You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Unfortunately, everyone is living longer now, which means we have many years of new things being completely foreign to us.
Honestly, I’m in my 30s and I’m just about done learning anything new. If my fridge becomes a smart device, there’s a good chance it will kill me.
Boomers get a bad rap. However, they occasionally prove they shouldn’t be around new things because they’re going to embarrass themselves. Luckily, people on Reddit and Twitter are out there sharing moments they caught when their parents and grandparents didn’t quite understand something new.
The Funniest Tech Fails
1. The iPad Photocopier A user shared a picture of a photocopier with an iPad sitting face down on the glass. Their mom was trying to photocopy a document from her tablet. When the user explained that the iPad was a screen and not a piece of paper, she genuinely responded, “Well, how am I supposed to print the email, then?”
2. When is that from? A user’s grandma asked them to take a photo together. When the user flipped the camera to front-facing, the grandma looked at the screen and said, “That’s nice. When is that from?” The user had to explain that it wasn’t a photo from the past, but a live feed of their faces, in real time.
3. The Mask Mix-up One Reddit user explained that their grandma had been wearing the same KN95 mask for months, not for the pandemic, but because she “loves gardening.” She told everyone she wore it to prevent herself from breathing in dirt. It wasn’t until someone at the grocery store explained what it was that she realized her mistake. She now has a whole box of them.
4. Wrong Emoji A person posted a text message from their dad asking about dinner plans. The dad ended the message with a seemingly random emoji of a single, red dress. When asked why he used that emoji, he said, “It was the only one that was smiling.” The user had to explain that he had used the wrong emoji.
5. Cher’s Night Mode A tweet from Cher’s account went viral because she sent a frustrated message to her fans saying, “My phone went dark again! Who knows why and what do I do!?” It was the most-liked tweet from her account that all stemmed from her accidentally turning on night mode on her phone and not knowing how to turn it off.
We might laugh at these situations now, but we’ll all get there one day. These moments are a reminder that the world is moving faster than any of us can keep up, and sometimes the best thing to do is embrace the chaos and have a good laugh.