- cross-posted to:
- lemmydirectory@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Memes@europe.pub
- memes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- lemmydirectory@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Memes@europe.pub
- memes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27501866
source: @n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca
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Just think about gen alpha
Gen X checking in here. I’m actually happy to be left out of the memes. Carry on.
I always feel like Gen X should be labeled as the “forgotten generation”.
I am gen z and know how to use a computer
Most of us should have been taught how to use computers in school then we expand our knowledge from there on our own
Is this an american only problem?
I’m not American. I’m also Gen z, but the older parts are typically better at computers.
People are as experienced in computers as their use case is
No one is better at computers than someone else, everyone has different tasks and workflows they use them for
Computer skill isn’t linear
It’d be more accurate to say someone is more experienced in their industry area or specific skill, they just use a computer to make the tasks they perform easier
Computers are so intergrated into most things theese days that it’d be very hard to find someone not using one to make their life easier and most jobs are using computers to make it easier and organise better
I felt like an idiot the other day. Customer sent in a pdf with confidential information. I needed to upload the document without the confidential information but only have the free Adobe. I normally redact the information in paint but paint wouldn’t accept the file format.
I ended up asking a gen x teammate and she instantly told me to use the snipping tool which solved my problem. Thank you Gen X coworkers
As a dev, the divide between apps users and computer software users is fascinating. My mom can do things in instagram or whatsapp that I didn’t even know possible… but put her in front of a modern computer with a simple application and she’s completely lost! I try to explain that it’s exactly the same as her phone its just a larger screen/physical keybaord with different apps, doesn’t seem to help.
As an IT worker… it’s so depressing that our education systems don’t really train people for work. At all.
“sure, they grew up with technology, they’ll be fine”
They grew up in the age of the smartphone and apps. They never had to learn to understand technology.
I have to teach fresh college graduates how to navigate network folders. It’s wild.
Classic Lemmy Linux users forgetting that access to a PC and the knowledge to use it is a privilege not afforded to most unlike budget smartphones which cost less than the keyboard you own and are becoming more and more of a necessity than a trivial toy as it was when we first had them.
Lamenting generational failures is a pastime reserved for the old to soothe their egos. If you actually care, understand the systemic reasons why young people are less tech literate and take the steps to reach them.
access to a PC and the knowledge to use it is a privilege not afforded to most
Yes and no. Computers have never been cheaper, but back in the 90’s and 2000’s there was only The Computer :TM:. Now a computer is in your pocket, on a tablet, a laptop, or a desktop. You can get a PC for cheaper than a smartphone (beelink anyone?)
I don’t blame zoomers for not knowing proper desktop/laptop computer usage. You can do basically everything without them these days. But it is an objective fact that the consequence is lower computer literacy. Whether that’s a big deal or more like not knowing how to write cursive is up to you and largely depends on what job they plan on holding one day. This may comes as a shock to Lemmy users but in the 2020’s you can completely function without ever touching a mouse and keyboard.
So no, access is not necessarily a privilege unless we are talking about populations that already can’t access smart phones and tablets, in which case that’s a decades-old problem and not relevant. That’s just basic access to any computer device writ large, not a discussion about PC’s.
computers have never been cheaper
while that might be true for the e-waste teirs of pcs, that idea is laughable for anything actually usable. just take a look at nvidia’s pricing, and I don’t mean msrp I mean the actual price you actually pay at checkout.
Are we seriously going to get elitist about what PC kids are using to learn the basics?
My $120 beelink runs my server on elementary OS and can encode/stream 3x 4K streams without any issue. It’s plenty capable for teaching kids how to use computers.
I understand the reasons, but so many people I’ve had to deal with don’t seem to want to learn.
Bingo. I have noticed a huge downfall in curiosity and engagement with not only technology, but pretty much everything in the world. People just want to be spoon-fed and will fight you throw a hissy fit rather than just… learn or make an effort to figure things out on their own.
I used to be a part of a DIY repair space for tech and mechanics and left because around 2022 it went from fun to just… a bunch of lazy people showing up and whining that other people were not doing the work for them. And you’d explain it was a DIY space for people to self-learn and they would just give you this vague look and get angry and then complain that ‘I thought you were suppose to do it for me.’
I don’t know what it is, social media or phone addiction or what. It seems to be just as bad will millennials now as any other gen. People just… don’t want to try anymore at anything. And trying is the only way you properly learn anything.
Also, people don’t seem interesting in figuring tech stuff out, its so easy to just google an error message, and read what it says.
