz, author of Generation Blend:
out to be full of file-sharing problems and soft- Managing Across the Technology Gap (2008),
ware bugs and we soon returned to Microsoft explained to me, “We were discovering that
for our word-processing classes. there’s a big difference between some kid who
At the same time, as Stanford Professor can use AutoCAD like a wizard, and a person
Lawrence Lessig brilliantly argued in The Future who, whatever their technology skills, under-
of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected stands design, spatial volume, and proportion.”
50 | Fall 2017Generation X: From Fiction to Fact, and Still a Mystery
At OATS, these issues came to a head dur- week off from using the iPads to simply role-play
ing a strategic plan that we completed in 2010, communications scenarios that helped the older
which de-emphasized the technology aspects adults practice using language that would build
of our mission and reframed our program activi- stronger social bonds, skills that would come in
ties into five impact areas affecting older adults: handy as they began using email in the following
social isolation, health, finances, advocacy, and class sessions.
lifelong learning. These shifts reflected a new Other organizations (also run, not coinci-
awareness of the limitations of technology itself, dentally, by Gen Xers) were pursuing parallel
and a desire to re-focus our thinking and energy strategies. Power My Learning, a national ed-
on developing a deep understanding of the per- ucation nonprofit, was training parents to be
spective and life processes of older adults, and more active partners in their children’s learn-
on creating solutions that integrate technol- ing, and giving them free computers to use as
ogy with smartly designed program activities tools in this process. Byte Back, in Washington
and environments to achieve transformational D.C., developed an impressive series of work-
outcomes. As it turned out, this had a lot less to force development trainings to help unemploy-
do with technology than it did with consider- ed young adults use technology to train and
ations like staffing, training methodology, and find jobs. In San Francisco, Self-Help for the
design thinking. Elderly created groundbreaking programs to
use technology to help integrate new immi-
grants into American society. In all of these
The mid 2000s were a realignment cases, technology took a back seat to mission
period when Gen Xers developed a and impact, playing a supporting role for social
critical perspective on technology. change organizations that had powerful stra-
tegies for helping people.
As “digital Cro-Magnons,” we were uniquely
positioned to understand these trends and build A Realignment Toward Real-World Outcomes
new initiatives based on long-held values, while I believe a lot of us underwent a “Gen X Realign-
still incorporating technology as needed. I found ment” from 2000 to 2010, training a newly
myself dusting off Robert Putnam’s Bowling critical eye on technology while re-awakening
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American our commitments to real-world, practical out-
Community (2001), which celebrates the “social comes. Our generational frame of reference ori-
capital” that comes from face-to-face contact in ginates in the memory of a highly functioning
voluntary organizations like bowling leagues and analog world—eclectic used bookstores, neigh-
civic organizations, and looking for ways to in- borhood video shops (always staffed by a hyp-
corporate its messages into our work at OATS. notically knowledgeable movie nerd), live
One successful initiative involved giving shows where musicians played actual instru-
iPads to older adult volunteers in Washington, ments, and social relationships where physical
D.C., and training them to deliver social engage- proximity was the rule. So when we try to find
ment courses to isolated, low-income older a movie on Netflix and realize the lineup is in-
adults (who also received free iPads from AARP ferior to every Kim’s Video we ever visited, or
and reduced-cost Internet at home from Com- think it’s sad that our Millennial friends don’t
cast). This new, “realigned” approach placed an own bookshelves, or can’t figure out why the DJ
increased emphasis on social processes and out- Zedd is a star because all he does is mix signals
comes, while relegating technology to a more on a console, we’re questioning the comparative
tactical level. The program even took an entire advantage of the Digital Age.
