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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
Unfortunately the tech literate of us are in the minority.
Almost all consumer tech is targeted to the lowest common denominator which is either Dorris, the 68 year old lady from you legal department who prints off emails to read them. Or Jessylyn the Zoomer thats only ever used an iPhone and cant learn anything that take longer than 10 seconds to teach.
This has me wondering, are young people actually getting LESS pc literate? I'm sure there's studies about that? It's never occurred to me that growing up with computers but without smartphones was peak conditions for becoming tech literate.
Yes. They don't even know where to find files during their college classes
Can confirm this. I teach a programming class and about two years ago my brain exploded when I was helping a student debug a problem said "o, you tried to reference the file but it's actually up one directory and inside another one so you'll need to include the full (relative) path"
The blank look of "what the hell are you talking about" threw me for a loop. So, then we talked about file systems for awhile...
I've done support for sysadmins and I've run into a lot of them who don't understand the concept of relative or absolute paths. A couple weeks ago I had to explain how password hashing works to people working for a huge aerospace company.
I think most people learn to use computers like they learn to use a car, in that they understand the rituals they need to perform to get it to do the thing they want. They lack understanding of what's going on under the hood so when something goes wrong they can't fall back on knowledge and figure out what went wrong, they have to learn an entirely new routine to fix it instead of learning the principles and thinking critically.
Adeptus Mechanicus Intensifies
Are we sure this is zoomers being less tech literate, and not just being a common issue, but used in a way to shit on the next generation? I dealt with the same shit in highschool with other millennials, so this feels so much like those "Millennials are killing X" articles by out of touch boomers writing clickbait.
Working IT for close to 2 decades , I'm not convinced the users are getting dumber, as they've always been dumb af about technology. Maybe it's because I'm out of end user support and don't have to deal with modern stupidity, but talking to my support staff I don't hear anything that I haven't facepalms through my skull about before.
The rank-and-file "I'm not a computer person" users are more or less unchanged and you won't see much difference there.
What's happening is that you have this huge swathe of people who are technically "familiar with computers" but still have no idea how they work because the details are obfuscated or hidden in most modern systems.
You won't see the difference in support. You're most likely to see the difference in teaching, especially in areas that attract people who have an interest in technology.
Meanwhile, my interns at work, who are a couple years younger than me, though we all are gen z, who had the chance of using AI at college whereas I graduated before chatgpt was a thing four years ago:
Uh, sir, there's no internet. How am I supposed to complete the Jupiter notebook if I can't even remember how to code on my own.
Hey chatgpt, how do I use X formula in excel...
Where's copilot?
...index? Isn't that one of the fingers? Oh, database index? Dunno, ask chatgpt.
etc, etc
Tbf this happens to me sometimes when i have to use windows haha
But it makes sense. The more intuitive UIs became, the less incentive you have to understand what the PC actually does.
But like, is there studies about it? I didn't find anything on a cursory DuckDuckGo search, just anecdotal articles
It was awhile ago but there was an article saying that newer generations are PC illiterate because they grow up using smartphones. ~~Apparently~~ Smartphones and PCs are different skill sets.
Ive heard rumors that a portion of smartphone native youth cant figure out how to use a folder/directory
I personally believe interests plays a large role, tech evolved where 90% of things CAN be done on a phone so there is nothing really pushing people to learn about “older” tech.
The general enshitification of technology also plays a large role, almost everything is designed to manage your data while limiting users control. The my documents folder got replaced by a “recent” tab and a search box.
My opinion: yes but also no.
The proportion of the population that is has genuine, full command of any computer at their disposal probably isn't all that much bigger than it was a few decades ago. Meanwhile, commodification of computing technology has put a gobsmacking amount of firepower in the hands of millions of people that have no earthly idea how it actually works, or how crippled their experience is. So by raw headcount, the experts and tech literate are proportionally a smaller group amongst all computer users. But as a percentage of the general population, probably not.
If I could provide one crucial takeaway from all this, it's to not conflate technology use with literacy.
