Happy Anniversary!Harold:
Congratulations on your two year anniversary. It's good that you took the time to share your reflections (I on the other hand let eeLearning's 2 year anniversary slip by back in January without even a mention). I believe you are dead on the mark regarding the digital divide being much more attributable to attitude than to age. I was just making a similar point over on CogDogBlog that what we geeks and semi-geeks might find exciting and paradigm-shifting is likely viewed buy the vast majority of the population as more hocus pocus that has nothing to do with their real lives.
In reading your post, I'm wondering if the fact that it takes a radical new attitude - regardless of age - to understand, grasp, and begin to utilize these new tools if what we need to examine is how a more mainstream attitude might be able to grab hold and use these tools. By more mainstream I'm thinking about the reality that most people that use computers would rather not have to deal with them other than to type in some facts, opinion, etc. and have things print out or project the way they expect them to. I'm not suggesting some sort of ludite approach to technological diffusion. After all, there are a vast multitude of professors and corporate managers who today use powerpoint regularly, if not well, and don't have a second thought about doing so. Whereas 15 years ago, only the highest ranking executives, who had administrative assistants do the dirty work, would use powerpoint to present their biggest presentations. Some how, an attitudinal shift occurred that allowed powerpoint to span what Geoffrey Moore terms the Chasm. Now 6th graders use PowerPoint to write essays. It's as normal as using a 5-subject notebook was for us way back when.
Did the masses come to the innovation or did the innovators stop wondering at their invention long enough for it to have utility to the common user?