Hand Me Up Technology

Definition

"Where the young generation in a family adopts and purchases new technology products at a fast rate, and old versions (that are in working order but are not up to current standards) of that technology product are given to the parents or older generations of the family. Commonly occurs multiple times on commodity technology gadgets, leaving your parents with many gadgets to play with. Called 'hand me up' in contrast to 'hand me down'. Computers: having purchased a new computer to replace my 'slow' computer, I have given it to my grandpa to use. Thus the computer is a 'hand me up'."

Description

The hand-me-up inverts one of the most stable patterns in the transmission of household goods. Clothing, furniture, tools and books have historically travelled downward through generations, carrying the authority of the older generation with them: what is passed on is both the object and the competence to use it.

Technology reverses the direction because it reverses the competence. In a domain where the relevant skill is acquired by early and continuous exposure rather than by accumulated experience, the youngest household member is frequently the most expert, and expertise brings both the earliest adoption and the fastest dissatisfaction. The object that moves upward is therefore not a gift of authority but its opposite: the older recipient inherits the device, and generally also inherits the younger relative as technical support.

Why It Happens

• Divergent upgrade thresholds. A device becomes intolerable to a heavy user long before it becomes inadequate for a light one. The gap between those two thresholds is precisely the hand-me-up.
• Future runoff. Resale value falls faster than function does, so giving the device away costs almost nothing relative to selling it.
• Reluctance to discard working objects. The household resists throwing away something that still works, and an older relative is the nearest available justification for keeping it.
• Support as an unspoken condition. The transfer usually includes an implicit and open-ended obligation to help, which is why the gift is not always received as generosity.

Consequences

The pattern has real effects that are easy to miss. Older family members are systematically equipped with the previous generation of technology, which means their experience of any given platform lags the household's by several years — slower devices, older operating systems, and, importantly, versions no longer receiving security updates. A hand-me-up is frequently the least protected device on a home network, in the hands of the person least equipped to notice.

It also inverts the usual direction of technical socialisation. The younger relative becomes the teacher, and the terms on which the teaching happens — patience or exasperation, explanation or taking-over — do a good deal to determine whether the older person becomes a confident user or a dependent one. Research on technology adoption among older adults consistently identifies available, willing support as a stronger predictor than either cost or interface design.

Related Reading

• Future Runoff
• Landline Telephone
• Materials
• Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty

External Links

• Tina Wells, "Have You Heard About Hand-Me-Ups?" Huffington Post, 17 May 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-wells/have-you-heard-about-hand_b_1525122.html
• http://www.devonit.com/about-devon-it/hand-me-ups