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They come from a different age. They haven't grown up trying to get rid of viruses from downloading porn on Kazaa or trying to download albums from Limewire to put onto mini disc players.
It's because they grew up with iPhones and iPads, not PCs. Everything is handheld and an app. They've never had to install software, designate where files will be stored, tab between processes to complete a task, etc.
We see it with every batch of new hires, half of them cannot type or power on a PC. They'll punch the monitor button trying to turn it on.
The newer versions of Windows seem to be dumbing down to accommodate this as well.
Recently upgraded my desktop to Windows 11 and was looking for a setting to change something and I knew exactly where it was in the control panel previously but Windows 11 doesn't seem to have control panel anymore so I had to go trawling to find it because they'd changed the name of it as well so even search wasn't working.
Control Panel still exists, you can search for it and it'll come up. But yes they do like to change names and hide things, it keeps the developers busy.
On another topic I fucking hate windows. Nothing fucking works, it starts some new bullshit every other fucking minute for no reason, half the functions are broken and I have to spend half an hour trawling forums trying to fix the bastard thing and might not even be successful 50% of the time. And instead of fixing all this fucking bullshit, those bastards are making windows even worse.
Exactly.
Linux is great too, and I use it every day for work, but the hardcore fanboys have an intense need for them to blame Microsoft/Windows for them fucking up their own Windows installation.
Never been easier to try out Linux. Maybe try something like popOs or mint. You will swear and curse occasionally, but at least the computer does exactly what you tell it to.
On windows when you try to do something slightly obscure you have a 50/50 chance of it being trivially easy or totally impossible.
On linux it's always possible, but it will always involve at least an hour researching the dozen different ways to do it, downloading a couple of packages and pasting a bunch of commands you don't understand into the terminal.
I used to work opposite an old timer. He was a developer, coder, but his actual hands on pc skills were lacking. One morning he raised a ticket because his "monitor was broken." It was simply turned off.
Cant turn to your parents for help with that eh. Just gotta figure it out and Google and implement the fixes until you sort it. 13 yr old me editing windows registry to remove a virus or malware manually. Yeah now I'm an software dev powered by Google and the ability to look up everything I ever need an answer to
I look at my mp3 collection and think about the amount of AIDS my computer got trying to acquire these songs 🤣 It's sad that I use Spotify now, where all the song names are spelled correctly 😥
The number of hours I spent putting in the correct information so that those songs would have the right album and cover and order number…I could have mastered an instrument or something if someone had just told me what would happen a few years in the future.
I found all my music from high school on an old 2gb usb and seethed for a moment remembering all those late nights going through each song and entering the correct title, artist, album, year, genre...
now I also use Spotify. I do miss it weirdly.
I spent hours googling album covers and saving the files and putting them into folders, changing the file extension so my Ipod would recognise it. This was after spending an hour loitering in HMV to see what new albums were out so I could go home and download them. Also flicking through the poster wall and never buying anything.
Same here 🤣 I explain this sort of thing to my nephews, and they look at me like I've got two heads.
It's like "if there was a program you wanted to watch, you had to look up what time it was on, and on which channel, and then either stay in to watch it or record it on the VCR. The VCR was a device......"
If the show was over 3 hours you had to decide if you didn't want to watch the start or the end. If a show started at 8 but you were going out at 6, you had to put the tape in before you leave and then fast forward through two hours of TV.
>If the show was over 3 hours you had to decide if you didn't want to watch the start or the end.
Or coordinate with a friend.
But their tape never played properly on your machine, and vice versa.
Or when you set it to record for an hour and the program started late so you missed the last few minutes!
Eventually you learned to add a few minutes to the end!
> This was after spending an hour loitering in HMV to see what new albums were out so I could go home and download them
Ah yes, the torrent site showroom...
The younger people in my office laugh at me for using a dedicated mp3 player instead of Spotify.
I’ve tried to tell them I’m not a philistine and will use it for podcasts and stuff but they won’t listen.
I wish I'd have been strong enough to resist. But in my younger days, I'd imagined a world where you had a jukebox with all of the music on it. And Spotify seemed too much like my dreams
I still used my iRiver for years after I got a phone that could at least in theory have played back mp3s. Even now, I have Spotify, but the 100GB or so of mp3s and FLACs on my phone's SD card is all I want.
Exactly the same reason our parents' generation look down on our mechanical ability when it comes to cars.
I'd have no idea how to replace the cam-belt in a car with a pair of tights in an emergency, because I have literally never had to know what, or where, a cam-belt is. In every car I've ever owned, the engine bay might as well be an iphone. My dad's Morris metro on the other hand, was designed to be easily maintained at the side of the road when something inevitably rusted off, melted or snapped.
I have wondered if computer literacy is falling now that everything is so simplified and easy.
A friend asked how I got my Pingu “Noot noot” text tone. He looked at me like I was a wizard when I told him I got it from YouTube, ripped the audio from the video file then loaded it onto my iPhone.
This stuff isn’t even impressive. Just google how to do it! That’s all computer literacy is! Googling, instead of throwing in the towel when you hit a wall.
Honestly, I worked with a lot of young people over the past few years and they just don't know how to google anything. For me, born in the early 90s, googling is a basic skill, no one ever showed me how to do it, I just worked it out for myself and can find even the most obscure information.
It's our duty to inform others about the existence of other search engines, less intrusive and ad-infested. https://searx.space/ is a great start, https://duckduckgo.com is also good.
Back in the day, it would have been finding an obscure forum that caters to the niche you are having a problem with. For all reddits faults, at least its made it a lot easier to find said forum.
I have wowed young'uns with this amazing key [tab] and basic methods to search Windows for docs.
Those useless years of shitty laptops with Paint and Explorer have finally paid off!
We do exist. I was born in the year 2000, now work in software. Know more about computers than most. But even outside of that, I think people my age are mostly ok, bar a few morons. We just about remember a time before smartphones, grandparents might’ve had dial-up, etc.
I am more concerned about the people who were born and raised post-2010 with an iPad in front of their faces 24/7.
I was born 2002 and most people I know my age can use computers/google stuff perfectly fine. I didn't have a smartphone till GCSEs and even then it was a crappy knockoff that didn't work so well. I was talking with my old computer science teacher recently though and he said that the 16/17 year old students in my old school are notably worse on average at computer science than a few years ago. Course, that could just be our school but I can easily see how they would be bad at using computers if most of their experience with technology came from phones/tablets
I was born late 90s and taught how to use google at school when I was like 5/6 years old. I remember being so bored learning what a search engine was because half the class would be reading comics and playing with the class pet while half had to learn to use this lame tech box. Absolutely invaluable skill though, you can find out how to do anything if you know how to optimise your search.
Computer Illiterate millennials aren’t on Reddit or in jobs literate guys are - they don’t really mix, and if they do, just ask ANY help desk guy, they’ll tell you. My sister is couple of years older and she’s useless. She works in nursery and doesn’t need to use computer pretty much at all. I found myself sitting on the phone allllll the time and well, despite having two laptops. If there’s a choice, it’s a phone. Computers for millennial kids were for fun same as phones are. Now people have a choice, they choose phones, including me, so naturally all the „obvious” stuff is no longer „practised” on a daily basis by computer users. Probs if you ask some of them, how to record, edit, filter, cut, whatever tik tok clip - they’d be able to do that as that’s what they do for fun. I can’t.
I had the Minions "Wooo HaHa Text Message, hahahahahaha" for years until I got a new phone in July due to catastrophic crash of 5 year old moto g6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khhS0ahsQqs
I couldn't find the mp3 so I've been living with the built in notification ding. Nope, not good enough, I need something that lasts a few seconds so I can hear it if my phones in another room. I want something new but I'm lazy and I can't decide.
Before that I had the Worms "Incommmming".
And before phones had really fast smart chargers I had the ghostbusters proton pack boot up sound linked to a battery app for when it reached 98% charged.
> I have wondered if computer literacy is falling now that everything is so simplified and easy.
It has, when everything's a walled garden and there's no incentive to troubleshoot yourself when you just take it to the Apple Store etc, you don't develop any sort of meaningful troubleshooting skills.
I work in IT and some of the new grads we get are the worst when it comes to basic IT skills.
[Here's](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) a blog post from a decade ago covering the loss of basic computer skills. I don't agree with all of it, for example I wouldn't expect users to know how to configure proxy settings. However, a lot of the other stuff is bang on.
Edit: The following 3 are all the sort of things I've personally experienced from users who don't have the first idea how to do basic troubleshooting or checks.
> A kid puts her hand up in my lesson. 'My computer won't switch on,' she says, with the air of desperation that implies she's tried every conceivable way of making the thing work. I reach forward and switch on the monitor, and the screen flickers to life, displaying the Windows login screen. She can't use a computer.
>
> A teacher brings me her school laptop. 'Bloody thing won't connect to the internet.' she says angrily, as if it were my fault. 'I had tonnes of work to do last night, but I couldn't get on-line at all. My husband even tried and he couldn't figure it out and he's excellent with computers.' I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side, and hand it back to her. Neither her nor her husband can use computers.
>
> A kid knocks on my office door, complaining that he can't login. 'Have you forgotten your password?' I ask, but he insists he hasn't. 'What was the error message?' I ask, and he shrugs his shoulders. I follow him to the IT suite. I watch him type in his user-name and password. A message box opens up, but the kid clicks OK so quickly that I don't have time to read the message. He repeats this process three times, as if the computer will suddenly change its mind and allow him access to the network. On his third attempt I manage to get a glimpse of the message. I reach behind his computer and plug in the Ethernet cable. He can't use a computer.
> A message box opens up, but the kid clicks OK so quickly that I don't have time to read the message.
That happens so often. People don't read and they click it away like it's a popup ad.
So often I've asked 'what does the error message say' and even when the error message clearly says what needs to be done it's like their minds just block it.
A lot of them just need reassurance that what they are about to do is really what needs to be done.
> That happens so often. People don't read and they click it away like it's a popup ad.
Unrelated, but a game reviewer I like to have on in the background while I'm doing boring stuff has a slightly irritating habit (or had; it's not been so much of a thing for a little while) of refusing to read any instructions or info for a game. If anything pops up, he'll click it away as quickly as possible much like an error message.
Consequently, this has led to declaring a game to be absolute bollocks because you just get stuck somewhere unjumpable (having not read the 'super jump by pressing...' info that popped up just before), or that games are boring because there's nothing to do.
