The quiet rewriting of a social contractMost conversations about generational technology differences frame older adults as slower adopters, more cautious, or more resistant. Many people now in their fifties and older remember the texture of a life in which the phone rang, or it did not, and if it did not, the conversation waited. That does not mean older adults are naturally better suited to an uninterrupted world. So it is reasonable to ask whether older adults are misremembering how uninterrupted life used to be. This is the part many older adults keep trying to explain.