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I see this on a regular basis on our local NextDoor forum. People will be asking questions and within seconds I can find the answer on Google. I don't know if they never learned how one looks for answers (I spent many hours at the public library growing up).... or if it is the device they are using? Another thought, is this because they want someone else to do the work?

Has anyone else noticed this? And also the lack of common sense. Makes me worry about my own future as senior living is not that long off.

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This is very true. I worked for a local Visiting Nurse Assoc. I wasca secretary and my job was to keep the information table supplied. I had info on all care agencies in the county. A list of resourses United way had. Our office of Aging sent me pamphlets. We had a foid closet but I provided a list of other ones too. If someone called for info I did not have, it was my job to find out.

The resourses are out there. Social Services and Office office of Aging should be the first places you go to. We have a woman, retired Social Worker, who is trying to do this. A place for people of all ages to have a one stop shop tobfind the info they need.
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IMHO, people come to this forum because they are overwhelmed and hurting. They deserve as much grace as we can muster. We don't know, what we don't know. At times, I feel like I'm grasping at straws trying to stay afloat.

On the macro scale of things, this is by design. It's called The Fourth Industrial Revolution. You can read about that at Klause Schwab's website or Youval Noal Harrari's TED talks.

I believe that 3rd world country IQ's have gone up and 1st world country IQ's have gone down over the past few decades. Different studies try to obfuscate that. But a meta analysis of all the studies, I theorize would show the preponderance of the evidence would support that. This mainly due to environmental factors such as decreasing nutritional value of food, processed foods, drinking water additives, the expanding childhood vaccine schedule and the intoxication of digital overload.

Common Core education has essentially eliminated cursive writing, spelling etc. Confusing children seems to be a major goal in schools and in government. New Jersey just passed a law that new school teachers now do not have to pass a basic reading, writing and math exam.

3 years ago the entire main stream media complex sang out in unison that vaccine hesitancy was due to people doing their own research and that you should not do your own research.

People are being trained to not think for yourself unless you're an authorized self proclaimed influencer or have a permanent victim status. Weakness seems to be power. Read Saul Alinsky's Rule For Radicals about ridicule.
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It's also a need to not be alone ... that what the forum provides a human not an institution. A contact with someone else who tells you that they understand and can walk you through different aspects, as needed.
there is nothing more important for a caregiver than to know that they are not alone in their struggles.
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And Freqflyer, I pretty much have decided to start suggesting to people that the IRS, the SS, the Medicare and Medicaid folks, the local APS and Council on Aging in their areas all have information designed just for them, and that they should call and should go online to their sites to research.
I am quite exhausted with answering the same old questions over and over again.
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I find many are intellectually lazy, and thus do not do any research even if it is at their fingertips.

For one, I am glad that I no longer have to work and manage others today, I would probably lose my cool on a daily basis.

They must have their phone strapped to their body but use it for nothing more than to goof around with their family/friends or play games.

Unfortunately, I find many as well, even if they googled/you tubed they cannot comprehend what they are reading, sad commentary on our world today.
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I always find it ironic that a new poster can find their way to this forum (presumably through search prompts) but then can't figure out to also use search prompts to find answers to very basic questions they ask here (a recent one was a phone number for their health insurance company). Sometimes it matters how one words the search prompts (and there are classes for how to do this to get the most out of AI help). For instance, I used to order my favorite pasta dish from a long-closed restaurant and have never found it online or served at another restaurant. I just went into my ChatGPT app and gave the command: " Find a recipe for "Fiesta Chicken Pasta" that contains the following ingredients: fettuccine, red bell pepper, tomatillas, red onion, cream " (These are only the ingredients I could remember was in it, didn't include the spices or anything else). It gave me the exact recipe, measurements, spices, instructions and all. Now I can make it myself! Then there is YouTube, where one can find a tutorial on almost anything.
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Anxiety,
My grandson seems to be one of the only living sound writers/technicians for plays. I say that kiddingly, but so rare is this profession that he gets flown out of the country, or to New York, of wherever, and recently has been asked to teach a course on it. What he works on is SOUND, so he isn't writing your next hits for Musicals (though he could, and so could A. I. ) but he is making certain when you get your play ticket you can hear it all. Sounds, dialog and etc.