Absolutely. So many of the young new hires have no idea what a file is, how to find, edit, copy/paste/move a file, any of it. All they know is how to use is apps that vomit data to them in a “feed” type delivery style. Want them to analyze business trends? You need an app that shows them pre-made charts in a feed, they don’t know and will not learn how to collect data sources and build those charts themselves though
That's the issue here, we techies are not the target audience anymore. Back when we started using Windows it was aimed at us because you had to understand it to use it. It's dumbed down because it's not made for people who care how it works or who want customisation.
Separately from that, it drives me mad how warped the idea of "consent" is in Windows (and in tech in general). "Later" is not the opposite of "Yes" goddammit!
Imagine sexual consent was similarly warped: Hey Becky, you wanna have sex? You can only answer "Yes, right now!" or "Maybe later," and I'll keep asking you FOREVER. So, what will it be?
Maybe later
Windows does give off the vibes of the type of person who does that tbh. See: “I see you’ve been interacting with me in the ways you generally have to, have you considered interacting with me in these ways? Oh you know that competitor isn’t nearly as good as I am, look at all the ways I copied them”
Even teenagers know that no means no
Why doesn't Microsoft?
- A meme I saw on /g/
Windows SP (Sex Pest edition)
Windows 7 was peak. Everything after that has been getting worse and worse every iteration.
I was an XP fan. 7 was cool, too, though.
My favorite was when my new Windows 11 laptop started automatically backing up my files to OneDrive without telling me, then STOPPED LETTING ME SEND AND RECEIVE EMAILS because my OneDrive was full. Full of stuff that I never wanted to back up.
So one of my main email accounts, which I've used within the free tier limits for 20ish years, suddenly went dark because I signed into Windows.
Of course while investigating, the UI offered helpful options like:
(Not depicted: "Free up some space," "Disable backups")
Epilogue: After several rounds of disabling backups, then deleting the stuff in OneDrive, then Windows deciding that I couldn't have wanted that and backing all my stuff up again anyway, I finally fixed it by deleting some key directories so the backup would just fail.
i had the same shit with google drive recently, legitimately had to CTRL A and delete everything. It should genuinely be criminal to not have "delete all button" Though to be fair, i think it kind of did tangentially a little bit? It was hidden behind like three menus, and didn't properly update, and i still dont think i have everything deleted from there, i have no idea what google is doing honestly.
Delete some key directories
My grandfather is in need of a new computer, im not gonna try to Linux pill him, which leaves me with a windows 10 machine that will be EOL this year, and just hope nothing breaks with time. I think he would stop using technology if he saw the constant nags and popups in 11.
Older folks normally do just fine if you set up some desktop shortcuts and bookmarks. He's likely gone through a few Windows versions and figured it out, after all.
I dunno, Linux Mint Cinnamon is pretty dang close to the standard Windows 7 experience. He'll have an adjustment period of about 2 weeks running into minor differences and then not have any issues.
Oh I am sure of that, thats how I got into Linux :p
But now convince a 70 year old man that the one thing he has been consistently using for almost a decade and a half is in need of a change.
But really I may push him on it again, I've assured him he can get to his excel documents and all that but it doesnt seem like enough and is now irate with the ads in solitare
But now convince a 70 year old man that the one thing he has been consistently using for almost a decade and a half is in need of a change.
You mean like installing Windows 11 when he's used to Windows 10 or even older? 😁
He's on 10 now, with some gripes that I likely could regedit, it really depends how harsh w10 EOL goes and how hard they try to fill some landfills
Can you get away with just installing it and telling him it's the new windows?
Obligatory "switch to Linux" comment.
I had that problem and that solution did resolve it.
Unfortunately it made me the weird lady at the bar recommending people try operating systems
"What'll you have to drink?"
"I use arch, btw"
Just give me the hops, yeast, and water and I’ll compile it myself.
Yes I use arch, how did you know
Hey weird lady, what would you recommend?
I like Garuda but you should probably try something more stable. Plasma 6 is nice though.
Do your research and focus on your priorities. That said I think neon is probably what I’d recommend to my wife
I haven't bought a new car since 2004. How fucked am I when I need a new one?
Very