OK so I have a pet theory about this. I grew up in a period when computing involved friction and lack of ready resources to ease that friction. Solving problems involved actual research, in the research process more and more details of how computers operate were exposed to me. I had the time and focus to learn and the motivation to stick at it when it was difficult. I then did something horrible to almost everyone who asked me for help, I removed that friction.
With the noblest of intentions I prevented everyone around me from experiencing that friction, I made it easy. Consequently I caused those people around me to miss out on those basics I struggled with. I uncovered the arcane lore of endianess so everyone around me who wasn't already an adept would be spared. I plumbed the mysteries of the parallel port so that others could use a printer with only mild mystical invocations. I immersed myself in SCSI termination so that my friends and family might partake of IDE (retroactively named PATA) in peace.
I came from an era of computing where these things mattered (at least to some degree) and they moulded me and shaped how I use a computer to this day. My brothers will always be dependent on myself and my ilk to act as guides and so much of what I know is functionally useless today so a neophyte could not follow the twisted path I did.
I was blessed as well to come of age in a time when a computer was a comprehensible assemblage of parts, when I could identify at an IC level the components of it. I feel like that is what is missing in the modern incarnation of technology. I also worry this is where we stagnate, the field is too large for anyone to compass it entirely and we splinter in to specialisations.
However this is also a sign that technology has come of age. I am certain, absolutely positive, that if I was to pick an arbitary topic, say music, I would seem as illiterate and helpless as the Zoomers we are bemoaning as mere consumers of Tech. I can enjoy a piece of music, I can even take a rough stab at the rusiments of how it is made. Ask me to explain the nomenclature of a time signature on sheet music and I will look the dunce before I finish the first sentence.
So maybe we should give them a break and realise that for a lot of them, It... Just... Isn't... Important...
They will learn this stuff if and when they need to. Otherwise "magic box does things when I perform this ritual" is enough for them to function in their world, the same as "Car starts when I turn this key" is enough for me to function in mine.
Holy crap, I wrote this on my phone, what is wrong with me?
I can:
- Accomplish damn near anything from a command line
- Write machine code
- Remember a fairly broad swath of special character altcodes without looking them up
- Disassemble damn near any computer or other machine, and stand a good chance of putting it back together
But also:
- Use modern programming languages, including object oriented paradigms
- Actually read what is on my screen and comprehend it, including error messages
- Understand and operate any arbitrary interface without having to have it explained to me by rote
Behold my mixture of skills, and tremble.
As a boomer, reading this thread/discussion has been so amusing in many ways while enjoying my cuppa tea this morning. A classic "the younger generations are stupid."
The older generations looking down the ones that follow. And the following generations looking down on those that precede them. And no one understanding ain't none of us are all that bright.
Ever has it been, and so ever shall it be.
I think Zoomers need a generational divide in their generation, tbh. In my experience, older Zoomers are intelligent, capable, motivated, and largely leftist. For some unknown reason though, younger Zoomers are ignorant, prudish, too easily contented, and weirdly conservative. I have yet to understand what happened to cause the divide, and I can't point to any stats or evidence to support this belief, but anecdotally I have noticed this trend within my own life and spheres of influence.
The amount of my students that wrote the whole email in the subject line is crazy. At first I thought it was a mistake or something. But there are sooo many...
They also don't know what a file browser/explorer is. As soon as the download notification is gone, the file doesn't exist anymore.
Giving files proper names? Unheard of!
There are two generations that can do this task X and millennials.
Yea surprise some people are good at using computers some are bad, has nothing to do with whatever generation someone is apart of, generation labels are so dumb. Literally every "milleinal" I've known comes to me for their computer problems.
Boomer don't know how to do shit 'cause computers were so rare. Zoomers don't know how to do shit 'cause big companies profit from people who can't help themselves and have low standards.
There was only a small timeframe where computers were available, accessible yet not enshittificated for profit like today.
Would love some older internet gen input here: is this a "gen [whatever] is so [negative trait here] because they are [generation group]" or "younger ppl be stupid"?
Context: Am a millennial. At my first "real job" (as in, in the industry I got my degree in) I worked with ONE (1) other person, who was an early Gen-Xer. After developing a report with each other and becoming friendly, he lamented to me about how it seems like "millennials (not you, of course)" seem so helpless - like they can't figure things out on their own. Always asking "where is-" or "how do i-" before even examining the problem at hand and/or the resources available.
