Baby boomer compatibility is a slang term for the pressure on technology companies to produce devices that the baby boomer generation can understand and use. Baby boomers are one of the most easily identified demographics in the U.S. and, more importantly, are currently holding a large amount of wealth. For this reason, many tech firms feel the need to sell to such a large market, but run into issues of baby boomer compatibility because this particular generation is less technologically literate compared to the generations that followed.
Baby boomers tend to get a bad rap for being unable to adjust to changing technology. To be fair, most baby boomers were coming of age during the 1960s, and much of what we consider technology – personal computers, the Internet, cellphones, etc. – wasn’t commercially available until the '80s and '90s. By that time, the boomers were approaching midlife and were less likely to be into cutting edge technology. Because of the rich market boomers represent, tech producers do attempt to make baby boomer compatible products. Sometimes these solutions are elegant, as in touch interfaces, larger display fonts and so on. Just as often, however, the end result is a ham-fisted dumbing down of a product that reduces functionality more that it increases compatibility.
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