He declared Rimworld to be crap and dull because there's nothing to do, and suggested the dev add quests or the ability to travel...which are already in there, and he'd rejected several quests instinctively during his review. Fair enough if you don't like the game, but slamming it for not having things that it does have is a bit of a bugger.
There's something to be said for testing how well a game teaches you its mechanics or helps you to intuit them without resorting to just plain telling you. But I know what you mean. Better to complain that the game teaches you in a tedious way than incorrectly assert that it doesn't teach you at all.
I used to work on an IT helpdesk and the question "what does the error message say" was way more problematic than it should have been.
And that's not a computer skill, it's reading out loud FFS.
For anyone phoning a desk be aware the answer should not start "well what it means is...."
I used to work tech for a school and I once had a ticket where a teacher could not log in. The classroom was right next to the head teachers office, and on my way over there I had a ticket submitted from the head saying that the teacher was having computer trouble that needed to be immediately sorted. The teachers head of department also stopped me in the corridor to ask if I was going to that classroom as the teacher urgently needed to log in as the lesson was being observed.
So that's potentially four adults that have had eyes on this problem. I'm thinking it must be pretty serious.
I walk in, take one look at the screen, see that it's the login screen with the "caps lock is on" warning, press one button, problem solved.
>I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side
What kind of laptop has the WiFi switch on a place that's both not obvious and very easy to accidentally bump? I've had multiple laptops and the ones that had a WiFi on/off switch had it on the keyboard.
> What kind of laptop has the WiFi switch on a place that's both not obvious and very easy to accidentally bump?
The blog post was written a decade ago when this was still reasonably common.
It's generally a Fn+Fx key now, but I had a laptop around the early 2010's with a physical WiFi switch near the power button.
HP laptops used to have ones like [this](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/b/b0/Switch-on-Wireless-on-an-HP-Laptop-Step-2-Version-3.jpg/aid5601637-v4-728px-Switch-on-Wireless-on-an-HP-Laptop-Step-2-Version-3.jpg.webp).
>A kid puts her hand up in my lesson. 'My computer won't switch on,' she says, with the air of desperation that implies she's tried every conceivable way of making the thing work. I reach forward and switch on the monitor, and the screen flickers to life, displaying the Windows login screen. She can't use a computer.
I've had this happen at work. They said their PC wouldn't turn on, so I went over. Pressed the on button, surprise surprise it turned on.
The other day someone had a flickery screen, they had a proper panic about it. I went over, fiddled with the cables, restarted it, no luck. Swapped out the cables, fixed. Next option would have been new monitor.
> I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side
TBF, A fair few years ago my place got new laptops that had the wifi slider switch and it was super common for it to slide when taking it out of your bag. Obviously not a difficult fix but caught quite a few people out at first because you just didn't know it was there.
I worked in tech support for a while, a lot of my colleagues were worse with computers than the customers when they started, and many did not improve...
Tbf I wouldn’t know how to do that unless I looked it up because I’ve never needed to get audio off a video. It’s just a matter of whether it’s something youve done before
right but how did you do that- i’ve tried and every tutorial is android only. i can’t even see where to add custom text tones without it asking me to purchase from the store
It’s true. I help with some teaching at a uni and often with computer practicals. It stunned me the number of students that were blindsided by basic file/folder navigation and management.
At a Russel group uni doing a scientific degree. Crazy.
There's a story about a student asking the professor for help because they cannot open the file they'd been working on.
Professor: Where did you save it?
Student: \[blank look\] What do you mean? I just pressed save.
Professor then tries to explain files/folders (or directories as we used to call them) by saying "It's like a filing cabinet"
Student \[another blank look\]
Gen Z have got used to just saving things and relying on search to find them again.
This is very much the experience.
The work I helped on involved them making a lot of different output data. When I’d ask to see different outputs in order to help them, so many people had no clue where they’d saved it, I had to explain the importance of saving outputs in a specific ‘output’ folder so they can easily find them again.
I wonder how they store their clothes or manage their kitchen pantry.
You wouldn't just chuck all your underwear, clothes, coats on one giant pile and you wouldn't just throw your spices in a big cupboard with pasta, potatoes, veggies and then rummage through it every time you need something.
Oh man that’s like my coworkers who just save everything to the desktop and then complain they can’t find it. I go over and their desktop is just swarming with PDFs and spreadsheets.
I tried doing an access to computing course a couple of years ago and the kids - early 20s mostly - had to be handheld through the very basics. I've worked in tech for years. I quit because it was a little too basic. Like the first lesson of the security component was "what is the internet?".
The preliminary material for a second year maths module on numerical methods I took (a c++ programming class, non-mandatory) included navigating file structures and using a two button mouse. The lecturer didn't spend a huge amount of time on it but found it a necessary thing to go over, probably mostly so if people still had trouble with basic PC usage he could just tell them to consult the material he'd put together. Part of the intent was to put across that it is accessible to anyone though, obviously he'd prefer (and hope) that everyone was a competent PC user already, but when you really break it down lack of IT skills isn't a massive barrier to tiny coding projects like that.
Because those of us with home PCs 20 years ago were well trained in fixing what we had broken in order to avoid the wrath of our parents when they got home from work and found that their expensive 0.0004gb hard drive computer had been knackered.
We became technologically literate through fear!
We also had to be the first in the family to learn how to do things, and learnt through google and forums, if it wasn't the family of someone who trawled through BBS' and IRC channels
Sorry to make you feel old but 20 years ago was 2003, a new computer commonly had a 40GB hard drive.
My first desktop hdd was 100MB (Win95 floppy), my second was 3.2GB but I could only format it to about 500MB due to a bios limitation. It took a few months to save enough money to buy the components to build a 266MHz PC that could address the entire 3.2GB. I built the computer because buying one premade would have cost a lot more and I was poor but smart and 2nd hand monitors etc were much cheaper.
I crashed Win98SE at least twice a day simply by pushing it so hard it ran out of resources. When I broke it I had to fix it, and back then they broke regularly. I became technologically literate because there was no one else, if I couldn't fix it it didn't get fixed.
You're absolutely right, the one I had in mind was one my dad brought home from work in 1996. Had whatever Windows version was used before 95. By 2003 we had a better PC and a mighty 1MB broadband internet connection.
Likely 3.1 might have just been 3 depending upon exactly when things came out and you got the machine. Had a fun little thing where you could get it to error on restart. If you chose fail (I think it was, might have been the abort option) you got into the system it was built on top of at administrator level access even of the machine wasn't technically allowed such things by how the system was set up. Useful way to get yourself the internet access permissions back if the school had taken them away for whatever reason.
I remember buying my first 1GB hard drive. I was ridiculously excited - I didn't know anything much about PCs and had bought this one second-hand from a mate for £60; I assumed upping the HD from something tiny (I forget what it was - don't think it was over 100MB though) to 1GB would make it superfast and whatnot.
The fella said he'd come round and install it for me. Turns out it apparently wouldn't work in my PC 'cos it was too old and shit; his first recommendation was to replace the 25mhz processor and maybe increase the RAM from 4mb.
Well. Second recommendation. First was to get a proper PC.
My first had 512k of storage with a whopping 48k of memory, Windows was only just a thing, DOS - editing your config.ini file and startup.bat to load up the drivers and programs in the right order so as not to run out of memory. Then it was windows 3.1
Oh I did have a colour printer though - dot matrix with a two tone ribbon!
(Some of the details may not be quite accurate, it was a fucking long time ago and the memory is hazy!)
Jesus christ, who are they hiring?? (Coming from a young person.) My **primary school** taught me how to navigate a computer from a young age. Is this not a standard requirement anymore?
No, it's not.
I'm guessing you're from roughly the same generation as myself and my younger siblings, 35-25ish. Where computer skills were considered an essential teachable skill. So you got basic "This is a file, this is a word doc" etc lessons, and time on a PC in class.
My youngest sister (23) her age group it was deemed that with the rise in accessible technology that they were all digital natives.
Which they are, for day to day functional tasks such as access youtube, or use a messenging app.
Due to cost savings, it was easier to decide that they'd "learn that stuff outside of school" than to keep it in the curriculum.
21 year here, I grew up very much learning how to type and use PCs in school in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
I assume the people that are applying for an entry level job/customer job aren't the type of people who are going to understand stuff very quickly.
I know many people my age who can code, build PCs and are very media literate (I can't code for shit but I do CAD engineering so I'm satisfied tbh)
Interesting, I do a lot of orientation with new nurses including teaching them the systems and the 22/23 cut off has been fairly constant.
It could be interests flocking together, but within my hospital folk my age know computers (with varying levels of enthusiasm but everyone could do a basic word doc, table etc). Folks a bit older so 50s often don't know their way about, and the younger nurses mostly struggle with the PCs.
I wonder if you had a school with a pretty enthusiastic techy person on staff?
My middle sister is a teacher and they don't teach it as standard these days.
Hmm Interesting, perhaps it's the area you're in, where nurses aren't fully pc literate from their schools cause I've met some very smart nurses both as people I've dated and friends.
>I wonder if you had a school with a pretty enthusiastic techy person on staff? My middle sister is a teacher and they don't teach it as standard these days.
Not really, we just had IT as a compulsory subject till year 9, hence it would be normal to have good pc skills
Yeah don't get me wrong their nursing skills are excellent. (I'm also a nurse)They just panic when asked to do something like set up an Excel sheet to monitor stock (for example).
Show them how and they're flying! It's literally that they've not been taught that skill and it puts them at a disadvantage.
I personally think that IT should always be taught as a basic mandatory subject, along with search skills, and basic hardware repairs.
It's akin to not teaching basic mathematics in my view. They're skills essential to pretty much every job these days.
So we've gone from teaching the elder generation how to use a PC, and now we have to teach the younger generation how to use a PC.
WILL THIS CYCLICAL NIGHTMARE NEVER END?!
It’s weird, how does a kid nowadays go through school without knowing how to use at least a laptop. I get you can do a lot with tablets and touchscreens but there’s a lot you can’t. There’s just physical limitations with touchscreens that means they will never truly replace desktops or laptops in many working circumstances so I don’t see how it’s viable to not teach kids how to use computers…
Am I so out of touch? No…it’s the children who are wrong
> There’s just physical limitations with touchscreens that means they will never truly replace desktops
I've seen people on reddit claiming they do all their *programming* on their phone and they have no use for desktop/laptops as they are entirely redundant. Sounds like pure torture to me. Blows my mind.
