7 things Boomers do that younger generations mock (but secretly admire) – VegOut

We’ve all been there—watching our parents struggle with a QR code menu while insisting the paper version was “perfectly fine.” This gentle mockery of Boomer habits has become something of a generational sport. But lately, I’ve noticed something unexpected beneath the eye-rolls and TikTok parodies. A grudging respect, maybe even envy, for how they navigate a world seemingly designed to leave them behind.

The more I observe these supposedly outdated behaviors, the more I wonder if we’re the ones missing something. There’s a particular confidence in refusing to optimize every moment of existence, in maintaining rituals that Silicon Valley deems inefficient. Maybe what looks like stubbornness is actually a form of resistance we secretly crave.

1. Writing checks at the grocery store

The collective groan when someone pulls out a checkbook at Whole Foods is almost audible. Yet watching them carefully write “seventy-three dollars and forty-two cents” while self-checkout machines beep frantically feels almost meditative. They’re not just slowing down the line—they’re slowing down time itself.

This seemingly archaic practice might actually be financial mindfulness in action. Every written check creates a physical record, a pause that our tap-to-pay culture deliberately eliminates. You can’t accidentally spend $200 at Target when you have to write it out longhand. Boomers understand what our frictionless payment systems want us to forget: money should feel real.

2. Calling restaurants to confirm they’re open

My mother calls restaurants to check their hours, despite Google displaying them on her phone screen. “But what if they’re closed for a private event?” she argues—and she’s been right more than once. That human on the other end knows things Google doesn’t: if the kitchen’s backed up, if parking’s impossible tonight, if they’ve already sold out of the special.

This insistence on human verification goes beyond technological distrust. It’s about preserving connections in a world designed to eliminate them. Each phone call becomes a small rebellion against algorithmic certainty, proof that human judgment still matters in ways our apps haven’t learned to replicate.

3. Maintaining physical photo albums

Instagram can’t compete with a Boomer’s photo album—handwritten captions, ticket stubs from the county fair, everything carefully preserved under plastic sheets. Sure, it takes up shelf space. No, you can’t search it by keyword. But flipping through those pages isn’t just viewing images—it’s a full sensory experience.

The album’s weight, the plastic’s slight stick, even that musty smell becomes part of the memory. While we lose thousands of photos in cloud storage we’ll never organize, they’ve curated their memories intentionally. Each photo earned its place through deliberate selection. The limitation wasn’t a bug—it was the entire point.

4. Refusing loyalty programs

“I don’t want them tracking my purchases,” my father says, walking away from CVS discounts. We laugh at this while simultaneously reading about data privacy and downloading tracker-blocking apps. Boomers identified surveillance capitalism before we had a name for it—they just called it “none of their damn business.”

Their loyalty program resistance isn’t paranoia; it’s prescience. They understood intuitively what we’re only now learning: every convenience has a price, usually paid in personal data. Sometimes that 20% discount isn’t worth becoming a product yourself.

5. Reading physical newspapers

The Sunday paper ritual—sections spread across the dining table, passing the comics, debating the editorial—seems quaint now. But consuming news this way, Boomers encounter stories they’d never click on, opinions no algorithm would serve them. The sports fan accidentally reads about city council meetings. The business reader stumbles onto a book review.

This serendipitous discovery is exactly what our personalized feeds eliminate. While we’re trapped in echo chambers of our own design, they’re still finding unexpected connections in the margins of articles they didn’t know they needed.

6. Using formal phone etiquette

“Hello, this is Robert speaking,” my uncle answers his cell, knowing exactly who’s calling. These greetings feel ceremonial now—this insistence on proper beginnings and endings. “Have a good day” before hanging up. “May I speak with…” when calling someone.

These verbal rituals aren’t just excessive formality. They create boundaries our always-on communication lacks. The structure signals: this is a real conversation with a beginning, middle, and end. Not an endless thread. Not a voice note fired off while driving. An actual exchange between two present humans.

7. Fixing things instead of replacing them

The basement workshop, the sewing kit, the jar of salvaged screws—Boomer homes are museums of repair culture. They’ll spend Saturday afternoon fixing a $20 toaster. We call it inefficient. They call it satisfying.

This goes beyond frugality or environmental consciousness. It’s about relationships with objects, understanding how things work, refusing planned obsolescence. Every repair is a small victory against a system designed to make us perpetual consumers. They’re not just fixing things—they’re maintaining agency in a disposable world.

Final thoughts

Perhaps what we’re really mocking isn’t their resistance to change but their immunity to optimization culture. They’ve retained the right to be inefficient, to choose connection over convenience, to move through the world at their own pace. These aren’t habits of people who can’t adapt—they’re choices of people who’ve decided what’s worth preserving.

The irony is delicious. We’re already nostalgic for what they never abandoned. We buy vinyl records, learn sourdough baking, take “digital detoxes” to approximate what they never stopped doing. We mock them for writing checks, then download mindfulness apps that teach us to slow down.

The last laugh might be theirs after all. While we optimize ourselves into anxiety, they’re still living at human speed.