This dude was a self-proclaimed "blue fish in a red sea," and we worked with a wide age-range of sales ppl. I mention this, bc in the two years I worked with this nerd (and he was a fucking nerd, taking into account modern day and late 80s-early 90s standards of the term), his complaints about millennials never sounded like media parrot-speech. He was literally befuddled about the operational differences between generations.
It 100% seemed like an ageist thing. This was the late 2010's, pre-covid.
I'm in my 30s now and am equally baffled when my teenaged niece (weird familial age gap - not relevant here) doesn't know how to make the tap water hot when there's only one knob instead of two. She asked outloud but I refused to acknowledge or answer her. Niece figured it out shortly on her own, as expected.
So-... maybe younger people are just, yknow, dumb? Or recognize that, when surrounded by more experienced others, it takes less effort to ask for guidance than to waste energy through trial and error-?
Not trying to prove a point here. Just legit curious if anyone older has had similar experiences and can offer insight into whether this is a "zoomers are-" or "younger people are-" observation.
We got a new kid around 19 working at our office for processing data and I hate how true this is. The amount of times I've had to say "No, you have to double click to open folders" is entirely too many. Either that or "You have to actually right click on the icon you want to copy you can't just click anywhere on the screen."
So, the key takeaway is everyone has a different experience, and that is okay.
I remember a game wouldn't work until i adjusted the screen resolution in like 98
There are TWO generations between Boomers and Zoomers.
It's funny how Bs and Zs kind of horseshoe into being ignorant about how computers work. Boomers never had them growing up, while Zoomers were born with phones in their hands using corporate apps and never learned how computers actually work. Those of us in between had to learn how they worked to use them.
I would be happy to never see a PDF again, can we not have something better?
I always think it's like complaining that nobody under a certain age can use the card catalog, microfiche or whatever. Technology changes. I have so many leftover now useless skills; please God may the ones related to Adobe rot on that same pile soon.
Me trying to show a zoomed where a file is on the network. Me: "Open file explorer" Zoomer: "What?" Me: "Files..." Zoomer: "Huh?" Me: "Just click the folder." Zoomer: "Ohhhhhh"
Almost as bad as watching my boomer coworker open notepad and drag a file into it. Just double click or right click open with. Ahhhhh.
The smartphone and it's consequences to the human society...
How did we fail so hard? Where did we go wrong?
I was born in 83, and grew up in the time where being a computer need required real work and knowledge of computers.
The things got easier and easier, and then the smartphones came.
These new kids literally don't know how to search a file directory because they are used to the apps magicing stuff where it needs to be.
Is there some magic to rotating a PDF? I just opened one and there's a button in Firefox saying "Rotate clockwise" and "Rotate anticlockwise". Are we talking something rotating and then saving the PDF so it stays rotated or just rotating it after it's already loaded? Or is this about rotating the PDF so it can be printed out?
I'm old, Gandalf. I may not look it, but I feel this meme in my bones.
You're old
They are really more alike than any other two generations.
i disagree. Training boomers is easier because they know what computers are. Zoomers often see computers as "web browsing machines" or "gaming machines"
Converting a PDF to Excel repeatedly on Adobe by clearing the browsing history each time, saves you hundreds a year.
Please don't lump me in with the iPad kids.
Can't blame a generation that wasn't raised on computers as well as you can't blame a generation that was raised by algothrims. I'm a millennial too, one of the older ones, and I have felt my tech literacy decay over the past ten years as the cancer that is silicon valley has spread and dominated the internet. It is to the point that I feel so trapped when I try to do anything online that becoming passive feels like the only choice if you play their game.
I have the benefit of remembering what the internet used to be like and what it still has the potential to be in the future, but the youths of today never experienced that. To them the internet is a feeding machine that encourages nay grooms them into becoming passive consumers. I can't blame someone who literally never got the chance to learn because some tech bro scumbags in America decided that they should abuse their power to turn people into addicts.
All my homies hate excel
the x and millieials designed a system to keep them employed and minimized the number of future prospects to replace them. saying with half sarcasm