Volume 41 . Number 3 | 51GE NER ATIONS – Journal of the American Society on Aging
I run a technology nonprofit and have been computers facing a whiteboard, to a state of
to the Consumer Electronics Show so many affairs today where a multitude of devices and
times that they gave me a special ribbon for my interfaces are being deployed in more contextual
conference badge, but I am continually annoyed formats. At OATS, the Senior Planet Center
by badly designed technology tools and inter- represented the first chance to make that
faces that interfere with my life and work. I change, and we added telepresence robots,
notice my younger friends just shrug these gaming consoles, iPads, e-readers, and video-
things off, but my generation carries a vestigial conferencing to the site’s capabilities. More
memory of an age when things were different recently, we have been experimenting with
and we could simply “pop the hood” and mess digital media “pods” in rural areas of upstate
with something until we got it working. New York, installing a large wall unit at a senior
This questioning process accelerated at the center; the unit includes all of these devices but
same time that many of us Gen Xers reached an adds health input devices, a charging station for
age where we were increasingly drawn into po- a mobile classroom, a drone, Sonos, Amazon
sitions of authority within our companies and Echo, and a Mac laptop. The idea is for the
organizations. We found ourselves in charge of community access environment to integrate a
mission stewardship at the same time that we wide range of devices and platforms so users can
saw technology as an increasingly poor substi- experiment, explore, and see how something fits
tute for a clear theory of change, a talented and their own needs and objectives.
motivated staff, and an effective operational
model. For many activists who saw technology
‘Cultural identity gets wrapped up in
as a piece of the puzzle, the Recovery Act of
2009, which dedicated $7 billion to technology our relationship with the emerging
solutions related to broadband and community digital tools of information-processing.’
facilities, was a watershed.
At OATS, we were able to secure a $3 million As Gen Xers are employing more caution
allocation to create Senior Planet, the country’s and skepticism about new technologies, these
first technology-themed community center, and multi-use technology environments enable a
launch a content website that has reached more more robust exploration of the ways in which
than a million visitors and is helping to change digital tools can advance particular outcomes,
the dialogue about aging in America. The result? such as in groups of older adults using on-loan
We have 15,000 visitors per year coming in to Fitbits to track their exercise activities.
reinvent what it means to be aging in America. Broadband data guru and Pew Research
There are people starting businesses, writing Center senior researcher John Horrigan, a Gen
plays, managing immigration applications, Xer, has urged policy makers to begin making a
planning trips, making art, getting healthy, and shift in emphasis from broadband adoption to
sharing their passion for life—and the average broadband utilization, making the case that we
age is 74. All of this activity reflects a healthy should be just as concerned with what people
new focus on creating high-functioning institu- are doing once they go online as we are about
tions and systems that can shape our lives in inequities in the overall patterns of technology
profound ways, at scale and over time. adoption. This approach underscores the impact
The new emphasis on outcomes has accom- pivot, the renewed focus on outcomes and mea-
panied a shift in thinking about technology itself. surable results, that has taken place for Gen X,
We have evolved from the days of community and for the agencies and organizations they
technology centers, which were typically rows of lead that have a stake in public interest technol-
52 | Fall 2017Generation X: From Fiction to Fact, and Still a Mystery
ogy. A transformation has taken place, from a Enron was one of our clients, so I observed the
way of thinking that assumes technology is an crash happening in real time.
irreducible good, to one that incorporates tech- As our generation matured into positions of
nology as an often flawed tool for harnessing leadership in commerce and the public and
strategic interventions implemented by high- nonprofit sectors, our “dual citizenship” ap-
capacity organizations. proach to technology has framed a larger pat-
tern of thinking about organizations and impact.
