Boomers Not Feeling Tech Anxiety

The times they have indeed a’changed for baby boomers, especially where technology is concerned. One of the most resonant scenes in the mid-life crisis comedy City Slickers involved a discussion amongst the three cattle-driving buddies that appears to be about sexual dysfunction, but turns out to be about the embarrassment at not being able to program a VCR.

That was then; this is now. Boomers are adopting technology faster and more fully integrating it into their lives, according to a new survey by PBT Consulting survey:

∙46 percent download music from sites such as iTunes

∙45 percent of boomers have downloaded more than 10 apps in the last year

∙35 percent download movies from Netflix or other providers

∙33 percent scan QR codes on their smartphones

That boomers would not hew to what Bob Dylan called “the old road” is not surprising. Boomers have more discretionary income to purchase the latest gadgets and equipment. They’ve seen extraordinary technological advances their entire lives, and are thus far more tech-savvy and less tech-anxious than perceived.

Steve Jobs, a boomer (born in 1955), created iconic, zeitgeist-defining products with cross-generational appeal. Younger people are traditionally the earliest adopters of new technology, but boomers, according to the survey, have been the principal buyers of Apple products. Eighty-four percent of Millionaires ages 55-64, for example, own an incarnation of the iPad. This is also the computer tablet of choice for 79 percent of seniors ages 65 and up.

Boomers have not been as quick to embrace social media, but usage has dramatically increased. According to an August Pew Research study, just over half (51 percent) of boomers ages 50-64 use social media networking sites, compared with 83 percent of those ages 18-29 and 70 percent of those ages 30-49. But while the frequency of social networking site usage among young adult Internet users under 30 remained stable over the past year, boomer site usage on a typical day grew from 20 percent to 32 percent.

In Millionaire households surveyed by Millionaire Corner, more than half of boomers ages 55-64 said they used Facebook, while 24 percent used the online professional network LinkedIn. Less than 5 percent said they used Twitter.