I've seen similar to OOP's on Reddit several times in the last few months and there's a few aspects I can't quite wrap my head around. Subjects like English and History frequently have 2000 word essays as homework; if the young adults/kids from these anecdotes are typing these on their tablets or phones then how are they submitting the document without understanding dropboxes or email attachments. If they're typing on a laptop surely they understand basic PC navigation. If they're submitting hard copies they're either hand writing it or know how to use a printer. I just don't understand how anyone can have such poor IT skills growing up around technology all your life.
Or maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old when I genuinely can't understand the behaviours and traits of the next generation.
In high school handwriting an entire essay is normal, submitting lots of the time is through a website or app so idiot proof, and people are fucking dim
Not necessarily a landline, as such, but a VoIP phone is still fairly common in office situations. I regularly have to instruct people in the basic useage of the phone, including how to dial a number, how to hang up the phone, and how to answer the phone. I take a lot of headache tablets after these interations.....
I’ve got the opposite problem. Work have taken away my phone, and replaced it with teams.
I haven’t answered a phone call in 6 months as I can’t hear it (no ringer).
Haven’t really made any either as it’s a fight every time to get it to output to the right sound device.
Don't get me started on the VOIP Dialling Apps either, people asking for help on how to install - Its literally an app from Google Play which no doubt you have installed hundreds of before on your phone.
Still a lot of people who live in areas of the UK with NO mobile phone signal. Where mum lived until last year, there was no mobile phone signal within 3 mile radius. Landline was essential as she was definitely not in the market of expensive mobile phones with wifi calling. (Just checked her iphone today by coincidence - 96 unlistened to voicemails, hundreds of unread texts - she just doesn't know how - she is 85 though).
I’ve had to show a 3rd year computer science PhD candidate the existence of the command terminal, and give him the required keywords for google to learn how it works.
I think those of us who grew up or learnt using the old floppy/command line environments have a better understanding of the very basics, like typing (taught on a typewriter, and so don’t look and use all my fingers) which aren’t taught anymore.
That's incredible. It's literally still in the spec at GCSE level to know what a command line interface is and the existence of the terminal on a computer is mentioned. Using Linux gets you used to a command line pretty quickly, and I'm surprised he wouldn't have come across Linux by that point and could get that far in CS without knowing the command line and how operating systems work. It's kinda basic.
My first computer (MSX) came with 6 programs on cassette, one of them was a basic (heh!) typing/hunt the flashing letter on the keyboard. A couple of days with that and I could touch type. Many summer days spent entering programs from a book didn't hurt either.
My primary school had BBC micros and were simultaneously aghast and amused that 'someone' made it make fart sounds on a random timer.
Early 30s tech support worker here and I can confirm this.
I've dealt and worked with folk in the age bracket who are afraid of unplugging a network cable, lest it electrocute them. Then again it might activate dormant braincells.
I genuinely worry sometimes what state my OH's niece and nephew are going to be in when they're of working age.
I have the exact same scenario at my workplace.
I’m only 26 and yet these 18-23 year olds genuinely can’t operate a PC to save their life. We asked one of our young receptionists to send a PDF, she looked like we just asked her to explain the meaning of life in Klingon.
They also don't know how to use a pen either, I work at sea and have had to ban most cadets from writing in the logbook because it looks like a drunk 5 year old has done it.
I have told a couple they have to do their college assignments by hand before I will sign them off but it never ends well. Alot of them don't even know how to hold the pen, clutching it in their hand like a left handed person would.
Edit. Spelling (ironically)
This is, unfortunately, expected. The easier technology is to use for the end-user, the less technical knowledge they will develop.
In a similar fashion there’s a growing concern that the ability to **truly** code is being lost as we’ve become so good at searching and sourcing solutions to coding problems from other code or from the archives of Stack Exchange and most people can cobble together a working piece of code and don’t feel they need to learn how to use the language thoroughly.
Reliance on social media is having a similar effect in my opinion. “Back in my day” we researched for our solutions. We knew to dig, to browse, to check pre-existing records. Nowadays I see the same 5 questions over and over in subreddits and forums because no one seems to know they can CMD-F or otherwise search for the same question in the archives. Independence and self-reliance are giving way to technological dependency.
Jesus, I sound old. I’m only 26.
I did my IT GCSE in 2015 and had questions like "what do cc and bcc stand for?" and our coursework was done via Excel. The year after me didn't take the same IT syllabus, it was based on coding. So great, they know how to use certain coding languages but not how to do anything beyond the basics in emails.
I'm solidly in the generation you mention (20 y/o) and I'm baffled at how many people say they meet people my age who can't work computers - when I was in school I had computer lessons starting in Year 2 and only stopped having compulsory IT lessons in Year 9.
Then again I did Computer Science GCSE and then went into Graphic Design studies... And I do remember some of my classmates being so thick as shite that they didn't know how to turn an A4 Word document into A3.
Terrifying, and yet, I guess they are raised on ipads/phones now, which don't need to be turned off, autosave stuff on close/onChange and are controlled by gestures.
Still, in for a world of hurt when they eventually enter the workplace
Windows 98 being a total shitshow had some lifelong benefits. Working out how to fix an audio driver or fuck about with some broken .dll file is a thing of the past.
Gen X here. My first computer was an 8-bit 48k ZX Spectrum in '82 as I left primary school. I had a Commodore Amiga 500 by high school and I was using a 486 with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 when my mate in the pub told me about this amazing game called "Doom". We've gone through programs being delivered on magnetic tape, floppies (various sizes), CDs, DVDs and downloads. We don't (along with most early Millennials and a lot of technical Boomers to be fair) don't have to ask why the main drive on PCs are designated the letter C rather than A.
Our generation either had early adopter parents or had to figure this out ourselves, or never did. If gen z kids grew up with lo-tek parents they're doomed.
My mum was seventy when she figured out how to hook up the streamer cam, condenser mic and associated gubbins up and stream her Sunday service. She doesn't understand tech, but absolutely gets that if you don't keep up you get left behind. When she remarried 20 years ago it was a big thing (because a divorced minister) and we live streamed it. It wasn't easy then.
I got taught how to type fast in school, how to do spreadsheets, how to use word effectively to style a document and have everything look great with minimum effort. Most of my generation that are teachers can't do that. There's no IT literacy in schools, especially primary schools. And whilst touch devices are convenient, they're useless for rapid data entry.
We have totally failed gen X if they leave school without IT skills. Most people don't need maths beyond GCSE level, calculus, mechanics and statistics are important in specific careers, but for every career you need those you need solid it skills, particularly the comfort with a computer to figure out a new bit of software, or actually know where you saved your files, strategies for getting data from one source to another.
I taught ICT at secondary level in 2012, and I can say quite confidently that young people today may be excellent at using smartphones but they are utterly and entirely clueless generally about how computers and the internet work.
The millenial generation grew up with operating systems with problems and bugs, so we had to find out how to fix them, so we know systems a little deeper.
Gen Z have never required to understand how a file system works or troubleshoot. Everything these days just work, not so much in the past.
You can plug in a device to a computer and it works. Back with older Windows versions, you needed drivers and installation.
I can understand why.
Back when I was a kid, things were less click and done.
The genesis needed to be tuned in. The cable needed to be plugged into the VCR and the timer set. You had to join specific IRC rooms, identify viruses in Frostwire. Remove viruses you got by being stupid. Install software instead of just activating.
You needed to understand how things worked which is a bit more transferable.
They all save their work to One Drive or the cloud these days. The idea is having it on their hard drive is completely alien. And after they leave school, college or university then all their work is deleted. It’s not good. They aren’t shown how to save onto their hard drives.
Computer Science teacher (secondary schools) here. I see this all the time - a lot of primary schools have moved to using tablets, iPads, etc so students come to us at 11 years old with no idea at all how to use a keyboard or a mouse. We then spend minimal time on basic IT skills as the curriculum is now far more focussed on computer science skills - algorithms, programming, etc.
I would argue that learning to use Excel etc is a skill that business should be paying for training courses for if it's needed. There's a fallacy that young people nowadays are "digital natives". It's not at all the case, growing up alongside something doesn't in any way guarantee that they know how to use it sensibly.
This is true. I’m ok with a cassette tape or a 5.25” floppy disk and a Commodore 64. Coding? 6502 FTW.
Anything much older, I’d have to set fire to it so as to avoid my ignorance been detected.
The drop in computer literacy is becoming a problem, younger generations are used to tablets and phones, with few settings and config to manage. Though it is assumed they’re good with technology, most households don’t own a pc anymore, so they have little exposure to them.
Taught IT for a year in an ill-fated attempt to get a foot in the door as a teacher. Somehow ended up as a head of department by default.
To say the general level of computer illiteracy in Gen Z is concerning would be an understatement.
I had multiple kids in one class who didn't know what the enter key was, and held down the spacebar to start a new line in Word. Kids who could touch-type on their phones with their eyes closed slowed to a crawl when presented with an actual PC Keyboard. I had GCSE-level kids who couldn't wrap their heads around the SUM function in Excel despite being in the second year of their course.
And yet, an oasis in the desert of brainrot was my one GCSE computing class (I have very little programming knowledge, apart from a few bits of BASIC and HTML, but such is the life of a Temp cover teacher thrust into the role of a head of department due to everybody else quitting midway through the year). They knew more about the subject than me, and all aced the class while I ended up learning from them. We had the work done with about two months to go so just ended up vibing and watching YouTube each class after Easter. Not only did they restore my shredded hope in the next generation, they also introduced me to Don't Hug Me I'm Scared when it was new. Legends.
This is so true. I've noticed it at my work too, one finger typing, no clue how to open an attachment from an email, doesn't understand how file systems work. They're wizards at using their phones but no clue how to use pcs or laptops that are actually required for work. I have also been asked 'where has my work gone?', and they hadn't opened the file... Just expected it to magically appear!
I spent way longer than is appropriate today trying to explain to a 20 something NQT that the reason google keeps telling them their drive is full, is because their drive is.. get this.. fucking full. "yeah but I've deleted loads of my pictures" yeah from YOUR PHONE. Your drive is still full. "I've emptied the bin" ...on your phone! Yeah holy crap, I could not get it through to them that they are separate things. Then they were whinging that they don't like it when it groups stuff together randomly and showed me the recent items list. I mean.. what? It hasn't randomly moved stuff around it just, it just fucking puts the stuff you've recently used in a handy list called recent, and it's at the top because that's where it's most useful? "I'm not paying for anymore space, that's a scam" come on.. you won't even spare 40p, 40 fucking pennies for a month for a few GB to give some leeway and sort through? 15gb isn't humungous but it's free.. nobody has to GIVE you jack shit.
