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Comment by lnsru | Hacker News Reader

I am shocked how some older people behave in their inboxes... One lady clicks on every single link in every e-mail she gets. Her man tries to open every attachment. I was even more shocked when I saw, that their free mail provider Gmx doesn’t really have spam filter. I use gmail in Germany and see spam every few months. Gmx’s inbox had many suspicious e-mails when Amazon purchase notifications landed in spam folder. Both computers Windows 7 with no antivirus. After years educating them I achieved, that she does not open suspicions e-mails and the guy open attachments only from his friends. Some of these friends strongly believe, that everything on Internet is true. It was a weird moment understanding, that some random website is trusted by older people on same level as quality journalism like Sueddeutsche Zeitung. This aging population is nice target for individuals with not the best intentions.

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Everything you have written applies equally to young folks too.

I was shocked when I discovered how our kid's friends are with tech - youngest is 20 now, and has been messing with computers since 4. Shocked because unlike my parents generation they've all grown up with, and been educated around tech their whole lives. All I have to do to get a significant number of them to believe $conspiracy, or 2+2=7.234 is put it on a convincing looking website. They'll mostly install any and every app that passes under their nose. In the days of FB among the kids, and FB games and surveys, they'd go with every single one of those too... and share, and ping their whole contact list... Before that every drive by popup/malware install...

At least my parents generation had their expectations fixed in the 1930s and 1940s. Receiving something in writing meant something. Honesty and ethics were mostly to be expected. The scams were far more about in-person confidence tricks, or the dodgy tradesman charging for work that's not needed etc. I don't blame some for not adjusting their model to everyone's a spamming scammer. :)

I do blame the youngster's generation. How the hell do they not get it and so glaringly badly?

> I do blame the youngster's generation.

When you're young the older generations complain about you. When you're old you complain about the younger.

https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complain...

Just as I would blame me and my generation for not having awareness of climate change, or not changing lifestyle and politics because of it. Or illiteracy. Or inability to wire a plug. I would blame a 55 / 60 year old for those.

Everyone my age got taught and surrounded by English. Everyone my age did not grow up with tech. Some my age are deeply naive about tech thanks, in part, to having surprisingly little exposure until recently as it became unavoidable.

It's not generational whining - that's a very different animal, it's the simple ubiquity.

I cleaned up my mums computer a while ago, removing all the crapware / spyware / malware. She was annoyed that I removed the bullshit emojis add-on that she had installed to her web browser, which fitted into all three of those categories.

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