What's your boomer trait?

I miss physical buttons.

I buy music instead of paying for a streaming service like Spotify

My boomer trait is that I frequently type in my password where the username is supposed to go.

Every time you do this change your password immediately. This is shockingly easy to find in logs and match up to the users. You'd be surprised how often application logs are damn near wide open in a log repo to entire IT departments. Just trying to look out for you OP.

I hate how tech is in everything now. Everything is IOT. Everything can expire because of software abandonment.

You know how you have those 70 year old fridges that still work? I'm sure that new Samsung IOT one will have planned obsolescence after 20 years tops.

You know how we have classic cars? Thing of the past. Locked firmware and phone home capabilities will brick new cars for similar reasons when they become old.

My car’s radio busted last year. Instead of replacing it with a modern touchscreen, or paying $3000 for a manufacturer replacement, I’ve simply gone without it. Thing is, the radio includes the back-up camera screen. It also contains the controls to the car’s clock. So half the year the time is off by an hour, and I’ve gotten used to backing up my car “the old fashioned way.”
Thankfully, none of these are issues I can’t tolerate. But it does make me wonder what would’ve happened if I’d had a newer car. If so many functions can rely on a radio, how many more functions might somebody get screwed out of if this same issue were to happen in a newer vehicle?
I'm sure that new Samsung IOT one will have planned obsolescence after 20 years tops.
Heh, you’re off by an order of 10.
20 years sounds incredibly optimistic for any Samsung appliance.

Your nose ring makes you look like a bull.

Your comment makes you sound like a donkey.
- Good. That's the whole point of the thread

I hate that every facet of human existence is being monetized.

My joints sound like stepping on a box of Ritz crackers. Does that count?

I eat at like 5:30 to get dinner done and beat the crowds if I'm eating out.

I don't use tiktok, instagram, and I deleted facebook, it's all targeted advertising slop. My "friends" on facebook didn't interact with me, they interacted with my posts. I made a post stating I was going to delete facebook on X date, and if anyone wanted my contact information they should reach out before then. 1 person reached out to keep in touch. I refuse to download apps on my phone. I already have an internet browser on the phone; one app to rule them all. Why do I need a fucking app for what I can do on your webpage? I switched to linux because both apple and windows are in a race to see who can be the shittiest walled garden that invades your privacy and steals your data, so yeah, I'm still very much, don't trust strangers on the internet, including corporations. No I will not give you my information to get a discount or bullshit rewards points. I'll pay full price, my data is worth way more than your paltry discounts.

I'm with you.

Menus at restaurants are to be printed not via a QR code and a shitty website.

To be fair, telling people to scan QR codes with their phones is a huge phishing vector. I've seen a few places with new stickers over the first one, which is very easy to do. Is it an updated menu? Or a scam page for a session stealer?
- ☝️ this is it.
Related - I hate having that goddamned tablet at the table.
- I’ll accept a tablet. But the first time it malfunctions, Miss Minimum Wage is standing at the table writing my order down on paper.
a shitty website
Or worse a PDF of the menu.
- That is 500Mb+ because the 'designer' just stuffed the highest quality image in they could as a background on the whole thing
A date night is better when both leave their phones at home. Or at least away for the date.
This sucks.
I've seen restaurant where you need to order on a smartphone. That's just ridiculous
- That's just less tip for the server if I have to do their job for them.
I feel like this is probably common sense. The council of people over 20 have decided this months ago, and it should become law any minute now.
I don't mind the qr code thing if there are also paper menus available, but yeah.
I know a bar that does this but you can place orders for the table (your friends too and you can see their orders), call the waiter and pay the bill. I was impressed it was functional.

I hate cloud based services. I don't want to be reliant on and send my data to someone else's computer. Give me local control and local data storage or get off my grass!

I've actually begun DIYing a syncthing based mesh of my devices plus a NAS I'll make from an old ThinkPad because honestly, fuck those cloud services.
I used to love the cloud, I saw it as really convenient, but now I just see it as a pretty ok way to back up all my old school work, plus OneDrive screaming at me to sign in, then automatically signing me in without asking...
Sure the DIY NAS I'm making is just an old ThinkPad 11e school laptop's board and battery, and some USB to m.2 dongles, but it'll be pretty damn good for a net cost of probably 100 bucks total

I don’t want to have to create an account for everything. Even when account creation was required in the past, it would be enough to have a username and password (sometimes email address). Now often times there are so many unnecessary mandatory fields.
I like my devices and appliances to have one dedicated function and to do it well, without extra features, preferably available offline. Music is listened to on the mp3. The TV is only the display and never the content source.
I still prefer in-person interactions, jobs, lessons, and shopping to online ones (but support having online options for those who prefer them).

I really don't want to deal with two factor logins and email verification for an account that doesn't have financial transactions.

In person interaction is infinitely superior to anything done online. "Meeting" people online just doesn't hit the same, even with video calls.

