This is something I worry about as well (mid-thirties millennial), but I’m really hoping it won’t be a problem. Anecdotally, I don’t notice any appreciable difference between myself and my dad (technically a boomer) when it comes to technology, but my mom isn’t as comfortable. I think it’s because my dad spends more time using various types of current tech and is willing to troubleshoot on his own, so maybe it’s just a matter of continued exposure and a willingness to learn.

At the same time I see my grandparents really struggle with digital interfaces because they didn’t grow up with them and don’t find them intuitive, in a way that can’t be explained by lack of curiosity. It’s almost like they’re not fluent in the language because they missed a critical period of learning in childhood? If a brand new, extremely different way to interface with the world takes over, I guess I could see myself and my peers struggling as well.

I highly recommend subscribing to a meal delivery kit for a few weeks, I think they’re fantastic for beginners. Reasons:

• Grocery shopping and ingredient portioning is already done for you, allowing you to focus on the cooking
• Ability to try new ingredients without committing to buying a full quantity of the ingredient. It sucks when you buy a specific sauce for a new recipe you want to try, only to realize you’re never going to want to use it again.
• Enough choices in recipes but not an overwhelming amount; there are so many recipes and resources online that that’s all you need to learn, but it can be overwhelming and hard to know where to start
• Recipes are generally standardized, well-tested, and don’t require special equipment or advanced techniques

I definitely don’t recommend doing this long term because it starts to get repetitive and is ultimately more expensive than doing your own shopping and planning, but it removes quite a few barriers to entry. Home Chef was the one I enjoyed the most personally but Blue Apron is also reliable and liked by many. Once you are comfortable with the basics you can really just search any recipe you’re interested in and just go for it; follow your interests and the skills will come with experience.

True, I think the “lemmy is so confusing to join” concerns are overblown (just make an account?), but admittedly the community finding part is… not intuitive. People really aren’t seeing everything that’s out there through the standard search if their instance isn’t federated with the instance where the target community is hosted, or no one on their instance has searched for that community before. Having to go offsite for tools to find communities is a poor experience.