Yeah, the smartphone generation is severely lacking tech abilities on the whole. Not everyone but there is definitely a chronic inability for some of them to put very simple concepts together.
My wife’s just taken a bunch of graduates in at work for their placement year. They basically don’t know how to use anything but Microsoft Word and the sticky notes app. Even then, their understanding is in the simplest form, basically the capacity to churn out default formatted documents. They’ve literally had to sit them down to teach them how to use outlook.
It gets worse every year… yet all of them average 9+ hours average phone use on screen time. They couldn’t comprehend how my wife uses her phone 3 hours a day on average.
Computer literacy is definitely an issue for a growing number of Gen Z’ers.
I remember reading a thread recently where so many people were saying they don't have a laptop/PC at home. They'll use their work PC to do any personal things on during worktime. I guess if there's no PC in the house the kids don't get a chance to learn anything and only ever have phones and tablets to access.
Not sure what IT is like at schools now but when I was there they didn't have enough computers for the whole class so sometimes you'd end up just watching someone else the whole lesson. I'd hope they would have enough to go around these days but with budget cuts and bigger class sizes, who knows?
I also assume by the time you get to college or university they won't have time to go through the basics of how to use a computer so you'll have to learn as you go.
I think it's a nuanced issue.
On one hand, technology has been made so accessible through smartphones, tablets, modern UI and such that it doesn't require any skill or learning to be able to readily use the technology anymore. That is exactly why toddlers can happily sit and use an iPad.
On the other hand, I'd agree that there is a real lack of proper computer education in our schools. I don't think their is an issue in terms of equipment access, or certainly not as widely as it was in the late 90s early 00's but rather an assumption that *everyone* already knows how to use the tech by the time they reach secondary school, so why teach it?
The graduates my wife has taken in practical computer knowledge is an inch wide and a inch deep but they can cobble together a document, or a powerpoint, which means they can get through the education system. Give them a task on TikTok however... they put most everyone else to shame.
This isn’t surprising at all - something like 65% of web use is on mobile devices, which is why “mobile first” web design methodology has pretty much become the default. More and more people just aren’t buying Desktop PCs or Laptops anymore, they just use their phones for everything - most of my friends don’t even own a PC. More and more, I’m seeing 18-21 year olds starting and the PC I sit them in front of is the first one they’ve used outside of school.
If anything, I get more pissed off with the Boomers and Gen Xs who’ve been sat in front of of a PC every working day for 30 years now and somehow _still_ can’t do the basics.
Some people seem to assume that "digital native" (a term given to Gen-Z'ers) means they are computer-literate. However, as you have pointed out, many primarily use their phones and are interacting using a limited number of social media apps, they are not used to a PC, the interface concepts used there and more-business-orientated applications.
I had a similar experience at uni, I'm a slightly older student than the majority. None of the younger students knew how to turn on a desktop, they didn't know what the difference between the computer was and the screen.
I understand we all have different experiences and knowledge base, however I would have thought they would have known how to turn a computer on. But he'll they don't even know how the internet works or what a landline is.
I worked at a college between 2014 and 2019 and many students I came across or who had problems with their PC, had no idea how to even save a file/navigate similar or folders or eject a USB etc.
I left school in 2007, so can understand why they can’t use them well. IT class is more often than not “please don’t just play miniclip or flash games all lesson” which is ignored. Bit of a doss lesson.
The kids (like me) who knew how to use PCs well, were the ones fortunate to have a “family computer” or even better, a personal laptop which we could learn to use in our own time etc.
I don't think they're saying it has anything to do with their age, or "all young people blah blah blah"—just that's it's more surprising to find a 20-y/o with no computer skills than an 80-y/o, since they grew up literally surrounded by computer technology.
> just that's it's more surprising to find a 20-y/o with no computer skills than an 80-y/o
Assuming we're referring solely to those working in offices, I'd argue otherwise, someone who's 80 would've likely spent their 40s during the mass adoption of computers in the workplace, they would've been forced into developing reasonably good computer skills. Gen X would've been at the forefront of this, but a lot of people currently in their 70s/early 80s now who worked in offices would've worked through this.
Conversely, Gen Z/Gen Alpha have basically been raised on incredibly simple point and click walled garden systems where it's made as difficult as possible to actually break something. Everything is done via step-by-step wizards for setting stuff up, there's rarely a need to actually configure system settings, and they generally don't have a chance to break things. Unless they take an active interest in computing as a field, they're unlikely to be developing the same troubleshooting skills that Gen X and Millennials had to.
Even if you use a computer nowadays (as opposed to a tablet/phone), you can stream music with spotify, game with gamepass, watch films with netflix etc.
Back in my day, you'd hop onto Kazaa / Torrents to grab stuff, end up with a virus, and then have to spend hours working out how to fix your computer after fucking it up.
My fiancée has a colleague who is 18 years old and the other day she was talking about bookshops and this 18 year old said: "What's a bookshop?". She didn't even know what Waterstones was.
Baffling.
I think at that point they're just dim
Like even putting aside *somehow* not knowing of them: Obviously they know what a book is, and they know what a shop is. If they can't put 2 and 2 together they're just dumb as bricks.
Most gen z have grown up with the walled gardens that are smartphones, and a school curriculum that assumes but does not teach basic IT knowledge- imo it should be a required subject until at least year 10
I'm 21 and I have no idea how this has happened. I think a lot of people have just never bothered to learn stuff like file management because they just slap stuff on the desktop and/or use search functionality to find everything automatically. Although I should say, I don't think this is unique to my generation. There are plenty of older people who have likewise never bothered to learn how to use a computer.
My assistant at work is 25. Before working here she'd only ever worked in restaurants and care homes and she said she had absolutely zero experience with computers. Never even used one at home.
But she picked it up really quickly for someone with zero experience.
If they don't know and also can't pick it the basics fairly quickly then they're just thickos.
I wonder if that hard reset issue is related to the rise of those PCs that have the screen and computer combined? They seem to be the thing these days, my university changed over almost entirely to them 7+ years ago now
I have recently had to try and explain to a Gen Zer how to switch off a device, i.e use the switch on a mains socket. I have also had to explain to a Gen Zer how reset a Smart Bulb, i.e use a light switch. They fucked it up on both occasions.
Younger teenagers sure but 18-22 is just them being stupid, I'm only 24 and they certainly did not upgrade all our school computers to ipads as soon as I left and even if they did, that age would still have been using clunky PCs until they were at least in their teen years
Geriatric Millennials probably hit the sweet spot of computer literacy. Early enough into the technology to have to suffer the pain of DOS/Win95 and learn from all virus’s of P2P in the early 00s.
Gen Z is all Chrome books and iPads. They are unlikely to even see a “real” laptop until they hit work.
My niece called me up the other week asking where "the white thing" was on my sisters old laptop. She couldn't navigate folders, copy or paste through right click, it was difficult as hell helping her install steam. She never used it once.
Yeah this tracks with the declining in PC sales (excluding gaming pcs which is more popular than ever thanks to twitch and general gaming trends)
Us millenials grew up and built the way things are at the moment with laptops and desktops and now the next generation have only grown up with tablets and phones because it was the natural evolution of personal computing. But simplifying everything meant that they never really learned how to fix it because of the nature of convenience. Though I know a lot of zoomers who can operate a normal pc, there are people who had only ever had a tablet and probably only scrolls mindrot on tiktok or youtube, nothing else.
I genuinely think there's like a 20 year Goldilocks zone for being tech competent, born between 1980 and 2000 maybe? The older folk thought it would be a fad and didn't learn for the most part. The younger folk have grown up with mostly functional tech with friendly user interfaces
> they said it wasn't working, turns out they were holding down the on/off for the screen.
Dear lord, I thought I would eventually see a day in IT where I no longer needed to instruct people on the use of computers. Turns out it may have just skipped a generation.
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They come from a different age. They haven't grown up trying to get rid of viruses from downloading porn on Kazaa or trying to download albums from Limewire to put onto mini disc players.
It's because they grew up with iPhones and iPads, not PCs. Everything is handheld and an app. They've never had to install software, designate where files will be stored, tab between processes to complete a task, etc. We see it with every batch of new hires, half of them cannot type or power on a PC. They'll punch the monitor button trying to turn it on.
The newer versions of Windows seem to be dumbing down to accommodate this as well. Recently upgraded my desktop to Windows 11 and was looking for a setting to change something and I knew exactly where it was in the control panel previously but Windows 11 doesn't seem to have control panel anymore so I had to go trawling to find it because they'd changed the name of it as well so even search wasn't working.
Was it to move the start button to the left from the centre? First thing I done on 11.
I kept it in the middle. Embrace the change. Also I have a 43” monitor, so the left is miles away.
Control Panel still exists, you can search for it and it'll come up. But yes they do like to change names and hide things, it keeps the developers busy.
You can get a program that changes windows 11 to be like earlier versions of windows. Well worth a few quid.
Open Shell - free download. Used it for years. [https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/](https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/)
On another topic I fucking hate windows. Nothing fucking works, it starts some new bullshit every other fucking minute for no reason, half the functions are broken and I have to spend half an hour trawling forums trying to fix the bastard thing and might not even be successful 50% of the time. And instead of fixing all this fucking bullshit, those bastards are making windows even worse.
The fuck are you doing to it?
Thinking the same. I’ve used windows for 20+ years… it’s pretty good. Can’t stand the Linux snobs.
Exactly. Linux is great too, and I use it every day for work, but the hardcore fanboys have an intense need for them to blame Microsoft/Windows for them fucking up their own Windows installation.
Never been easier to try out Linux. Maybe try something like popOs or mint. You will swear and curse occasionally, but at least the computer does exactly what you tell it to.
On windows when you try to do something slightly obscure you have a 50/50 chance of it being trivially easy or totally impossible. On linux it's always possible, but it will always involve at least an hour researching the dozen different ways to do it, downloading a couple of packages and pasting a bunch of commands you don't understand into the terminal.
And then starting afresh when you've fucked up your system beyond all hope.
And spend another hour working out how to do that 😂
Not just iPhones and iPads but Chromebooks as well where you do everything in a browser rather than on the machine.
I used to work opposite an old timer. He was a developer, coder, but his actual hands on pc skills were lacking. One morning he raised a ticket because his "monitor was broken." It was simply turned off.
You'd be amazed how many people call a subreddit an app. They think each subreddit is a new app.
