Baby Boomers and “Nuts and Bolts”

We Baby Boomers were born in the best of times. The ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s may not have been as varied as today but we knew how to have fun and grow that independent attitude.

The phrase “No. 8 fencing wire mentality” often springs to mind when I think of our generation, because we could make do with anything and fix most items without having to read instructions or dive into Google. This attitude sprang from our desire to understand how things worked. Be it diving under the bonnet of our old car to tune it, or operating an old Singer sewing machine to run up garments for a dance – we had the courage to try things without a thought for the consequences. For many of us our first home gave ample opportunity to learn skills like wallpapering, painting, building fences or gates, laying down drives and paths, even building and installing furniture or fittings.

Of course it didn’t always work out right, but at least we gave it a go.

I call it our “Nuts and Bolts” attitude, as we found out through experimentation how things worked. Our over-arching premise was, “what’s the worst that can happen?”

Enter the ‘90s and the advent of technology available to the masses. Remember your first computer? Even back then we were in awe of what it did. But technology proved to be complex and instead of us all sharing in the knowledge, as we had in the past, only bits of knowledge were held by individuals. This means we rarely get a straight and complete answer from one person on solving a technical problem.

The transition for us into this modern age has been fraught with frustrations. I believe it is because we are carrying this ‘Nuts and Bolts’ attitude when, with the sophistication of things technical, it’s no longer possible to understand fully how things work. And that means many of us lose confidence when it comes to experimenting the way we used to.

The question I have is: does it matter if we don’t fully understand how something works? Or is our desire to understand actually getting in the way of us using the tools available?

If you watch your grandchildren play with an iPad or smartphone, you’ll see them just dive in and start it working for them. They don’t try to understand the operating system, memory size, or speed of the processor. Instead they have FAITH it will work as it’s meant to. And guess what? It usually does.

The challenge for our generation is to revert to the attitude we had years ago each time we face a problem on our computer, tablet or smartphone. We need to say, “what’s the worst that can happen?” and then jump on in there and experiment.

If things really freeze up on us, the solution is usually ‘Alt-Ctrl-Del’ or a reboot, and we can try again. And it’s worth remembering the ‘go back’ button – that is a godsend we never had available with our ‘70s projects.

Embrace it.

Alex Sharp, Age Hacker