Technology

WATCH: Elders React to Selfies

By Senior Planet Tuesday, April 29, 2014 2 Comments Share This:

A few weeks ago, we showed you a hilarious video of kids reacting to a rotary phone. This week, we’re turning the tables: In a video from the same team that makes the Kids React series, a bunch of seniors say what they think of the selfie phenomenon.

If you’ve managed to get this far without knowing what a selfie is (some of these elders are a little in the dark), click here. Otherwise, just hit Play and enjoy knowing that when it comes to digital culture, at least, you’re way cooler than many of your peers.

Then click through to our Senior Selfies Pinterest board – to add your own selfie to our board, email it to editor@seniorplanet.org).

COMMENTS

2 responses to “WATCH: Elders React to Selfies”

Lisa B.:

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 at 11:01am

This is awesome! The older gentleman with the taped face = amazing. Such a cute idea! Thanks for sharing! :)

Reply to Lisa B.
Ed Franco:

Tuesday, April 29, 2014 at 9:35pm

My intuitive sense is that this video is well intended, and I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. Nonetheless, I just can’t “say nothing” when I see what seems, at least on some level, to perpetuate stereotype. Why should the persons in this video know anything about an inane music video? As one of the ladies commented, “This is pointless.”

All the older adults in the video seem to be having a good time. So perhaps this is just another lighthearted web video, and that should be the end of it. The preamble to the video reads: “A few weeks ago, we showed you a hilarious video of kids reacting to a rotary phone. This week, we’re turning the tables.” But that’s not a completely fair analogy.

Certainly laughter would be an appropriate response to the other referenced video (“Kids React to Old Technology”). No one would expect a child to know what a rotary phone is, and their fumbling with it is sweet, touching and droll. But an older adult that hasn’t been exposed to current technologies or zeitgeist terms, whether by happenstance or design, is another matter entirely. Sadly, in a world that seems ever increasingly judgmental, it sets the older adult up to appear “less than.”

The adults in the video react with charm, wit, insight, intelligence and grace. And it’s perfectly okay to shoot footage where you ask an elder the definition of a selfie. But when that elder responds “another word for person” and it makes the final cut, it leaves one questioning the intention of the director. Is it to get a laugh? And are we supposed to be laughing with – or at – that person? As someone who’s spent the bulk of his adult life rallying on behalf of elders, both personally and professionally, the net result for me is that I’m left wondering.

There could be every good reason why the persons featured in this video don’t know certain things. Age may very well be the least significant factor. There are many tech savvy elders, just not this particular group. A more fitting social commentary might have been to have asked the adults in this video questions about American history, and then shoot footage asking the stars of the music video the very same questions.

Respectfully submitted,
Ed Franco
http://www.edwardfranco.com

Reply to Ed Franco