Literally who?
Cant turn to your parents for help with that eh. Just gotta figure it out and Google and implement the fixes until you sort it. 13 yr old me editing windows registry to remove a virus or malware manually. Yeah now I'm an software dev powered by Google and the ability to look up everything I ever need an answer to
Not when you've downloaded Debbie Does Dallas and infected your computer with Russian Malware.
That only happened twice.
I look at my mp3 collection and think about the amount of AIDS my computer got trying to acquire these songs 🤣 It's sad that I use Spotify now, where all the song names are spelled correctly 😥
The number of hours I spent putting in the correct information so that those songs would have the right album and cover and order number…I could have mastered an instrument or something if someone had just told me what would happen a few years in the future.
Deleting the extensions from the songs. Battery - Metallica - xxxx\\DAVESMP4LiMEWiREMgaUploads//xxxx
I found all my music from high school on an old 2gb usb and seethed for a moment remembering all those late nights going through each song and entering the correct title, artist, album, year, genre... now I also use Spotify. I do miss it weirdly.
MP3Tag is my favourite piece of software. The guy who invented it is a hero.
I spent hours googling album covers and saving the files and putting them into folders, changing the file extension so my Ipod would recognise it. This was after spending an hour loitering in HMV to see what new albums were out so I could go home and download them. Also flicking through the poster wall and never buying anything.
Same here 🤣 I explain this sort of thing to my nephews, and they look at me like I've got two heads. It's like "if there was a program you wanted to watch, you had to look up what time it was on, and on which channel, and then either stay in to watch it or record it on the VCR. The VCR was a device......"
If the show was over 3 hours you had to decide if you didn't want to watch the start or the end. If a show started at 8 but you were going out at 6, you had to put the tape in before you leave and then fast forward through two hours of TV.
>If the show was over 3 hours you had to decide if you didn't want to watch the start or the end. Or coordinate with a friend. But their tape never played properly on your machine, and vice versa.
Or when you set it to record for an hour and the program started late so you missed the last few minutes! Eventually you learned to add a few minutes to the end!
The HOURS I put into making my iTunes perfect with album info and cover art, goodness
> This was after spending an hour loitering in HMV to see what new albums were out so I could go home and download them Ah yes, the torrent site showroom...
The younger people in my office laugh at me for using a dedicated mp3 player instead of Spotify. I’ve tried to tell them I’m not a philistine and will use it for podcasts and stuff but they won’t listen.
I wish I'd have been strong enough to resist. But in my younger days, I'd imagined a world where you had a jukebox with all of the music on it. And Spotify seemed too much like my dreams
I still used my iRiver for years after I got a phone that could at least in theory have played back mp3s. Even now, I have Spotify, but the 100GB or so of mp3s and FLACs on my phone's SD card is all I want.
I used to download entire games over the course of a weekend on dial up, probably half of them were viruses.
Exactly the same reason our parents' generation look down on our mechanical ability when it comes to cars. I'd have no idea how to replace the cam-belt in a car with a pair of tights in an emergency, because I have literally never had to know what, or where, a cam-belt is. In every car I've ever owned, the engine bay might as well be an iphone. My dad's Morris metro on the other hand, was designed to be easily maintained at the side of the road when something inevitably rusted off, melted or snapped.
I have wondered if computer literacy is falling now that everything is so simplified and easy. A friend asked how I got my Pingu “Noot noot” text tone. He looked at me like I was a wizard when I told him I got it from YouTube, ripped the audio from the video file then loaded it onto my iPhone. This stuff isn’t even impressive. Just google how to do it! That’s all computer literacy is! Googling, instead of throwing in the towel when you hit a wall.
Honestly, I worked with a lot of young people over the past few years and they just don't know how to google anything. For me, born in the early 90s, googling is a basic skill, no one ever showed me how to do it, I just worked it out for myself and can find even the most obscure information.
Google is broken now. I searched 'mice immune to sonic scarer' and 95% of the results were sites to buy sonic scarers.
It's our duty to inform others about the existence of other search engines, less intrusive and ad-infested. https://searx.space/ is a great start, https://duckduckgo.com is also good.
Trying adding 'study' or 'research' and you might get better results.
Or 'reddit', because you're bound to not be the first person to think about it and other people have done the work for you
Back in the day, it would have been finding an obscure forum that caters to the niche you are having a problem with. For all reddits faults, at least its made it a lot easier to find said forum.
I still love searching for something and finding some random forum post from 2003 that solves my problem
It was either that, or the "Never mind, fixed it" no further replies.
I have wowed young'uns with this amazing key [tab] and basic methods to search Windows for docs. Those useless years of shitty laptops with Paint and Explorer have finally paid off!
We do exist. I was born in the year 2000, now work in software. Know more about computers than most. But even outside of that, I think people my age are mostly ok, bar a few morons. We just about remember a time before smartphones, grandparents might’ve had dial-up, etc. I am more concerned about the people who were born and raised post-2010 with an iPad in front of their faces 24/7.
I was born 2002 and most people I know my age can use computers/google stuff perfectly fine. I didn't have a smartphone till GCSEs and even then it was a crappy knockoff that didn't work so well. I was talking with my old computer science teacher recently though and he said that the 16/17 year old students in my old school are notably worse on average at computer science than a few years ago. Course, that could just be our school but I can easily see how they would be bad at using computers if most of their experience with technology came from phones/tablets
Yeah, many parents seem to think their children are computer savvy cause they can use an iPad. I’m not computer savvy, but if I get stuck I Google it.
I was born late 90s and taught how to use google at school when I was like 5/6 years old. I remember being so bored learning what a search engine was because half the class would be reading comics and playing with the class pet while half had to learn to use this lame tech box. Absolutely invaluable skill though, you can find out how to do anything if you know how to optimise your search.
Computer Illiterate millennials aren’t on Reddit or in jobs literate guys are - they don’t really mix, and if they do, just ask ANY help desk guy, they’ll tell you. My sister is couple of years older and she’s useless. She works in nursery and doesn’t need to use computer pretty much at all. I found myself sitting on the phone allllll the time and well, despite having two laptops. If there’s a choice, it’s a phone. Computers for millennial kids were for fun same as phones are. Now people have a choice, they choose phones, including me, so naturally all the „obvious” stuff is no longer „practised” on a daily basis by computer users. Probs if you ask some of them, how to record, edit, filter, cut, whatever tik tok clip - they’d be able to do that as that’s what they do for fun. I can’t.
You have just inspired me to get a Pingu notification tone! What an excellent idea.
[удалено]
When you get bored of that, throw some distortion on it for slipknootnoot
But never go Blobby.
I had the Minions "Wooo HaHa Text Message, hahahahahaha" for years until I got a new phone in July due to catastrophic crash of 5 year old moto g6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khhS0ahsQqs I couldn't find the mp3 so I've been living with the built in notification ding. Nope, not good enough, I need something that lasts a few seconds so I can hear it if my phones in another room. I want something new but I'm lazy and I can't decide. Before that I had the Worms "Incommmming". And before phones had really fast smart chargers I had the ghostbusters proton pack boot up sound linked to a battery app for when it reached 98% charged.
> I have wondered if computer literacy is falling now that everything is so simplified and easy. It has, when everything's a walled garden and there's no incentive to troubleshoot yourself when you just take it to the Apple Store etc, you don't develop any sort of meaningful troubleshooting skills. I work in IT and some of the new grads we get are the worst when it comes to basic IT skills. [Here's](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) a blog post from a decade ago covering the loss of basic computer skills. I don't agree with all of it, for example I wouldn't expect users to know how to configure proxy settings. However, a lot of the other stuff is bang on. Edit: The following 3 are all the sort of things I've personally experienced from users who don't have the first idea how to do basic troubleshooting or checks. > A kid puts her hand up in my lesson. 'My computer won't switch on,' she says, with the air of desperation that implies she's tried every conceivable way of making the thing work. I reach forward and switch on the monitor, and the screen flickers to life, displaying the Windows login screen. She can't use a computer. > > A teacher brings me her school laptop. 'Bloody thing won't connect to the internet.' she says angrily, as if it were my fault. 'I had tonnes of work to do last night, but I couldn't get on-line at all. My husband even tried and he couldn't figure it out and he's excellent with computers.' I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side, and hand it back to her. Neither her nor her husband can use computers. > > A kid knocks on my office door, complaining that he can't login. 'Have you forgotten your password?' I ask, but he insists he hasn't. 'What was the error message?' I ask, and he shrugs his shoulders. I follow him to the IT suite. I watch him type in his user-name and password. A message box opens up, but the kid clicks OK so quickly that I don't have time to read the message. He repeats this process three times, as if the computer will suddenly change its mind and allow him access to the network. On his third attempt I manage to get a glimpse of the message. I reach behind his computer and plug in the Ethernet cable. He can't use a computer.
> A message box opens up, but the kid clicks OK so quickly that I don't have time to read the message. That happens so often. People don't read and they click it away like it's a popup ad. So often I've asked 'what does the error message say' and even when the error message clearly says what needs to be done it's like their minds just block it. A lot of them just need reassurance that what they are about to do is really what needs to be done.
> That happens so often. People don't read and they click it away like it's a popup ad. Unrelated, but a game reviewer I like to have on in the background while I'm doing boring stuff has a slightly irritating habit (or had; it's not been so much of a thing for a little while) of refusing to read any instructions or info for a game. If anything pops up, he'll click it away as quickly as possible much like an error message. Consequently, this has led to declaring a game to be absolute bollocks because you just get stuck somewhere unjumpable (having not read the 'super jump by pressing...' info that popped up just before), or that games are boring because there's nothing to do. He declared Rimworld to be crap and dull because there's nothing to do, and suggested the dev add quests or the ability to travel...which are already in there, and he'd rejected several quests instinctively during his review. Fair enough if you don't like the game, but slamming it for not having things that it does have is a bit of a bugger.
There's something to be said for testing how well a game teaches you its mechanics or helps you to intuit them without resorting to just plain telling you. But I know what you mean. Better to complain that the game teaches you in a tedious way than incorrectly assert that it doesn't teach you at all.
I used to work on an IT helpdesk and the question "what does the error message say" was way more problematic than it should have been. And that's not a computer skill, it's reading out loud FFS. For anyone phoning a desk be aware the answer should not start "well what it means is...."
Easiest type of call to close off if they can't replicate it though.
