There’s a viral trick where, if you ask people to “pretend” to answer a phone, the way they hold their hand will tell you which generation they belong to. Maybe the same can be said for how they react to seeing a paycheck. Mom posts hilarious generational moment on LinkedIn Michelle Boggs, a senior advisor at GoFundMe, recently posted a screenshot of a text from her teenager on the professional networking platform. The teenager, awaiting a payment of $200, opened an envelope and was surprised to find that it did not contain the cash they were expecting—only a note on a piece of paper indicating that $200 was owed. The teenager elaborated: “There was no money just on papers that said my amount.” And that’s when Boggs realized what was really going on: “That is called a check, honey.” Old things are hard. Photo credit: Canva Millennials and Gen X forget just how outdated their upbringing is The post spread far and wide on LinkedIn, with hundreds of likes and dozens of comments. Many people had stories about their own encounters with Gen Zers who were completely baffled by items and activities that were commonplace just a few decades ago, such as: Addressing an envelope: “I facilitated a training with consultants, most of whom were 23 to 25. There was an exercise at the end where you write yourself a letter that gets mailed to you in like five years time. They instructed us to tell people how to address the envelope. I thought it was a joke until the guy next to me did in fact turn to me and say, ‘What do I do here again?'” Saving a file on the computer: “I’ll never forget the day a young one asked me why the save icon looked like that. They’d never seen a floppy disk. I felt my bones creak in the wind.” Calling a landline: “How about when your 15 year old calls her grandmother and gets a busy signal?” Listening to music on a stereo: “We did [a run to the dump] with a 00s stereo system in the car and my eldest said ‘what is this Mom, some kind of music machine?’. To them, music is Alexa or Spotify!” Watching actual TV: “I also recently got rid of cable and I gave them the heads up like ‘hey guys I got rid of cable’ and my son responded ‘what’s cable?'” How the tables have turned While the older generations love getting a good laugh out of younger people not recognizing “fundamental” pieces of technology, the comedy definitely goes both ways. “My favorite moment was when my youngest was in my home office and told me to follow the link to a particular website. I clicked on what I thought I was supposed to click on and he scowled in disgust and said this is why old people get so much malware,” one commenter shared. Millennials and Gen Xers are often totally baffled by Gen Alpha slang, TikTok trends, Kik streamers, looksmaxxing, ChatGPT, and more. It’s only a matter of time until today’s teenagers are impatiently holding their parents’ hands through crypto, VR, or vibe-coding—in fact, it’s already happening. An ancient artifact: The paper check. Photo credit: Todd Lappin/Flickr In true LinkedIn fashion, Boggs pulled a lesson from the humorous story, one that really does resonate. “Honestly, teens will keep you humble and if you’re paying attention, they’ll also keep you sharp,” she wrote. “[If something] feels slow, clunky, or outdated we’re not just behind, we’re invisible to the next generation. They’re not learning our systems. We need to learn theirs.” She’s right. Walden University estimates paper checks will be completely extinct any day now, replaced by direct deposit, Venmo, and other “frictionless” options. For the business professionals of LinkedIn, the takeaway is obvious. But all Millennials and Gen Xers need to remember that rotary phones and VCRs aren’t coming back anytime soon. Teaching younger generations about a rapidly aging way of life is probably less urgent than learning ourselves where things are heading. The post Teen confused by paper with ‘$200’ written on it. The answer was hilariously simple. appeared first on Upworthy.