What is it about the text messages and emails sent by older people that make me feel like I'm having a stroke?

Gonna need some examples methinks. But the tendency to overuse ellipses is right tf up there

Yes! This is what I always associate with older folks texting or emailing. I use ellipses a fair bit for (my attempts at) comedic effect. Some older folks are using them on a whole different level, having this weird habit of ending sentences with them where most people would use a period or exclamation point. It can come off sounding very ominous.
"Bill is coming over."
Okay, cool. Have fun with Bill.
"Bill is coming over ..."
Grandpa, are you in trouble? What's Bill going to do???
- I'm old and i use ellipses frequently, but my family would understand that i mean -
  Bill is coming over and you know i hate that fucker so please call or stop by to save me if you don't hear from me in a bit.
  I think your Grandpa is expecting you to infer something from the ...
- I saw some video where they explained boomers use the ellipses to indicate missing words? like they're acknowledging that it's a sentence fragment and not a complete sentence.
- I am a younger millennial. I use ellipses all the time tbh. But I never use them at the end of a sentence like that. I tend to use them in the middle of a sentence often to break it up if it seems to long and I don't want the formality of a semicolon.
- I'm old and almost never use ellipsis and I will correct everybody's punctuation and typography as a matter of principle (at least in my own language, not being confident enough with English rules to do it there).
  Also ellipsis is a single character: … (it does take 3 keys though)
What if I like ellipses...
- ....go on
The thing with ellipses is... they make you sound... like you have lethargy... Either that... or extreme shyness... Whenever I see text with no other punctuation than ellipses...I always imagine... like I'm talking with Eeyore... from Winnie the Pooh...
- For me it's an old habit from IRC. Instead of sending 5/6/7 lines of text, I just cut it with .... and continue typing on the same line. I could make complete sentences with capitals and periods but instant messaging is not a medium well suited for full sentences and paragraphs, so you get ...
- For me it's Christopher Walken.
The related thing that I've seen a few times and never understood is ",,,". What does an ellipsis of commas even mean?
- I think it means “I am starting to suffer the effects of long-term leaded gas exhaust exposure“.
- Too blind to tell the difference on a phone keyboard, too vain to wear glasses / update prescription

This seems to stem from when we had dumbphones that didn't even have T9 predictive spelling.
Meaning that if you just wanted to type a common message like "I am on the train, 25 min away" would mean pressing the following keys:
Empty spaces is use to indicate a slight pause.
4,4,4,0,2,6,0,6,6,6, ,6,6,0,8,4,4,3,3,0,8,7,7,7,2,4,4,4,,,0,2,2,2,2,5,5,5,5,0,6,4,4,4,6,6,0,2,9,2,9,9,9
- I used t9 in high school. In retrospect it's obviously unusably clunky, but I do miss being able to text totally blindly in my pocket or something.
ikr!

Younger than 45

Oh OK that actually makes sense.

45 year olds and above are digital immigrants. In short, they had an off-line childhood and an online adulthood. They have different speech and writing patterns to you because they learnt and communicated in a different way to you.

Assuming you're under 45, this won't make sense, because you've never experienced a world which doesn't have this sort of interaction. You're a digital native, digital tech has always been there.

In twenty years time, children born or educated after the advent of chat gpt will have the same problem understanding you. The way you write, post and interact will seem clunky and old fashioned. It's already happening - we're having to adapt the way we interact, in order to be able to 'be understood' by AI.

The wonderful thing about humanity, tho, is that we do adapt and adopt! Consider this - everyone over the age of 50 had to learn something completely new to them in order to be able to communicate with you via email, sms or messaging app. They used to just talk, or write letters. Sharing media was a physical act. Yet here they are using the same texh as you. Awesome.

Take into account that those 45 and older were the ones with disposable income when the internet took off
We fuckin invented the digital world, and memes too!
- Not sure who the "we" is in your post but Imo the biggest influence on meme culture was 4chan and similar dumpster fire communities of the early/adolescent Internet.
Your timeline is straight up fucked. In short, you don't know what you're talking about.

Has anyone else younger than 45 or so felt similarly frustrated with geriatrics’ messages?

What always makes me laugh about posts like this is the knowledge that soon you too will hit that terrible 45 and become "geriatric". Your text messages and emails (how quaint) will suddenly become incomprehensible and everyone will claim you are giving them a stroke just by existing

.

The clock is ticking... faster than you think.

That's an incredibly bad faith reading.
Anyone younger than 45 is going to have greater digital exposure and be more adept at electronic communication. The older you are, the less likely you are to be frustrated with how geriatrics communicate because the more familiar pre-digital communication styles will be to you.
- That’s an incredibly naive answer.
@enbyecho @asklemmy I'm well aware that I'm somebody else's elder. I meant it matter-of-factly, like "geriatric pregnancy".
- I’m well aware that I’m somebody else’s elder. I meant it matter-of-factly, like “geriatric pregnancy”.
  a) You made a gross generalization that cannot be attributed to a particular age group in a consistent, reproducible manner. "Old" in itself is of course an imprecise term use primarily in relative terms.
  b) If as you assert, then you used the term incorrectly. The commonly accepted medical definition of "geriatric" is 65 years or older. When used in a general way to mean "aged" it is not "matter-of-fact" but a generalization and by it's nature relative.
  What you really mean is "people older than me that I find annoying" similar to "boomer" or, in your case, your specific non-factual and colloquial use of "geriatric".
  IOW, attributing your annoyance to some vague age group is roughly as ridiculous as attributing your annoyance to the color T-shirt someone is wearing. Or what country they come from, race they are... etc etc etc. It's a pointless, meaningless, and often highly localized stereotype.
  It's not the attributes of the person, it's the behavior.