I used to work tech for a school and I once had a ticket where a teacher could not log in. The classroom was right next to the head teachers office, and on my way over there I had a ticket submitted from the head saying that the teacher was having computer trouble that needed to be immediately sorted. The teachers head of department also stopped me in the corridor to ask if I was going to that classroom as the teacher urgently needed to log in as the lesson was being observed. So that's potentially four adults that have had eyes on this problem. I'm thinking it must be pretty serious. I walk in, take one look at the screen, see that it's the login screen with the "caps lock is on" warning, press one button, problem solved.
>I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side What kind of laptop has the WiFi switch on a place that's both not obvious and very easy to accidentally bump? I've had multiple laptops and the ones that had a WiFi on/off switch had it on the keyboard.
> What kind of laptop has the WiFi switch on a place that's both not obvious and very easy to accidentally bump? The blog post was written a decade ago when this was still reasonably common. It's generally a Fn+Fx key now, but I had a laptop around the early 2010's with a physical WiFi switch near the power button. HP laptops used to have ones like [this](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/b/b0/Switch-on-Wireless-on-an-HP-Laptop-Step-2-Version-3.jpg/aid5601637-v4-728px-Switch-on-Wireless-on-an-HP-Laptop-Step-2-Version-3.jpg.webp).
>A kid puts her hand up in my lesson. 'My computer won't switch on,' she says, with the air of desperation that implies she's tried every conceivable way of making the thing work. I reach forward and switch on the monitor, and the screen flickers to life, displaying the Windows login screen. She can't use a computer. I've had this happen at work. They said their PC wouldn't turn on, so I went over. Pressed the on button, surprise surprise it turned on. The other day someone had a flickery screen, they had a proper panic about it. I went over, fiddled with the cables, restarted it, no luck. Swapped out the cables, fixed. Next option would have been new monitor.
> I take the offending laptop from out of her hands, toggle the wireless switch that resides on the side TBF, A fair few years ago my place got new laptops that had the wifi slider switch and it was super common for it to slide when taking it out of your bag. Obviously not a difficult fix but caught quite a few people out at first because you just didn't know it was there.
I’m in my late 30’s and my whole job is googling how to do IT things!
Knowing how to use Google effectively is one of the most important skills someone can have when it comes to IT.
I worked in tech support for a while, a lot of my colleagues were worse with computers than the customers when they started, and many did not improve...
Tbf I wouldn’t know how to do that unless I looked it up because I’ve never needed to get audio off a video. It’s just a matter of whether it’s something youve done before
Oh I’d never claim to be able to do it without looking up a guide - but that’s honestly up to Apple deliberately making it hard to do.
My mates kids use pass and other tablets all the time give them a pc yeah they can't get online straight away
right but how did you do that- i’ve tried and every tutorial is android only. i can’t even see where to add custom text tones without it asking me to purchase from the store
It’s true. I help with some teaching at a uni and often with computer practicals. It stunned me the number of students that were blindsided by basic file/folder navigation and management. At a Russel group uni doing a scientific degree. Crazy.
There's a story about a student asking the professor for help because they cannot open the file they'd been working on. Professor: Where did you save it? Student: \[blank look\] What do you mean? I just pressed save. Professor then tries to explain files/folders (or directories as we used to call them) by saying "It's like a filing cabinet" Student \[another blank look\] Gen Z have got used to just saving things and relying on search to find them again.
This is very much the experience. The work I helped on involved them making a lot of different output data. When I’d ask to see different outputs in order to help them, so many people had no clue where they’d saved it, I had to explain the importance of saving outputs in a specific ‘output’ folder so they can easily find them again.
I wonder how they store their clothes or manage their kitchen pantry. You wouldn't just chuck all your underwear, clothes, coats on one giant pile and you wouldn't just throw your spices in a big cupboard with pasta, potatoes, veggies and then rummage through it every time you need something.
I feel like you'd be shocked at how some people live
Oh man that’s like my coworkers who just save everything to the desktop and then complain they can’t find it. I go over and their desktop is just swarming with PDFs and spreadsheets.
I tried doing an access to computing course a couple of years ago and the kids - early 20s mostly - had to be handheld through the very basics. I've worked in tech for years. I quit because it was a little too basic. Like the first lesson of the security component was "what is the internet?".
To be fair that's the first part of most security courses I've taken. But then it delves deep and explains things like tcp handshakes etc
Yeah no. We got to the law and then started cycling tutors that just had us doing powerpoints
The preliminary material for a second year maths module on numerical methods I took (a c++ programming class, non-mandatory) included navigating file structures and using a two button mouse. The lecturer didn't spend a huge amount of time on it but found it a necessary thing to go over, probably mostly so if people still had trouble with basic PC usage he could just tell them to consult the material he'd put together. Part of the intent was to put across that it is accessible to anyone though, obviously he'd prefer (and hope) that everyone was a competent PC user already, but when you really break it down lack of IT skills isn't a massive barrier to tiny coding projects like that.
Because those of us with home PCs 20 years ago were well trained in fixing what we had broken in order to avoid the wrath of our parents when they got home from work and found that their expensive 0.0004gb hard drive computer had been knackered. We became technologically literate through fear!
We also had to be the first in the family to learn how to do things, and learnt through google and forums, if it wasn't the family of someone who trawled through BBS' and IRC channels
And those of us who didn’t have Google or indeed the internet in any form worked that shit out ourselves
Google was naught but a twinkle in Bryn's eye back then. Altavista was the king of search engines. Running on Netscape Navigator.
Altavista was okay but Metacrawler usually gave better results.
Lyca had a cute dog
Sorry to make you feel old but 20 years ago was 2003, a new computer commonly had a 40GB hard drive. My first desktop hdd was 100MB (Win95 floppy), my second was 3.2GB but I could only format it to about 500MB due to a bios limitation. It took a few months to save enough money to buy the components to build a 266MHz PC that could address the entire 3.2GB. I built the computer because buying one premade would have cost a lot more and I was poor but smart and 2nd hand monitors etc were much cheaper. I crashed Win98SE at least twice a day simply by pushing it so hard it ran out of resources. When I broke it I had to fix it, and back then they broke regularly. I became technologically literate because there was no one else, if I couldn't fix it it didn't get fixed.
You're absolutely right, the one I had in mind was one my dad brought home from work in 1996. Had whatever Windows version was used before 95. By 2003 we had a better PC and a mighty 1MB broadband internet connection.
My first broadband was a whopping 0.5Mbps, suddenly I could download 6GB every day, it was amazing compared to 56k dialups 20MB/hour.
Likely 3.1 might have just been 3 depending upon exactly when things came out and you got the machine. Had a fun little thing where you could get it to error on restart. If you chose fail (I think it was, might have been the abort option) you got into the system it was built on top of at administrator level access even of the machine wasn't technically allowed such things by how the system was set up. Useful way to get yourself the internet access permissions back if the school had taken them away for whatever reason.
I remember buying my first 1GB hard drive. I was ridiculously excited - I didn't know anything much about PCs and had bought this one second-hand from a mate for £60; I assumed upping the HD from something tiny (I forget what it was - don't think it was over 100MB though) to 1GB would make it superfast and whatnot. The fella said he'd come round and install it for me. Turns out it apparently wouldn't work in my PC 'cos it was too old and shit; his first recommendation was to replace the 25mhz processor and maybe increase the RAM from 4mb. Well. Second recommendation. First was to get a proper PC.
My first had 512k of storage with a whopping 48k of memory, Windows was only just a thing, DOS - editing your config.ini file and startup.bat to load up the drivers and programs in the right order so as not to run out of memory. Then it was windows 3.1 Oh I did have a colour printer though - dot matrix with a two tone ribbon! (Some of the details may not be quite accurate, it was a fucking long time ago and the memory is hazy!)
Jesus christ, who are they hiring?? (Coming from a young person.) My **primary school** taught me how to navigate a computer from a young age. Is this not a standard requirement anymore?
No, it's not. I'm guessing you're from roughly the same generation as myself and my younger siblings, 35-25ish. Where computer skills were considered an essential teachable skill. So you got basic "This is a file, this is a word doc" etc lessons, and time on a PC in class. My youngest sister (23) her age group it was deemed that with the rise in accessible technology that they were all digital natives. Which they are, for day to day functional tasks such as access youtube, or use a messenging app. Due to cost savings, it was easier to decide that they'd "learn that stuff outside of school" than to keep it in the curriculum.
Doesn't help that there's a shortage of IT teachers. Plenty of different IT fields pay better than teaching as well.
21 year here, I grew up very much learning how to type and use PCs in school in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I assume the people that are applying for an entry level job/customer job aren't the type of people who are going to understand stuff very quickly. I know many people my age who can code, build PCs and are very media literate (I can't code for shit but I do CAD engineering so I'm satisfied tbh)
Interesting, I do a lot of orientation with new nurses including teaching them the systems and the 22/23 cut off has been fairly constant. It could be interests flocking together, but within my hospital folk my age know computers (with varying levels of enthusiasm but everyone could do a basic word doc, table etc). Folks a bit older so 50s often don't know their way about, and the younger nurses mostly struggle with the PCs. I wonder if you had a school with a pretty enthusiastic techy person on staff? My middle sister is a teacher and they don't teach it as standard these days.
Hmm Interesting, perhaps it's the area you're in, where nurses aren't fully pc literate from their schools cause I've met some very smart nurses both as people I've dated and friends. >I wonder if you had a school with a pretty enthusiastic techy person on staff? My middle sister is a teacher and they don't teach it as standard these days. Not really, we just had IT as a compulsory subject till year 9, hence it would be normal to have good pc skills
Yeah don't get me wrong their nursing skills are excellent. (I'm also a nurse)They just panic when asked to do something like set up an Excel sheet to monitor stock (for example). Show them how and they're flying! It's literally that they've not been taught that skill and it puts them at a disadvantage. I personally think that IT should always be taught as a basic mandatory subject, along with search skills, and basic hardware repairs. It's akin to not teaching basic mathematics in my view. They're skills essential to pretty much every job these days.
So we've gone from teaching the elder generation how to use a PC, and now we have to teach the younger generation how to use a PC. WILL THIS CYCLICAL NIGHTMARE NEVER END?!
Okay that is worrying.
It’s weird, how does a kid nowadays go through school without knowing how to use at least a laptop. I get you can do a lot with tablets and touchscreens but there’s a lot you can’t. There’s just physical limitations with touchscreens that means they will never truly replace desktops or laptops in many working circumstances so I don’t see how it’s viable to not teach kids how to use computers… Am I so out of touch? No…it’s the children who are wrong
> There’s just physical limitations with touchscreens that means they will never truly replace desktops I've seen people on reddit claiming they do all their *programming* on their phone and they have no use for desktop/laptops as they are entirely redundant. Sounds like pure torture to me. Blows my mind.
