I am mid-40s. My daughter is 11. I take her to school, among other driving things, and usually play NPR. Whenever she needs to refer to what she’s hearing – usually to ask if I’ll turn it off so she can pull up some godawful thing where a random Youtuber squawks discordant lyrics to a Pokémon video game score – she calls it a podcast. I’ve stopped correcting her, particularly since most of the “shows” release as podcasts by the next day anyway.
Here are some other fun ones.
Ask her what she thinks the save icon in Microsoft Word and other programs is. Betcha she doesn’t know what a floppy disk is.
Ask her why her phone camera app icon is that circle with spiral lines and makes that “kscht” sound when taking a photo. Betcha she doesn’t know what a film camera with a mechanical aperture is.
Find a video of an AI generated person talking and note the age at which people younger can immediately clock that it’s AI generated and people older can’t. Right now, my social circle is at about 40 and younger see it, 40 and older don’t. 40-50 seem to be unsure and feel some uncanny valley-ness, while 50+ don’t even suspect anything.
Then ask her to explain some current meme. Skibidi toilet? C’mon, do you honestly even want to know what that means? We’re too old for that crap.
I asked my kids if they knew what this image was (a bar near us used it on their outside decor) and nope, not even the one who is 30 now)
🚽 😠 vs. 📺 👍. The epic of our times. It might not be what we wanted, but it’s what we deserve. 3/10, complete brain rot, I heavily recommend it.