All of my kids messages are super short or emoji filled, my wife, friends and older contacts all text to text me full paragraphs or sentences.

Need some examples

Sounds like you're a millennial with gen alpha kids. The latest generation is struggling to read and write, while millennials are the best typists
- I blame msn messenger for my speedy typing.

In my experience, younger people who grew up with the internet write their texts and emails as if they are instant messaging, because they grew up with AOL and MSN messenger etc when it comes to text based communication.

Older people who communicated over text before the internet only did this in one way - writing letters.

As a result their style of texting or emailing is often very long form in comparison.

When writing letters you are limited by how much room there is on a piece of paper.

This leads to using some shorthand which used to be fairly common, but has fallen out of public knowledge for younger people.

You could argue that some of the stuff that younger people email or text informally can be just as cryptic because there is entirely different shorthand that millenials and generations Y and Z use.

If you closely examine how you casually communicate with your peers of a similar age, you will notice it can be just as odd as what you experience from communicating with generations on either side of you.

Young people grew up with MSN and AOL... since when young is 40yos.
- I'm over a decade away from 40 and I grew up with it.
  Furthermore the context of the use of younger is in:
  "In my experience, younger people who grew up with the internet write their texts and emails as if they are instant messaging, because they grew up with AOL and MSN messenger etc when it comes to text based communication."
  Which is replying to a post titled:
  "What is it about the text messages and emails sent by older people that make me feel like I'm having a stroke?"
  The use of "Younger" here is not an absolute term, it is a relative term, meaning it refers to people younger than the older people the original poster is referring to, who are in my estimation likely to be anyone under the age of 60 based on what OP describes and my informed experiences having worked in the IT industry supporting users of all ages.

My mother would mistype and just accept whatever word was substituted in the autocorrect. So I’d receive messages like “what’s times area your striving art under Stevens’s on Saturdays”. Then I’d have to ring her, on the off chance she answered (only turned the phone on when expecting a call), so there wasn’t any point texting in the first place.

My mother is the opposite. She will make sure to correct every word even it it’s clear what it meant.
I meant „even if“ not „even it“
Haha aww that is me.

Never been called geriatrics before. I can retire now! Nice

@MissJinx @asklemmy I wasn't sure of the right word to use. Geriatric seemed correct enough. To be clear, I don't think there's anything especially wrong or bad about my elders. I just think there might be some kind of technological and cultural collision happening that makes me feel like I'm crazy sometimes.
- Oh boy, I'm an "Elder" now. Gonna go kill myself realy quick
  hahaha jokes aside I see your point. I'm full time online so I don't have a problem but yes, I only had internet when I was 12yo and smartphones when I was past 25yo so we really don't have the same education. Someone that is not online all the tine will have a hard time keeping up.

Punctuation

And spelling.
And knowing that 'e-mail' never gets pluralized with an S, and a host of other simple things that were lost when they seemingly stopped having Grade 3.
We can drive a stick, make a campfire, tie a bowline or a splint and make an igloo and a lean-to. We fought with sticks, we wore no helmets and if we didn't learn at school they held us back. Fear us.
- Did you also walk to school uphill both ways, barefoot on snow and broken glass?
- So you would say that you received 3 e-mail today?
- damn bro you accidentally posted your facebook post as a lemmy comment.

It's about as annoying as young people abandoning any and all punctuation entirely. The amount of people that will write an entire paragraph and not use a single period is obscene. If you can't bother to organize your thoughts in the most minimal way, I'm going to assume you have nothing of worth to say and just won't read it. And frankly, if what you're saying is so boiler plate you don't need punctuation, then you really don't have anything to add, so probably just shouldn't.

It's about as annoying as young people abandoning any and all punctuation entirely the amount of people that will write an entire paragraph and not use a single period is obscene if you can't bother to organize your thoughts in the most minimal way I'm going to assume you have nothing of worth to say and just won't read it and frankly, if what you're saying is so boiler plate you don't need punctuation then you really don't have anything to add so probably just shouldn't
- Its about as annoying as young people abandoning any and all punctuation entirely the amount of people that will write an entire paragraph and not use a single period is obscene if you cant bother to organize your thoughts in the most minimal way Im going to assume you have nothing of worth to say and just wont read it and frankly if what you're saying is so boiler plate you dont need punctuation then you really dont have anything to add so probably just shouldnt

And why do old people randomly capitalize nouns? Every Sentence reads like the just read the Written Word for the first time and wanted to give It a Try For Themselves