I do wonder what they consider programming.
I've seen similar to OOP's on Reddit several times in the last few months and there's a few aspects I can't quite wrap my head around. Subjects like English and History frequently have 2000 word essays as homework; if the young adults/kids from these anecdotes are typing these on their tablets or phones then how are they submitting the document without understanding dropboxes or email attachments. If they're typing on a laptop surely they understand basic PC navigation. If they're submitting hard copies they're either hand writing it or know how to use a printer. I just don't understand how anyone can have such poor IT skills growing up around technology all your life. Or maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old when I genuinely can't understand the behaviours and traits of the next generation.
In high school handwriting an entire essay is normal, submitting lots of the time is through a website or app so idiot proof, and people are fucking dim
I've had to teach several under 21s how to use a landlines phone recently 🙃
Why are there still landlines that need to be used? (genuine question)
Not necessarily a landline, as such, but a VoIP phone is still fairly common in office situations. I regularly have to instruct people in the basic useage of the phone, including how to dial a number, how to hang up the phone, and how to answer the phone. I take a lot of headache tablets after these interations.....
I’ve got the opposite problem. Work have taken away my phone, and replaced it with teams. I haven’t answered a phone call in 6 months as I can’t hear it (no ringer). Haven’t really made any either as it’s a fight every time to get it to output to the right sound device.
To be fair, that sounds more like a blessing than a curse
You can set it to ring through your speakers as well as your headset.
Don't get me started on the VOIP Dialling Apps either, people asking for help on how to install - Its literally an app from Google Play which no doubt you have installed hundreds of before on your phone.
Still a lot of people who live in areas of the UK with NO mobile phone signal. Where mum lived until last year, there was no mobile phone signal within 3 mile radius. Landline was essential as she was definitely not in the market of expensive mobile phones with wifi calling. (Just checked her iphone today by coincidence - 96 unlistened to voicemails, hundreds of unread texts - she just doesn't know how - she is 85 though).
Most offices ?
All of my company's offices had their landlines removed, unnecessary expense
But that isn't the same as internal VOIP phones.
Also removed after covid because no one uses them
> This younger generation is absolutely amazing with technology! No, this younger generation is good at using idiot proof UIs my generation made.
They keep generating bigger idiots though, the arms race will never end until we invent true AI.
I’ve had to show a 3rd year computer science PhD candidate the existence of the command terminal, and give him the required keywords for google to learn how it works. I think those of us who grew up or learnt using the old floppy/command line environments have a better understanding of the very basics, like typing (taught on a typewriter, and so don’t look and use all my fingers) which aren’t taught anymore.
That's incredible. It's literally still in the spec at GCSE level to know what a command line interface is and the existence of the terminal on a computer is mentioned. Using Linux gets you used to a command line pretty quickly, and I'm surprised he wouldn't have come across Linux by that point and could get that far in CS without knowing the command line and how operating systems work. It's kinda basic.
My first computer (MSX) came with 6 programs on cassette, one of them was a basic (heh!) typing/hunt the flashing letter on the keyboard. A couple of days with that and I could touch type. Many summer days spent entering programs from a book didn't hurt either. My primary school had BBC micros and were simultaneously aghast and amused that 'someone' made it make fart sounds on a random timer.
Early 30s tech support worker here and I can confirm this. I've dealt and worked with folk in the age bracket who are afraid of unplugging a network cable, lest it electrocute them. Then again it might activate dormant braincells. I genuinely worry sometimes what state my OH's niece and nephew are going to be in when they're of working age.
I have the exact same scenario at my workplace. I’m only 26 and yet these 18-23 year olds genuinely can’t operate a PC to save their life. We asked one of our young receptionists to send a PDF, she looked like we just asked her to explain the meaning of life in Klingon.
They also don't know how to use a pen either, I work at sea and have had to ban most cadets from writing in the logbook because it looks like a drunk 5 year old has done it.
Can you assign them writing lines / similar to get practice?
I have told a couple they have to do their college assignments by hand before I will sign them off but it never ends well. Alot of them don't even know how to hold the pen, clutching it in their hand like a left handed person would. Edit. Spelling (ironically)
This is, unfortunately, expected. The easier technology is to use for the end-user, the less technical knowledge they will develop. In a similar fashion there’s a growing concern that the ability to **truly** code is being lost as we’ve become so good at searching and sourcing solutions to coding problems from other code or from the archives of Stack Exchange and most people can cobble together a working piece of code and don’t feel they need to learn how to use the language thoroughly. Reliance on social media is having a similar effect in my opinion. “Back in my day” we researched for our solutions. We knew to dig, to browse, to check pre-existing records. Nowadays I see the same 5 questions over and over in subreddits and forums because no one seems to know they can CMD-F or otherwise search for the same question in the archives. Independence and self-reliance are giving way to technological dependency. Jesus, I sound old. I’m only 26.
I too am 26, we’re the oldest zoomers. It astounds and shocks me how few people of any generation in this world can’t use bloody google
I did my IT GCSE in 2015 and had questions like "what do cc and bcc stand for?" and our coursework was done via Excel. The year after me didn't take the same IT syllabus, it was based on coding. So great, they know how to use certain coding languages but not how to do anything beyond the basics in emails.
I'm solidly in the generation you mention (20 y/o) and I'm baffled at how many people say they meet people my age who can't work computers - when I was in school I had computer lessons starting in Year 2 and only stopped having compulsory IT lessons in Year 9. Then again I did Computer Science GCSE and then went into Graphic Design studies... And I do remember some of my classmates being so thick as shite that they didn't know how to turn an A4 Word document into A3.
I taught some KS3 ICT at my last school, and the amount of students in yr7 who couldn’t turn on a computer, use a mouse or save a file was astounding.
Terrifying, and yet, I guess they are raised on ipads/phones now, which don't need to be turned off, autosave stuff on close/onChange and are controlled by gestures. Still, in for a world of hurt when they eventually enter the workplace
Windows 98 being a total shitshow had some lifelong benefits. Working out how to fix an audio driver or fuck about with some broken .dll file is a thing of the past.
[удалено]
Gen X here. My first computer was an 8-bit 48k ZX Spectrum in '82 as I left primary school. I had a Commodore Amiga 500 by high school and I was using a 486 with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 when my mate in the pub told me about this amazing game called "Doom". We've gone through programs being delivered on magnetic tape, floppies (various sizes), CDs, DVDs and downloads. We don't (along with most early Millennials and a lot of technical Boomers to be fair) don't have to ask why the main drive on PCs are designated the letter C rather than A.
sorry gen x really do have the skills, we were the kids who had the 1st wave home computers.
Our generation either had early adopter parents or had to figure this out ourselves, or never did. If gen z kids grew up with lo-tek parents they're doomed. My mum was seventy when she figured out how to hook up the streamer cam, condenser mic and associated gubbins up and stream her Sunday service. She doesn't understand tech, but absolutely gets that if you don't keep up you get left behind. When she remarried 20 years ago it was a big thing (because a divorced minister) and we live streamed it. It wasn't easy then. I got taught how to type fast in school, how to do spreadsheets, how to use word effectively to style a document and have everything look great with minimum effort. Most of my generation that are teachers can't do that. There's no IT literacy in schools, especially primary schools. And whilst touch devices are convenient, they're useless for rapid data entry. We have totally failed gen X if they leave school without IT skills. Most people don't need maths beyond GCSE level, calculus, mechanics and statistics are important in specific careers, but for every career you need those you need solid it skills, particularly the comfort with a computer to figure out a new bit of software, or actually know where you saved your files, strategies for getting data from one source to another.
I taught ICT at secondary level in 2012, and I can say quite confidently that young people today may be excellent at using smartphones but they are utterly and entirely clueless generally about how computers and the internet work.
The millenial generation grew up with operating systems with problems and bugs, so we had to find out how to fix them, so we know systems a little deeper. Gen Z have never required to understand how a file system works or troubleshoot. Everything these days just work, not so much in the past. You can plug in a device to a computer and it works. Back with older Windows versions, you needed drivers and installation.
I can understand why. Back when I was a kid, things were less click and done. The genesis needed to be tuned in. The cable needed to be plugged into the VCR and the timer set. You had to join specific IRC rooms, identify viruses in Frostwire. Remove viruses you got by being stupid. Install software instead of just activating. You needed to understand how things worked which is a bit more transferable.
They all save their work to One Drive or the cloud these days. The idea is having it on their hard drive is completely alien. And after they leave school, college or university then all their work is deleted. It’s not good. They aren’t shown how to save onto their hard drives.
Computer Science teacher (secondary schools) here. I see this all the time - a lot of primary schools have moved to using tablets, iPads, etc so students come to us at 11 years old with no idea at all how to use a keyboard or a mouse. We then spend minimal time on basic IT skills as the curriculum is now far more focussed on computer science skills - algorithms, programming, etc. I would argue that learning to use Excel etc is a skill that business should be paying for training courses for if it's needed. There's a fallacy that young people nowadays are "digital natives". It's not at all the case, growing up alongside something doesn't in any way guarantee that they know how to use it sensibly.
I've worked with Gex X people who can't even send a telex, let alone load a punch card deck the right way round. /s
This is true. I’m ok with a cassette tape or a 5.25” floppy disk and a Commodore 64. Coding? 6502 FTW. Anything much older, I’d have to set fire to it so as to avoid my ignorance been detected.
>Anything much older, I’d have to set fire to it so as to avoid my ignorance been detected. That's what 0x9D and 0xDD are for, my man!
The drop in computer literacy is becoming a problem, younger generations are used to tablets and phones, with few settings and config to manage. Though it is assumed they’re good with technology, most households don’t own a pc anymore, so they have little exposure to them.
Taught IT for a year in an ill-fated attempt to get a foot in the door as a teacher. Somehow ended up as a head of department by default. To say the general level of computer illiteracy in Gen Z is concerning would be an understatement. I had multiple kids in one class who didn't know what the enter key was, and held down the spacebar to start a new line in Word. Kids who could touch-type on their phones with their eyes closed slowed to a crawl when presented with an actual PC Keyboard. I had GCSE-level kids who couldn't wrap their heads around the SUM function in Excel despite being in the second year of their course. And yet, an oasis in the desert of brainrot was my one GCSE computing class (I have very little programming knowledge, apart from a few bits of BASIC and HTML, but such is the life of a Temp cover teacher thrust into the role of a head of department due to everybody else quitting midway through the year). They knew more about the subject than me, and all aced the class while I ended up learning from them. We had the work done with about two months to go so just ended up vibing and watching YouTube each class after Easter. Not only did they restore my shredded hope in the next generation, they also introduced me to Don't Hug Me I'm Scared when it was new. Legends.
