Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig
Two downsides to digital reading as we age are that you have to remain technically astute enough to be able to get books onto the device, and be able to navigate the user interface. Both of these tasks I have seen the elderly struggle with. Those of us using Kindles, Nooks, and Kobos now will probably have their use ingrained into our brains so that knowledge will still be there as we age. But by the time we get to that point, it probably won't be Kindles, Nooks and Kobos that we will be reading on anymore. It will be something new, that we are not so technically familiar with. And therein lies the problem - having to learn something new at an advanced age.
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People can learn new things at any age, if they're interested (unless they have dementia, of course). Old age by itself is no impediment. My dad learned to use tablets and smartphones in his seventies, entirely by himself, because he was interested. And he was not hugely intelligent, just normal. My mom, on the other hand, never learned to use any smart gadgets, because she was not interested. She was not less intelligent than my dad, she just didn't want to learn.
So I guess any of us who want to learn to use new technology will probably be perfectly able to do so. I know people not yet fifty who can barely use a computer, and the reason for that is usually their lack of interest in such things. And there are people in their eighties who are computer literate. The main impediment to learning is not age.