You say that yet we all know Google has gone to shit the last 2 years. Not to mention all the good forums are either shuttering or putting up motes so they can’t be scraped, which means they can’t be found. Discord has been a disaster for tech solution searching online.
Sure, but google an error message + one or two tiny details still will 70% of the time return something useful.
Its gotten worse, but not that bad yet.
Yet!
Most people carry a smartphone more expensive than my all organs combined to be fair, at least in US.
Linux and technology in general is not that hard as long as you aren’t scared of clicking everything and messing around. And I say this as someone who didn’t have internet access until 2020.
I bought a 2013 MacBook Air for $60 a year ago to take with me on a backpacking trip.
It is running the very latest release of EndeavourOS and runs it well. It can do video calls. Honestly, there is little it cannot do.
You can use it to learn to program C, C++, Rust, Python, Go, Java, C#, and F#. It runs Distrobox and Docker so you can learn about containers. I guess after using QEMU/KVM to learn about VMs. You can use it to run K3S. You can run Postman, RestAssured, and Selenium to learn about Web APIs and testing. It runs WASM. You can orchestrate AWS or Azure from it as it runs both Terraform and OpenTofu great. It can run a host of cybersecurity tools including BurpSuite. You can run both SQL and Document databases. You can use it to package your own software and contribute to Linux distro development. You can emulate older machines and even run digital design tools and PCB layout. Obviously it runs all the major modern web browsers and a couple different Office suites. It can even do basic video editing and run smaller LLMs. It can run Steam if you are happy with older games. I know it can do all these things because I have.
Without going on and on, I think you could use it to rotate a PDF.
It comes with keyboard, trackpad, screen, and networking built in. It takes up hardly any space. And it is considerably less expensive than most phones and tablets. Of course, there are many less expensive computers that would also do the trick if you cannot afford $60 and just want to learn.
I don’t think you can argue that basic computer skills are elitist. We are not talking F1 racing here.
It’s the 1% vs the working class, not generation vs generation.
Wrong thread
I am a zoomer, and this generation as a whole is a lot worse at technology.
Its not something that’s happened for no reason, smartphones become more popular and simple to use technology, and older people assuming these people will be good with tech as they grew up with it are big factors.
The 1% is causing a lot of problems, but this largely isn’t by them.
I never blame kids for the young adults they become. When zoomers don’t understand tech, it’s because the adults have a) dumbed down all the tech in their lives to the point of designing and selling purely passive consumption machines, and b) sucked all the inquisitiveness out of kids ability to learn. If you put real computers around kids, and share genuine excitement at learning things and making stuff, they absorb it like a sponge.
I don’t blame them for being bad a tech, I do blame the ones who refuse to educate themselves on it.
Don’t feel bad. Every generation thinks their tech is the peak of technology, older tech is slow and useless, new tech is fancy, dumbed down, and unnecessary.
Heck, I already got called ancient because I ran NSLOOKUP from the command line instead of going to a website and having their page run the command from a GUI.
But…its the same…never mind.
deleted by creator
I teach high school and it’s amazing to me how much these kids don’t know how to use a computer. They can click a button and get to tik-tok. They read the first answer the AI gives them. That’s it.
I keep telling them they should be better at computers than an old lady like me.
They read the first answer the AI gives them.
This is why Im terrified of my parents learning how to use ChatGPT.
My dad still falls for satire. It took us years to convince him the tabloids in supermarkets about Bigfoot weren’t real.
He’s not a smart guy. But He’s still my dad though.
Your comment made me think:
It’s one thing if they aren’t great at using computers to be productive, but for the love of God children please don’t trust what the computer or the company selling it tells you!
I’ve long said that I believe Millennials, as a generational cohort, are the best at typing that ever has been and ever will be. We were the first generation where adults really recognized that we’d be using computers our entire lives and took steps to teach typing. But, so much more importantly than that, we socialized through typing. I had typing classes in school, sure, but I learned to type quickly on AIM and in chat rooms.
Earlier generations only really typed for business or school. Later generations socialize over phones, so they, too, only use a physical keyboard for school and business.
I guess I should amend this theory to include all tech literacy in general.
There wasn’t voice Chat in early games and you had to type fast to communicate and not die.