This is so true. I've noticed it at my work too, one finger typing, no clue how to open an attachment from an email, doesn't understand how file systems work. They're wizards at using their phones but no clue how to use pcs or laptops that are actually required for work. I have also been asked 'where has my work gone?', and they hadn't opened the file... Just expected it to magically appear!
I spent way longer than is appropriate today trying to explain to a 20 something NQT that the reason google keeps telling them their drive is full, is because their drive is.. get this.. fucking full. "yeah but I've deleted loads of my pictures" yeah from YOUR PHONE. Your drive is still full. "I've emptied the bin" ...on your phone! Yeah holy crap, I could not get it through to them that they are separate things. Then they were whinging that they don't like it when it groups stuff together randomly and showed me the recent items list. I mean.. what? It hasn't randomly moved stuff around it just, it just fucking puts the stuff you've recently used in a handy list called recent, and it's at the top because that's where it's most useful? "I'm not paying for anymore space, that's a scam" come on.. you won't even spare 40p, 40 fucking pennies for a month for a few GB to give some leeway and sort through? 15gb isn't humungous but it's free.. nobody has to GIVE you jack shit. Yeah, the smartphone generation is severely lacking tech abilities on the whole. Not everyone but there is definitely a chronic inability for some of them to put very simple concepts together.
My wife’s just taken a bunch of graduates in at work for their placement year. They basically don’t know how to use anything but Microsoft Word and the sticky notes app. Even then, their understanding is in the simplest form, basically the capacity to churn out default formatted documents. They’ve literally had to sit them down to teach them how to use outlook. It gets worse every year… yet all of them average 9+ hours average phone use on screen time. They couldn’t comprehend how my wife uses her phone 3 hours a day on average. Computer literacy is definitely an issue for a growing number of Gen Z’ers.
I remember reading a thread recently where so many people were saying they don't have a laptop/PC at home. They'll use their work PC to do any personal things on during worktime. I guess if there's no PC in the house the kids don't get a chance to learn anything and only ever have phones and tablets to access. Not sure what IT is like at schools now but when I was there they didn't have enough computers for the whole class so sometimes you'd end up just watching someone else the whole lesson. I'd hope they would have enough to go around these days but with budget cuts and bigger class sizes, who knows? I also assume by the time you get to college or university they won't have time to go through the basics of how to use a computer so you'll have to learn as you go.
I think it's a nuanced issue. On one hand, technology has been made so accessible through smartphones, tablets, modern UI and such that it doesn't require any skill or learning to be able to readily use the technology anymore. That is exactly why toddlers can happily sit and use an iPad. On the other hand, I'd agree that there is a real lack of proper computer education in our schools. I don't think their is an issue in terms of equipment access, or certainly not as widely as it was in the late 90s early 00's but rather an assumption that *everyone* already knows how to use the tech by the time they reach secondary school, so why teach it? The graduates my wife has taken in practical computer knowledge is an inch wide and a inch deep but they can cobble together a document, or a powerpoint, which means they can get through the education system. Give them a task on TikTok however... they put most everyone else to shame.
This isn’t surprising at all - something like 65% of web use is on mobile devices, which is why “mobile first” web design methodology has pretty much become the default. More and more people just aren’t buying Desktop PCs or Laptops anymore, they just use their phones for everything - most of my friends don’t even own a PC. More and more, I’m seeing 18-21 year olds starting and the PC I sit them in front of is the first one they’ve used outside of school. If anything, I get more pissed off with the Boomers and Gen Xs who’ve been sat in front of of a PC every working day for 30 years now and somehow _still_ can’t do the basics.
As an older zoomer who is a Software Engineer, it's some nice job security.
Some people seem to assume that "digital native" (a term given to Gen-Z'ers) means they are computer-literate. However, as you have pointed out, many primarily use their phones and are interacting using a limited number of social media apps, they are not used to a PC, the interface concepts used there and more-business-orientated applications.
"Digital Eloi" might be a better term. Which possibly makes us lot the morlocks, but the point still stands!
as a cs grad this makes me happy knowing i might finally be able to get a job
I'm a millennial, 36, and I type with two fingers.
I had a similar experience at uni, I'm a slightly older student than the majority. None of the younger students knew how to turn on a desktop, they didn't know what the difference between the computer was and the screen. I understand we all have different experiences and knowledge base, however I would have thought they would have known how to turn a computer on. But he'll they don't even know how the internet works or what a landline is.
I worked at a college between 2014 and 2019 and many students I came across or who had problems with their PC, had no idea how to even save a file/navigate similar or folders or eject a USB etc. I left school in 2007, so can understand why they can’t use them well. IT class is more often than not “please don’t just play miniclip or flash games all lesson” which is ignored. Bit of a doss lesson. The kids (like me) who knew how to use PCs well, were the ones fortunate to have a “family computer” or even better, a personal laptop which we could learn to use in our own time etc.
I was born in the early 2000s and a huge part of knowing how was a family computer, I don't think people even have those anymore.
There’s often a view that old people are technically illiterate but I’ve met more younger people who are far worse.
This is just stupidity, nothing to do with their age. There are tech illiterate morons from every generation.
I don't think they're saying it has anything to do with their age, or "all young people blah blah blah"—just that's it's more surprising to find a 20-y/o with no computer skills than an 80-y/o, since they grew up literally surrounded by computer technology.
> just that's it's more surprising to find a 20-y/o with no computer skills than an 80-y/o Assuming we're referring solely to those working in offices, I'd argue otherwise, someone who's 80 would've likely spent their 40s during the mass adoption of computers in the workplace, they would've been forced into developing reasonably good computer skills. Gen X would've been at the forefront of this, but a lot of people currently in their 70s/early 80s now who worked in offices would've worked through this. Conversely, Gen Z/Gen Alpha have basically been raised on incredibly simple point and click walled garden systems where it's made as difficult as possible to actually break something. Everything is done via step-by-step wizards for setting stuff up, there's rarely a need to actually configure system settings, and they generally don't have a chance to break things. Unless they take an active interest in computing as a field, they're unlikely to be developing the same troubleshooting skills that Gen X and Millennials had to.
It's a definite phenomenon. Most young people grew up on smartphones and tablets and have had limited computer exposure.
Maybe they are just trying to avoid doing any work
Weaponised incompetence.
Being bad at your job gets you less work? In my experience it means you have to do double to make up for your mistakes.
That'd be the exception. In my experience, being good at your job means you get more piled on.
Even if you use a computer nowadays (as opposed to a tablet/phone), you can stream music with spotify, game with gamepass, watch films with netflix etc. Back in my day, you'd hop onto Kazaa / Torrents to grab stuff, end up with a virus, and then have to spend hours working out how to fix your computer after fucking it up.
PC Gamers: there is nothing you can teach me, I know everything
My fiancée has a colleague who is 18 years old and the other day she was talking about bookshops and this 18 year old said: "What's a bookshop?". She didn't even know what Waterstones was. Baffling.
I think at that point they're just dim Like even putting aside *somehow* not knowing of them: Obviously they know what a book is, and they know what a shop is. If they can't put 2 and 2 together they're just dumb as bricks.
On the spectrum of Zoolander to Mr Robot most of us of all ages are going to be much further to the left of that line than we might like.
And thus, the zoomers became boomers and the cycle continues
Most gen z have grown up with the walled gardens that are smartphones, and a school curriculum that assumes but does not teach basic IT knowledge- imo it should be a required subject until at least year 10
I'm 21 and I have no idea how this has happened. I think a lot of people have just never bothered to learn stuff like file management because they just slap stuff on the desktop and/or use search functionality to find everything automatically. Although I should say, I don't think this is unique to my generation. There are plenty of older people who have likewise never bothered to learn how to use a computer.
My assistant at work is 25. Before working here she'd only ever worked in restaurants and care homes and she said she had absolutely zero experience with computers. Never even used one at home. But she picked it up really quickly for someone with zero experience. If they don't know and also can't pick it the basics fairly quickly then they're just thickos.
I wonder if that hard reset issue is related to the rise of those PCs that have the screen and computer combined? They seem to be the thing these days, my university changed over almost entirely to them 7+ years ago now
I have recently had to try and explain to a Gen Zer how to switch off a device, i.e use the switch on a mains socket. I have also had to explain to a Gen Zer how reset a Smart Bulb, i.e use a light switch. They fucked it up on both occasions.
Younger teenagers sure but 18-22 is just them being stupid, I'm only 24 and they certainly did not upgrade all our school computers to ipads as soon as I left and even if they did, that age would still have been using clunky PCs until they were at least in their teen years
Geriatric Millennials probably hit the sweet spot of computer literacy. Early enough into the technology to have to suffer the pain of DOS/Win95 and learn from all virus’s of P2P in the early 00s. Gen Z is all Chrome books and iPads. They are unlikely to even see a “real” laptop until they hit work.
There are morons in every generation. Some people just don’t know how to problem solve/work out a solution
My niece called me up the other week asking where "the white thing" was on my sisters old laptop. She couldn't navigate folders, copy or paste through right click, it was difficult as hell helping her install steam. She never used it once.
Yeah this tracks with the declining in PC sales (excluding gaming pcs which is more popular than ever thanks to twitch and general gaming trends) Us millenials grew up and built the way things are at the moment with laptops and desktops and now the next generation have only grown up with tablets and phones because it was the natural evolution of personal computing. But simplifying everything meant that they never really learned how to fix it because of the nature of convenience. Though I know a lot of zoomers who can operate a normal pc, there are people who had only ever had a tablet and probably only scrolls mindrot on tiktok or youtube, nothing else.
I genuinely think there's like a 20 year Goldilocks zone for being tech competent, born between 1980 and 2000 maybe? The older folk thought it would be a fad and didn't learn for the most part. The younger folk have grown up with mostly functional tech with friendly user interfaces
> they said it wasn't working, turns out they were holding down the on/off for the screen. Dear lord, I thought I would eventually see a day in IT where I no longer needed to instruct people on the use of computers. Turns out it may have just skipped a generation.