It's not about disagreeing with internet based knowledge and skills. it's about having access to information and knowing how to use it to shift through BS "fake" news. people don't say that the world has become "smaller" for no reason. everything is available to you immediately. I have no doubt that there older people who are open minded, I've met so many in my life, but without a doubt the most closed minded people I've met are those who refuse to use the internet and are older than me.
Old people are 'close minded' because they are already successful. They proved it. They lived and had children and passed on their genes and knowledge to their grandchildren. From my anecdotal experience (and non-science personal observations are 'anecdotal') old people do not use technology because no one shows them how who does not 'emotionally threaten' as in "It's simple just do....". (See we old people remember when you were learning it and your greasy fingers were all over keyboard and screens and stuff broke and we paid to get it fixed but that's another rant) This is aside from small screens and small keyboards (which callused or arthritic or palsied hands have difficulty with), and 'auto typing' meaning spending yet more time backing out words that weren't wanted or 'spell checked' in.
Personally, I like smart phones, but I like my privacy more, so I don't walk around with one and let myself be tracked and assimilated and predicted by Googlies and their shadow thought mongers (read advertisers). As the world has learned, this need for privacy and the "Right to Privacy" is important.
I've dealt with old people and I deal with them and they love tech, but they're not as impressed with it as millenials. When they were young, the projected tech was much better than what's out here now: interstellar drives, flying cars, logical aliens with 'superior minds'. Science Fiction involving thought control of the masses was considered a 'dark tale', not normality. Frankly, most of them (and I) can look up and determine which way is north even in the middle of any city. This makes GPS much less impressive aside from when GPS is flat wrong. In spite of the siren call to millennials, old people remember a phone that worked with pocket change on every corner, so a walk around capability seems a lot like paying for something you don't use 99% of the time. "Instant photographs" passed 'instantly' means no 'in person' oohs and ahs, when they show off what they found in 'strange territory'. It means something to little kids to say 'look what I found' to their friends traveling with them, but no one in the world wants to be with their friends literally all the time with no escape, so for old people, that too, is not impressive. This is aside from videos of 'children and grandchildren' which gain value from separation time from them. e.g. If you've been with them all day, a video of being with them is not that impressive. Technology today is impressive, but old people used stuff that was just as good, but slower.
In short, old people have a 'different mindset'. In that mindset 'change' has to PROVE it's worth, not automatically be accepted as good. Next time you talk to a 'close minded' old person, remember how much they've seen and how little your 'whiz bang' (that's a phrase that describes bottle rockets by the way) means to them. If you're the programming type, make what you want to sell them 1-click. Works for me anyway.