Exactly this
Early Starcraft got me from ~10 wpm to near 100. You had to type those messages fast before your base was invaded and you died. If I had been born either 5 years earlier or later I don’t think I’d be nearly as fast a typer as I am today.
that’s how I learned to touch type without “learning” It intentionally. never bothered using home keys but I can type at 100-ish WPM and 95% accuracy
Same… My left hand home keys are wasd because I truly learned to type playing Team Fortress Classic online and needing to communicate without any voice chat. All the classes I took in school for typing didn’t get me anywhere, but needing to warn the engineer in the flag room he had 2 incoming because I was down… That got me typing with gusto.
Honestly, these days with voice chat everywhere, I feel like I am kind of out of practice and probably have slowed down since I do more typing at work than at home.
I remember trying to type really fast with a controller a while ago when my mic broke.
Typing was taught to boomers and genx first dude. In fact, as a liminal i’d readily say i’ve had an arseload more typing “teaching” than you have - both keyboard and typewriter- and i’ll wager my mother in the age of typewriters had even more.
I think you’re missing my point. I’m not saying nobody ever was taught to type in earlier generations. I’m saying that millennials were the first where there was a widespread recognition that typing was a valuable skill EVERYONE needed to learn, regardless of your future life path. Of course there were people getting trained to type ever since the first keyboards were invented. I mean, there were people as long ago as the 1870s learning to type on the earliest mass-produced typewriters.
I’m talking about a generational cohort as a whole, not individual select cases.
And I’m also talking about the difference between typing being a skill you learn for school/work vs something you use for socialization.
No, i’m not missing your point.
I took typing class in high school. On a typewriter. Gen X. My mom was a trained stenographer in her younger years.
X here as well. But 78. So i got to take advantage of the digital age without having my teen stupidity immortalised on it. Truly the sweetest of spots.
What’s up Oregon Trail Generation bros!? We really did have a unique environment for growing up.
Childhood with no social media and basically no internet, wandering or biking around the neighborhood, finding porn in the woods… then computers and video games kept becoming more of a thing as we grew, and for many of us starting college meant the jump from connecting to the internet with a modem at kilobit speeds to connecting straight to Ethernet at megabit speeds.
And even though internet communication was fairly popular in our early adulthood, we mostly made it out of college, and maybe even dating if we were lucky, before social media took hold.
And now in middle age we still somehow get to be the “computer people” even though all these bright young minds came after us. But at least those of us with gigabit internet and OLED screens can really appreciate them.
Meeeeeemorieeees
The only generation that had to learn how to record on VHS and burn a DVD. Madness.
I am a bit older but similar. My dad was an early adopter of computers even though he had zero idea how to use one.
The typewriter generation are probably faster overall because they don’t make mistakes.
Being able to delete any error makes you far less careful.
Sure, modern programs will autocorrect for you, but autocorrect to what?
Microsoft word fixing tiny mistakes like reversed i and e or other very common errors has made me an absurdly lazy typist.
Yeah, it was funny teaching my grandmother to use a computer… She couldn’t use a mouse, but she typed really fast!
Indeed. I joke that I can type 100 words per minute but that 32 of them are backspace.
I can type fast, but I have to hit the backspace really often.
As a Zoomer, I also had typing classes, but I learned how to type because I wanted to be able to quickly send messages in Minecraft when I was like 7 years old 🙃
I write a lot on my keyboard, and have been for a long time. But my left hand is not on SDF but on AWD because that’s the default hand position for gaming/shooters. 😬
Doesn’t stop me from typing fast or blind though. Otherwise I would have done something about it.
This one I don’t mind. Typing is a highly specific skill that was hugely important for a particular generation of tech. I am basically never limited by typing speed at this point - both programming and writing don’t require really fast typing, and data entry is relegated to history. Now the lack of understanding how computers work, fundamental principles and skills, that’s a serious problem.
I didn’t teach my older zoomer kid to type. He learned on his own out of the necessity of chatting with friends in online games, played on his computer. He uses the first two fingers of both hands, and he’s faster than me, who learned in school and has been a touch-typist for 40 years.
I think we’re moving away from keyboard and mouse, anyway. It will be AR headsets with voice, eye tracking, and hand gestures for most use, and keyboards will be used only when direct input is needed.
Looking at the keyboard and rapid poking works fine for chatting, but it does kinda suck for writing or editing anything complex. Honestly, this is how most millennials are - fast 2-finger typists who developed their skill with ICQ or MSN messenger or whatever. Really sucks when you try to show them VIM.