True but also I don't need to be everyone's best friend.
I work from home, I ain't interested in being "hit" the same so just let me keep doing my own thing.
Online interactions register a tiny bit above screaming at the TV in socialisation scale.

Like a few people.commented in this post, I don't use social media

I prefer calling people to texting them.

But I also don't like being called.

I guess those are my two wolves.

You’re a living personification of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Doesn't that just mean you schedule calls over text? That step is not very boomer of you
- Nah, I'll call without warning "just to chat"... or because I get frustrated trying to make plans over text.
  But I get anxious and/or annoyed when my own phone rings without warning, and might not even pick up haha.
these aren't mutually exclusive. you prefer communicating verbally, but don't like being intruded upon. that's fair.
now if you go and call people without warning... yeah there's some irony lol
- Yeah, I'm fully hypocritical in this regard. I'll call people randomly "just to chat" with no notice haha.

I avoid smart home type shit

Okay we need to talk about this because in my opinion this hasnt become a boomer opinion that, as proven over and over again, is just a better and smarter decision. Most of things that are "smart" dont need to be. Why does a fridge, toaster, TV, matress or oven need to be connected to the internet??! For what?!
- There are different types of "smart" though.
  Appliances with required accounts and connections, yeah it's all a corporate enshittification surveillance garbage.
  But a smart light bulb that connects over Zigbee to a locally hosted setup so that I can easily dim the lights or set them on a timer or whatever I feel like doing? It's a convenience that nobody needs, but at least it isn't as severely compromised as the "ecosystem" wannabes.
- Most of things that are "smart" dont need to be. Why does a fridge, toaster, TV, matress or oven need to be connected to the internet??! For what?!
  I've recently seen an add stating that, big brand washing machine have WiFi, we have quality and low pricesbut indeed, it's getting crazy, and what happens when you change ISP?

Which one, lol.

I despise videos in place of text/pic how-to.

I’m starting to run out of fucks to give when it comes to dealing with tech. Doesn’t matter what it is. Overcomplicated car infotainment. Burying features in deep OS menus. Shitty website design that hides info. Phone trees. “AI assistants” in pretty much everything. Etc.

I think most modern popular music absolutely sucks. No art, no ability to sing, all formulaic, a lyrical desert, and autotuned to shit.

It’s gotta be a mental illness, this constant need for public commentary via uploading everything you do to be viewed by others. Particularly things like “this is me crying because I got yelled at” kind of stuff. Vapid. Shallow. Go touch some grass and don’t fucking record it.

Yeah. I’m missing the more disconnected life we used to have.

(No, I’m not going to say it was all better back in the day. It wasn’t. Just our problems weren’t compounded by things like social media)

I think you should treat others with respect

except like always treat them how you'd like to be treated, not just when it's convenient for you. which seems to be the boomer way. example: boomers loooove bright ass LED headlights when they're driving behind them, but complain when they're blinded by the exact same car facing them.

so the solution is don't use those fucking headlights, right? but all these motherfuckers out here are just buying that shit up and don't see a problem with it. I nearly hit somebody last week because they were crossing 100 m before the intersection in a spot that pedestrians typically do not cross and I couldn't see shit because of the oncoming car right behind them.

I refuse to use overly smart devices. Yes, I have a few zigbee light switches and thermostats that are controlled by a local HomeAssistant installation but why would I want to by my fridge, dishwasher and toothbrush to be connected to the internet?

I prefer buying stuff in stores rather than online. I need to see it physically before you scam me.

Edit: my back hurts

I don't like "smart" features, I hate being forced to create accounts for everything, I want my data to only be local, I loathe smileys, I'd much rather talk to you face to face, I don't know wtf is an app and why yours is just a wrapper to your webpage, pure html pages with terrible colour choices are fucking class, I say "hacker" to mean "hacker" and not "cracker", I still don't understand the success of tablets, and you look like a dick with your mini doomscroll machine on your wrist.

EDIT: fixing rage induced typos

Agree with everything here, plus I miss cars coming in a wide variety of colors instead of just inoffensive earthy and silver tones.
- I miss cars that don't have iPads attached to the console.
  It it too much to ask for someone to make an electric vehicle that's only as "smart" as it needs to be?
  I understand the need for a computer to control the motor/charging/etc. What I don't understand is why my car needs to phone home or install random software updates.
  Until someone makes one of those, I'm afraid that when I have to drive it'll be an older car (as terrible as that is for the environment 🙃) because I don't want something I need to be potentially broken by a bad software update or an aws outage.

The kids' new slang is fucking stupid. My son last night was excited about his skills in the game he was playing and told me he was " cracked " ... cracked?

Man, like, I know we used " bad " to mean good, but come on. Cracked? Cracked is a crazy person. Cracked is how we pirated computer games. Cracked is your engine block after you poured cold water in an overheated car.

This is even stupider than " crashing out " meaning you threw a temper tantrum instead of falling asleep after an up all night acid trip.

I fucking hate it.

