Are "elderly" people not who we think they are anymore?

[Saved]

I want to make sure I'm posing this question out of respect. When I say "elderly", I don't mean the stereotypical elderly person. Because as I was thinking about this, I wonder when an individual thinks he or she is old. For instance, anybody who is 60 and up, how did you come to the conclusion that you were old - or maybe you feel "young at heart"?

And when I say "we", I'm speaking for people in my generation, which is somewhere around the ages 18-22.

Believe it or not, there are people well in their 70's and 80's that know who the Kardashians are. For that matter, are older people more connected with pop culture and the internet than ever before?

[Quabajazzi]

I think it not only has a lot to do with how easy it has become to access things (via internet, Facebook, Twitter, News, etc) but as well as the generational and cultural changes "elderly" citizens go through. Of course, it still depends on who the person is.
You find people who aren't the same people they were when they were in their youth. My grandmother told me once about an elderly couple that hated each other, but had remained married for the sake of their children. I asked her why they 'fell out of love' and she replied, "You don't ever fall out of love with someone. The people you see there are no longer the people who were in love all that time ago. These people? They were never in love in the first place."

I think the more accessible grasp in current affairs makes the elderly not only more capable of staying connected, but more inclined to do so as well. I imagine when your generation are grandparents, you will be completely unlike your own grandparents in many ways, and I also believe we are ever evolving.

[Windowphobe]

Oh, I'm definitely old, and I look it. I simply don't care about the number of years, and I take part in whatever cultural phenomena I want. Then again, I bought my first computer in 1985, and I've had an online presence more or less continuously since then.