As I was reading OP's story I flashbacked to my first introduction to technology at that age. I'm most grateful for them raising me intellectually curious, reading to me at a young age, and to never say no when I asked them to buy me a book.
My father (84 now) is up to date with technology, he gets the mechanics and can perform his tasks (windows, android, roku) but I don't think he has a conceptual model of how any of this works. It was fascinating to me growing up, if you gave him a budget for buying a computer he could spec out the best "bang for your buck" knowing 8GB RAM > 4GB RAM and a 1Gig HD is > 500 MB HD without actually understanding what the components were. He was never interested in that level of detail, just show him how to click and do it.
My father (84 now) is up to date with technology, he gets the mechanics and can perform his tasks (windows, android, roku) but I don't think he has a conceptual model of how any of this works. It was fascinating to me growing up, if you gave him a budget for buying a computer he could spec out the best "bang for your buck" knowing 8GB RAM > 4GB RAM and a 1Gig HD is > 500 MB HD without actually understanding what the components were. He was never interested in that level of detail, just show him how to click and do it.