To be fair, PDFs suck and the only software that handles them well is paid and proprietary
Libreoffice is pretty decent with PDFs imo
Unfortunately in LibreOffice all the pages in a PDF need to render with the same orientation and size :/ It adds whitespace to pages to make them all the same size, and this whitespace remains even when exporting as PDF.
There’s been a formal request made to change that, but it’s been years with no movement.
The Linux Foundation really should start sponsoring them.
From my experience, not very much, at least for editing PDFs without fucking up the fonts
I guess
Do Adobe PDF things handle all Google fonts?
I don’t know. I just know that Acrobat works well, while Libreoffice barely works when editing (and in general the software was buggy)
Yeah, I’ve only used it a little bit so I don’t really know
PDF gear is free (for now) and excellent
Proprietary :-/ but might still be interesting nevertheless
Thanks for sharing
There’s one generation between boomers and zoomers? I’m pretty confident I know who it is you’re forgetting.
The Gen X erasure is real
Meh, whatever.
Gen X: the forgotten generation.
And nobody taught us shit, we know how to do stuff because we had to figure it out ourselves. That’s why they don’t notice us. But… whatever.
LOAD"*",8,1generationI would but i’m too busy blowing on my atari carts
X MARKS THE HIDDEN TREASURE
Gen X and Y
I’ve trained a lot of 18-22 y/os in the last 10 years and they are fine. Let’s not become the boomers please…
Yeah, being dumb is hardware-agnostic. As some guy put it, “being stupid isn’t a big deal anymore; some of my best friends are stupid”.
It just stunlocks me a little bit as younger people have been around tech their whole life, unlike boomers, who were born before computers.“been around tech their whole life” more like they have a locked down phone, locked down game console and MAYBE a desktop computer. It’s too rounded out and consumer friendly now, you never have to peek under the hood.
Idk, most likely its region/class dependant because I had dumb phones, some very early androids, and an Athlon 64 3000+ pc and I’d call myself a zoomer
edit: before that I had some ancient family pc but it’s only relevance is getting me entertained, didn’t tinker with it or anything. Also my old phone’s 4.4 android was my favorite because it was polished enough while still letting you do dumb shit with it
I was born in 04, I work in tech so it’s definitely dependant on a lot of factors, I think the biggest being siblings/parents that are into tech. My oldest brother was into tech so he taught me a lot of piracy stuff from a young age.
Can confirm, had a similar upbringing
Younger millennials down have had their exposure be primarily gardenwalled, locked down equipment. Tablets and smartphones and apps, oh my! The sort of thing that discourages casual exploration and experimentation.
They are fuckin’ skin masters though.
Boomers have been seeing changes in communications, culture, and technology as revolutionary as anything in the last 20 years, for their entire lives. Things didn’t start getting wild just recently. It has been a romp for the last 200 years.
I am a 30 yr old boomer in uni with 18 year olds and they are mostly fine. We are learning programming so the base qualification is to not dumb with computers. BUT My teacher friends are supporting OPs screencap where children do not understand computers at all. Theres plenty of tales of students being asked to log into a 15 minute online test and entire lesson is spent teaching them how to log in one by one. The issue is they click the biggest and flashiest button and quit once they discover it does not lead them where they want to go.
There is plenty more evidence that the next generation is unable to handle anything more complex than most popular apps on phone. Is it really surprising when everything has been designed to just work and be streamlined so you don’t have to troubleshoot anymore.
“30 yr old boomer” …not without a time machine.
The issue is they click the biggest and flashiest button and quit once they discover it does not lead them where they want to go.
Anyone that ever pirated anything learns real quick that those are the buttons you avoid like the plague
I hope anyone who uses Google without an adblocker learns that very quick too.
Bait ads is the biggest attack vector to bring users to install malware.
They don’t learn, despite phone ads using the X button (the one supposed to close the ad) to open the fucking play store page
I legit have an acquaintance 15 years my junior regularly begging me for the the best torrent sites. And they’re pretty savvy for their generation
The thing is most of us cant even rotate a pdf, but we do know how to learn it.
Load up Adobe Acrobat, like the button that looks like it will rotate the document.
I assume that’s the process. Never needed to do it but I have no doubt I’d be able to work it out
Please, no, have mercy. Anything but the ad invested bloated Adobe Acrobat.
“like the button” - not sure if typo or using “like” to mean “click”.
Like that button. Love the button. Gently caress the button.
like that smash button
YES! being able to google (or read) goes a long way.
truth
I was pretty worthless with computers at 16 too.
Now I’m almost 40 and I’m working In the industry and slowly getting worse again