My Android keyboard will automatically capitalize lots of common words like target, guess, even-- shit it's not doing it now, it heard me thinking. I guess it's brands, but some of them I don't recognize. I'm going to be mad if it starts doing it again as soon as I leave this thread.
- My phone insists on Land. Wtf, phone?
- This happens to me when I add a word to the dictionary but it happened to be the first word of a sentence at the time I added it, so it got capitalized and now the dictionary thinks it's a proper noun
In 18th century English they did the same Thing. German too. Nouns were more important
This is the accepted writing style at my work, and it's been driving me nuts for years. I'm talking about the copy we put on all our public facing materials. Even our resident linguists hate it, but apparently someone high up thinks it's industry standard.
Remembering this just made me happier to be leaving soon. They're so resistant to challenging entrenched habits. I should have seen these signs when I started.
- I always capitalize words that locally mean something specific and technical. Like the Group a Record is associated with in the Student table.
  Do you mean things like that? Or just capitalizing all Nouns for no Reason or Something silly?
And why do old people randomly capitalize nouns?
I'll admit it's a weird Habit.
Edit: Nouned.
I'm not as old as OP mentioned, but sometimes I'll do it when it's a word that's commonly abbreviated or part of a title. Like "Original Poster".
I've had a couple people ask me if I'm German, but no, I just like some of their ideas on capitalization.
For me. That’s usually autocorrect. If it decides a typo such as accidenta double-space means the end of one sentence, then capitalizes a word, it’s below my threshold to go back and fix. You shouldn’t be confused by random. Apitalization and letter skips from autocorrect, but I’ll correct it when it’s autocorrect sped to to something. Different like this last sentence where it looks like I’m having a stroke

What? Who are you communicating with, and what shortcuts are you talking about? I text with my kids and they use more shortcuts and abbreviations than I do.

In work emails, I try to think of the recipient when writing them. Some people are chattier and prefer a nice introduction and thorough explanation, but my boss likes to just see messages like:

Posted on 13-May, thanks.

So if that's what you are talking about maybe you just have a more social communication style.

Though I will say my husband uses the ominous ellipses too often, like...

All the younger people I text with use more acronyms and abbreviations than I do. I even spell out okay.
- I even spell out okay.
  Which is funny, because it originated as an initialism for "Oll Korrekt".

Not exclusive to old people, unfortunately. I've seen many instances of texts from decidedly young people that make me question if the language being used was some derivative of Old English.

But to answer the question specifically, I generally find that old people have a higher tendency to type or use speech-to-text and then not check for accuracy. It makes it generally pretty common for autocorrect to completely mess up meaning of the message. Also older people seem to either spam or avoid punctuation entirely with no in between.

"Couldn't reply to message on Lemmy, was written like it was typed on a keyboard. Literally can't right now. Too many words."

What an asshole.

Assuming you're under 45, this won't make sense, because you've never experienced a world

Nah. 45 is '78/'79. You can easily run up to '85 on the analogue migration

For example?

@jlow @asklemmy https://jorts.horse/@fathermcgruder/112536047583834481

...what do you mean...

https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms

Other Stroke Symptoms
Watch for Sudden:
CONFUSION, trouble speaking or understanding speech
@NABDad @asklemmy okay maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic.
Good info to post! Actually, I like that this is now a thing to ask someone whose post is turned to gibberish by autocorrect: it keeps the idea in mind, should anyone need it in real life

45+ is "older people" to you?

In the US, the average life expectancy is 79.7 years old. Half of that is 39.87, and looking at demographics the median age is even lower.
So yes, 45 year olds are easily older than most people in the US at least. I think that's a fair statement.
- Stop scaring me. I don't want to think about my death!!
@Kory @asklemmy I'm 38. To me people older than that are objectively older people. I can't think of anyone younger than 45 with whom I've had this problem.

From my experience, touch typing and using all fingers (home row technique I think it's called) is less common among boomers, especially men. Even in professional settings I've seen men peck at their keyboards with just their pointer fingers. The slowness of this technique might explain the use of abbreviations at the desktop?

There's probably some really weird graphs to be made of who hunts and pecks and who uses the home row
I don't have the stats on it, but I suspect that up until about the 80s men would mostly hunt and peck, and women were a mixture, because a lot of secretaries and such who had to type professionally were women. As computers became bigger more men would start using the home row, peaking around the 90s/early 2000s when pretty much every milenial had computer/typing classes (although I know plenty of my millennial peers still hunt and peck) and now it's on a bit of downward slope with Gen z/alpha who are more used to phones/iPads.
I work in 911 dispatch, it's a bit of a thing I've noticed with our younger new hires, they're somewhat less comfortable with keyboard/mouse controls than the rest of us (and for added confusion, we have trackball mice, a lot of them have never seen or used one before or an old mechanical mouse with a ball. A handful of them have barely used mice at all and are more used to laptop trakcpads and touch screens. They catch on pretty quick but there's definitely a bit of a learning curve.
- trackball mice
  But why? These were never more popular than traditional mice
I've mostly seen the opposite. older people having taken typing classes while people who started typing very yound never got instruction and even if they had their hands would have been too small at the time. they do get pretty good WPMs though.