Bro you're cooked.
- So is crack
Back in my day when we were leet and pwned noobs, it was gg.
Eh, slang was always dumb and obscure. That's the point, isn't it?
- Yes, but really no. IDK. I'm not claiming to be right, just giving my opinions.
  Edit: I was his age in the 80s.
Actually I just remembered that, even some 20 years ago (possibly more) in France, we used to describe OP characters in videogames as "craqués", which could mean "broken" or "cracked", so I was not weirded out by this one, as the meaning is similar enough.
I wonder how "cracked" came to be and whether this is one of the only contemporary instance where some French slang may have influenced the English one somehow? Probably just a coincidence.
- Yeah it's been around for a while. I think op just isn't a gamer.
Lemme axe you why you rizzed bruh or you cooked i cant even thirsty
- It was giving smoothbrain so I yote him out the room. Frgr ong. I think I gave myself a headache.

I own a house

Me too! Well, technically, the bank does own vastly more of my house than I do...

I think 99% of tattoos look like shit.

Not all people with tattoos are trashy, but all trashy people have tattoos.
We found the Facebook page of a local tattoo shop a few years back.
Jesus Christ, that person should not have been allowed near a biro, let alone a tattoo gun. Every single one looked like it had been done on himself, with his left hand, in prison.
- Was his left hand already in prison for ugly drawing? SCNR

...i expect institutions to protect me...i call my representative and senators and get platitudes...i keep calling...

I don’t know why I bother doing this, it just gets me signed up to their idiotic mailing list. Hooray democracy

I get annoyed when the price tags are too small to read

I often reference my younger years in the late 1900s about how It was this or that. "Back in my day in the late 1900s" kinda thing

I like "turn of the century".
Last century...
Last millennium....

I've never used Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. I'm trying to get away from Facebook currently. I've successfully dumped Twitter, which I hardly used anyway. I only use YouTube because I can still block all ads, but if they ever force ads into my videos, I'll drop it in an instant.

I've never cared for social media except as a way to stay in touch with friends and family, and maybe a way to meet new friends. But modern social media is just garbage content pumped into your feed constantly for clicks and reacts.

The only reason I haven't let go of Facebook is because almost everyone I know is still there. If I dump it, I lose contact with 90% of my social group. I don't really use Facebook anymore though, except to contact people.

EDIT: On a related note, I don't believe children should have electronic devices. Maybe around 10 years old, they should be allowed to carry a locked down phone or something, so their parents can reach them, but they can't browse the Internet or send photos to people, etc.

It was around 2010 or so when I first saw a friend hand their iPad to their 1-yr old to keep them distracted. That was a $600 device! Which was a lot of money for a personal electronic device back then.

As an IT professional who had to fix electronic devices all the time, I mentioned to my friend that a child probably shouldn't have unsupervised access to an iPad, and they told me that's why it has a thick padded case; a lesson they learned when their first iPad got cracked by the child. So the baby broke a $600 iPad and they bought another and handed it back to the kid?! Sheesh...

I think that's less a boomer opinion and more of a tinfoil hat lemmy user opinion.
(And I don't mean that as an insult - these days I wear my tinfoil hat proudly. These are dark times!)

Cooking only from scratch no factory products. Meat also only from the butcher and not supermarket. I know where the butcher gets his meat from. And wanting to learn how to do lots of things myself to be self reliant, less wastefull, enviorment friendly and its mostly cheaper. Dont need no smart toaster!

I've gone away from plastics and only use natural materials, perferable renewable. If something is damaged i can just repair it. Creating less waste, saving money, and the objects have a personal touch and story to it over time.

Leather instead of artificial leather And yes i am building my PC case out of wood and glass if i need a new one

Being annoyed by my friends who can't put their phones down when I'm trying to talk to them because they are doomscrolling on TikTok. Oh and disliking the brainrot that is on TikTok and Instagram. Just hating TikTok.

If you are in a restaurant with your small children, actually be a parent to them and still giving them a tablet that they will watch at full fucking volume so they won't bother you.

I buy music. Drm free. I don't want to rent it from Spotify. It's Bandcamp Friday today btw, where the people making the music get a bigger cut.

I value mechanical stuff and in person interactions

I'm grumpy as fuck

I can't keep up with all the social justice stuff so I just quit caring about most of it.

I think Nick Mullen vocalized it best when people started throwing them Ukranian flag in their usernames and he was miffed that he had to remember another type of "gay" again.

Liberals are out here doing victory laps about pronouns in bios while their actual rights are getting systematically stripped away.

The word you are looking for is virtue signaling. There is a limited amount of good you can do.
The vast vast majority of those people aren't doing shit. It's like when they wanted us to bang pots n pans outside for nurses. It meant nothing.
Yep. I can't figure out if I think this way cos I'm 48, jaded and somehow not as progressive as I used to be, or if being up to speed with the latest sub-genres of an apparently vast sexual and gender spectrum is really just a waste of time. I don't feel any further right wing, and I hope I'll always subscribe to a 'live and let live' mindset, but who knows.