[…] consciousness of the Young and Reckless generation (henceforth referred to as YaR) which has a built in technology barometer of coolness. I have interrogated several parental units of the cow-orker status, and they all corroborated the […]

Soon enough I will no longer be considered target demographic for video games and comic books

The target demographic for these is growing in scope with your age. You don’t need to worry about games and comic books suddenly becoming uninteresting to you. Future shocked grandpa didn’t ever find television or radio not targeting his demographic anymore. It grew with him — technologies now so old that they’re struggling to stay relevant in their current form.

What you do need to worry about is whatever it is kids will find more interesting than traditional video games and whatever else you enjoy. Perhaps some social networking thing? Suddenly it will be The Next Big Thing and you’re late for the train, never seeing it coming, now struggling to keep up with this obviously (to you) inferior form of entertainment/technology.

A funny related note: this past Saturday I was at AAA to transfer the title on my car (a slow, expensive, dead-tree process, probably still so thanks to future shocked grandpas!). I had to wait about 45 minutes before the notary was available, so I got to overhear all sorts of people coming and going. Several different people came in looking to get traveler’s checks. You know, that old technology that was basically replaced by credit/debit cards in the late 90’s? AAA hasn’t distributed these things in years. These people are the next generation of future shocked grandpas. Luke, I think you’re safe from that fate for a long time still!

I’m far away from worrying about that…
If i look at who is currently counted as “youth”, i see people far less tech-savvy then i think myself to be. No, i don’t think beeing younger is what made the difference to me.
I am pretty sure my father could have become exactly as good with those computer-thingies, but he wasn’t raised that way. In his days (well those aren’t exactly “over”) this just wasn’t what everyone wanted to understand. He was obviously more interested in mechanics and chemic/electronic principles then i ever wanted to be.
Does that mean his knowledge is outdated? No. He just has different Fields of science he is focusing himself on.
Same goes for the current youth. I don’t see those guys poking into system-code often. So in a way i am more concerned that in the future i will be one of the last people to actually know what their device does then worrying about not understanding what it does anymore.

Yes, loosing my minds ability to learn new things is a nightmare that keeps me up at night. For some time at least I’m still on the way up where my brainpower is concerned, but it’s only a question of time before it starts declining. I wonder perhaps I should learn new languages, or something like that, every once in a while just to keep my mind alert.