Some in that era could not type, at all.
replyAnd I've read somewhere that quite a fraction of young people nowadays can't type (effectively) on a physical keyboard - no wonder, their main interaction with computing being via phones and tablets. Could be that typing won't be useful/practiced anymore (like already cursive writing in some parts of the world).
replyThere is a generation of people that are unique insofar as having grown up with handwriting on pen and paper (with cursive!) in school while also having typing/computing classes and access to the internet at a young age. Of course, people could type before computers, though it was a specialist skill more often than not, and kids certainly have every opportunity to pick up both handwriting and touch typing today, but the balance of it all isn't quite the same is it?
replyYes, and because typists and secretaries were predominately women, it was not as uncommon as one might imagine for male executives to eschew personal computers based on their perception of gender roles.
replyI like to call it “keyboard cooties.”
There's a great anecdote about that in the book _Dealers of Lightning_, where the Xerox execs were indifferent to a demo of the Star personal computer but their wives were ecstatic about it.
replyThese things have a self-reinforcing feedback loop -- consider also for example, men learning to use "power tools" but not a sewing machine.
replyIsn't this still what Donald Trump does?
replyYes, he doesn't really know how to use a computer. He was born in the 1940s, computer skills are not super common for people from that generation. He was already in his mid-50s when computers started to become common in the workplace.
replyI’m in my mid forties. If VR/ar devices like the Apple Vision Pro were to go mainstream, I can’t imagine myself learning how to use it effectively as a daily driver device to get work done. Heck, even the Internet, I’m pretty sure my relationship with it is more of wary scepticism than most people in their thirties.
replyI can see why someone who never used email until their fifties would never get fully comfortable with it.