Technology: A Generational, At OATS and other social-impact technology
Often Ambivalent, Love Affair organizations run by Gen Xers, this experience
What makes Gen X different from a technology of “being burned” by technology fostered a
standpoint? To begin with, we’re young enough renewed appreciation for the importance of
to appreciate the power of technology and we mission, customer-centric design, metrics,
have an intuitive understanding of how it can and institution-building.
potentially improve the world, but also we have Finally, what does this mean for older adults,
seen its limitations and destructive potential. many of whom are still digitally disengaged? To
Pew Research Center statistics show double- begin with, it may mean they have to deal with
digit gaps in technology adoption between Baby two younger generations with different ideas
Boomers and Gen Xers, while adoption rates by about technology. Millennials will likely be
Millennials are nearly universal from the pre- baffled by elders’ reluctance to adopt new tech-
teen years. nologies, and will see a technology gap as an
Gen Xers stand somewhere in the middle— opportunity to get people learning and using
adept users of information and communications digital tools. In this way, they share similarities
technology, characterized by a persistent with the early champions of community technol-
awareness of the contradictions of the Digital ogy—focused on digital literacy and access as
Age. For the most part, we use technology like irreducible goals.
our younger counterparts in the Millennial gen- Gen Xers, on the other hand, are likely to
eration. We communicate using email, text, and think about aging as a distinct set of challenges
Facebook. We share photos on Instagram. We and opportunities, and be looking for ways that
use Yelp to figure out where to take the dates technology can support strategies for successful
we met on Tinder. We manage information outcomes. Low-tech solutions that solve impor-
across multiple platforms—searching, scanning, tant problems (such as the iPod lending model
sharing, and storing. But to the extent that there championed by the nonprofit Music & Memory)
is a tension between technology skill and subject are more exciting than a technology-intensive
matter expertise, we are on the side of the latter. “solution” that may reinforce ageist stereotypes
The tech bubble of the 1990s was a searing or be simply irrelevant to older adults.
and formative experience for many Gen Xers; Technology, for people whose life spans
we bought fully into the idea that a new physics straddle the invention of the computer, is a
was at hand, that technology and networks and generational affair where cultural identity gets
instant universal access to all information had wrapped up in our relationship with the emerg-
changed the playing field. For a few years, it ing digital tools of information-processing. For
seemed like it was more important to know Gen Xers, that has meant a subordination of the
where to search for expertise than it was to ac- technology agenda to one that privileges themes
tually possess it. Then things fell apart, badly, like human-centered design and mission-related
in the dot-com crash of 2000. I was working in outcomes. In the coming years, this may form
a New York advertising agency at the time and the basis for a new model of aging to be collab-
Volume 41 . Number 3 | 53GE NER ATIONS – Journal of the American Society on Aging
oratively developed between Gen Xers and Baby entities, in effect expanding the total pool of fund-
Boomers, as we innovate ways to integrate tech- ing available for older adults.
nology into homes and community centers and As these collaborations mature, and partner
senior living residences, combining an apprecia- organizations increase their capacity to work
tion of the power of technology with an aware- together and achieve outcomes, momentum
ness of its limitations. may start building toward a new paradigm of
Policy makers seeking new, cost-effective older adult programs and environments, one
ways to improve models of aging might well look that benefits from the “always on” social and
to these technology collaborations for promising economic patterns of the modern age, but also
ideas. Recent initiatives have found new applica- retains a clear commitment to the values of
tions for technology in improving health, inter- choice and dignity that make this work so
generational learning, cultural development, vitally important.
social engagement, rural services, and entrepre-
neurship by older adults. Funding limitations Tom Kamber, Ph.D., is founder and executive director
should add a note of caution, as new dollars for of OATS (Older Adults Technology Services) and has
social programs are now extremely scarce, but taught courses on social philanthropy and entrepre-
technology partnerships have also demonstrated neurship at Columbia University, in New York.
an impressive track record of attracting resources
from non-traditional corporate and philanthropic References
Lessig, L. 2002. The Future of Ideas:
The Fate of the Commons in a Con-
nected World. New York: Vintage. ican Community. New York: Blend: Managing Across the
Touchstone. Technology Age Gap. Hoboken,
Putnam, R. 2001. Bowling Alone:
NJ: Wiley.
The Collapse and Revival of Amer- Salkowitz, R. 2008. Generation
54 | Fall 2017You can also read