Interestingly enough he makes use of A. I. in his writing/work. I mean the thing can do just about anything. Say you ask it to set a Mozart Requiem to jazz. Easy peasy.
Sadly, for good writers, it can also write (trash) novels.

So yeah. Brave new world indeed.
It can put up Obama or Trump picture and make THEM say anything as well, which makes it all more than a tad scary.

There won't be regulation and there won't be going backward, because as humans that's just not how we "roll". But it sure will be interesting to see where it all goes. Trust nothing. I am likely a bot! (Nah, if I were I would proofread my stuff.)
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FF, you’re not the only one to notice this. I hesitate to come down too hard on the next generation down as I well know my parents, and their parents before them, certainly had similar thoughts of the next generation being lazier and lacking common sense. The technology that’s supposed to be our friend has also enabled the laziness though. Many are so busy staring at a phone, they don’t notice inaccurate information, current events, and how to find good information. Social media often leaves people drained, feeling inadequate, and less than as it’s so often filled with false images of a perfected life. My local NextDoor is full is repeated questions and answers, things that could be easily searched right on the site, yet few do so. This forum, me included, often recommends, by necessity the use of nursing homes. My mom was certainly well cared for in one, yet each time it comes up I quietly remind myself that it was before every person was attached to a phone. I have no doubt the managed care facilities are filled with employees playing on their phones, simply because every place is, it’s our new normal. I’m grateful my mom was in the nursing home before this happened and can only hope the current management is having some modicum of success in handling this
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Yes, AnxietyNacy I get your thoughts and meanings. You could google but you were looking for a more personal connection.
SPEAKING OF WHICH.
The new A. I. as in Artificial Intelligence.
I honestly read the scariest thing the other day.
I love Tarot as many here know, and have a FB site on which a woman asked, though she admitted it was off subject, how many of us were on/had been on ChatGBT, and what we thought. She mentioned how seductive it is and she posted a conversation with one of the chatbots about a particular Tarot Deck, then got off subject with him/it/her/whatever, and the A.I. went all into how he differs from us in how he is programmed. It became honestly VERY FREAKY. I can SEE people who are lonely getting totally sucked into these things. For instance I love Early So. Renaissance Painting, painting in general, and am fascinated by artists and techniques, and I can see getting drawn into one of these Chat Avatars as though it is a really better-than-human human.

I am 82. Not my world anymore. A brave new one and it's their world now; I feel I can sit back and watch, but I have for the most part been quite "ready to go". But this whole ChatBot thing made me wonder WHERE we are going. They say fewer and fewer are marrying, want children, think to ever have a home, even don't care to drive anymore. Radical radical changes. I am so curious. First time I thought there might be something to MISS out there, ha ha. Pretty fascinating.
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I think it was Geaton who said it so well here when she said that the "internet is our friend" and that we HAD TO maintain some competency in the ways of the 21st century in order to survive in all of this stuff as we age. She's right. She was pretty instrumental in getting me to get a "big girl phone" as I call it. Turns out it is so much easier than that punch-in-the-numbers little job I had.

I DO remember coming here kicking and screaming when my brother fell ill. Suddenly I had documents (and pricey ones at that) saying I was his POA and Trustee. And I had ZERO idea what to do. I DID know to use the internet; I did know to make an appointment with his bank; I did know to call the utility companies, and etc. And boy, what a job.

I am not sure if it is overwhelm, or what. But I agree with your observations, ff.

What surprises me is that people will ask us questions about the facility that their loved one is in. I cannot imagine why they would not ask the facility itself? I do know it is getting harder and harder to function out there with "outsourcing" and I have personally dealt with it. BUT.................there's only so much a Forum of strangers can do.

Have to say in general I love the Forum, and I think the questions of others benefit so many coming here. But so often they are "newbies" who don't comment and don't return. Not sure why. Don't know if it's them or me!
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Perhaps one reason is that people have moved to using their phones just as communication devices and have given up using a computer to search the net.
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I see this over on Reddit too, people will ask questions they can easily find the answer to with a quick web search. I think a lot of it is generational, the smart phone/tiktok generation seem to prefer to get information from their "peers" instead if going to the source. That has a lot of implications when it comes to the trustworthiness of information
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