Beyond the fact that Barack Obama was far and away the best candidate for president, one of the many analyses of his election success has pointed to his appeal to young voters, to the text-messagers, to the hip up-and-comers.
The portrayal of this demographic as being young, I think, is a little misleading. Yes, the majority may be young, but there is a trend I think, that includes the tech-savvy 40-somethings. Unlike the undergrads applying for tech jobs at my office, I have not been "using Windows all my life". (Scary to think that the Windows operating system has been around since the early 90s, and that some freshmen are actually younger than the single-threaded Windows 3.1 operating system.) They were still teaching typing on IBM Selectric typewriters when I was in high school. I was corrected by a coworker as we were talking through these facts: the modern term is keyboarding, not typing.
But I digress. Even though I was not born with a silver mouse in my hand, I still learned, learned well, and have continued to adopt new technology continuously into my life. Not only do I have a cell phone, but I know how to use it. I quit paying for a land phone line as soon as I got a cell phone — over five years ago. I’ve been surfing the internet from my home for well over a decade, and I’ve had broadband access for over 8 years. (Yes, as an early adopter of the cable modem, it was frightfully expensive in 2000 compared to what they cost now, but it’s been running constantly the entire time. In hind sight, it was a good investment.) I have had a wireless network in my house for about 5 years now.
All the polling done during this election was to land line phones. The demographic of tech-savvy adults — the continuous adopters who can afford to embrace the advantages of new technology — the demographic that includes me: we are completely off the radar.
I think it was telling that Obama’s campaign adopted many of these new technologies to great success. I think the hidden story is not just that this appealed to young people. I think the hidden story is that this appealed to the forward-thinking, change-embracing, moderately affluent Americans (call them "middle class", if you will — those with the disposable income to upgrade their cell phone every other year or so) who finally see a politician stepping forward with the times, not lagging a decade or more behind it.
And that fact cuts across age, race, and gender.
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