How Does Douglas Adams Say People Receive New Technology?

Chris Dixon says Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, described how people receive any new technology in three different ways, split by age.

Below 15, the technology is just how the world works. He tells of introducing his own child, at seven, to a computer that answers questions. The child treated it as obvious: what good is a computer that does not answer questions? From 15 to 35, the technology is new, exciting, and a place to build a career, so people want to learn it. Above 35, it looks unholy and evil, sure to overturn existing structures and destroy society. Refusing to answer the telephone fits that pattern, and an old man yelling at a cloud keeps showing up.

Eighteen-year-olds are at prime time to take the new capabilities and run, opening fields of entrepreneurship, creativity, and art. Younger children treat the same capability as completely obvious, and they will enter fields that used to be closed to them.