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Computer literacy is weird because it feels like millennials were born into it and had to learn how to use the tools available... Then said tools were made a lot simpler with a lot less control over them, and Gen Z was born into apps and saas and did not have the chance to properly learn
We generally only taught a single generation to master our tech, I think it's scary, but also I trust the Zoomers to figure it out, they're creative
You make some good points there. I remember LAN parties in high school where we would spend hours troubleshooting network problems and calling older brothers for advice. I learned a lot from those experiences, because I was forced to. I think a big part of the changes we are seeing in computer literacy is what I would call the Apple philosophy: if a toddler can't use it, we need to simplify. Basically, as you said, things are getting simpler with less granular control. Of course, Apple is far from the only company doing this stuff, but they seem to be industry leaders in the sense of 'dumbing down' tech.
I recently had a friend say that privacy is a luxury these days. My first thought was that there is nothing luxurious about it. It takes hard work, inconvenience and savvy. And I'm not even close to Stallman levels of privacy paranoia. I know just enough to acknowledge that I know nothing. I feel similarly about tech in general. I have been using Linux for ten years, I use VPNs, I have played around with DNS settings, et cetera. But I realize that I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible and available to those willing to spend the time and get it done.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. Thanks for replying thoughtfully, and thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I think so too. My kids are around the age I was when I first started tinkering with PCs, but they don't have any awareness of what's going on under the hood, (to be frank, nor do they seem to need it, as everything is so polished these days).
I'm thinking of asking their teachers if I can take them out of school for a day each and bring them to work with me for educational purposes so they get some perspective in the form of networks and servers.
Sure, they're mostly interested in gaming, but I want them to see what kind of infrastructure is needed for a multiplayer game, specifically the hardware that they never get to see.
I'm building a new server stack in a couple of months, and most of it will be used for testing, so I'd like for them to help build and connect it.
(to be frank, nor do they seem to need it, as everything is so polished these days)
The problem is if you don't know basic concepts of computers you cannot transfer your knowledge from one program to the next. Folder structures are a bizarre thing for many people and if they see one in program A, then they won't understand that in program B it works the same way.
I have never had any issues learning any new software from scratch, but I see people my age not figuring out where to click next or where something they are looking for might be hidden in the options. Then an update comes that changes things and they are back to square 1 and helpless.
I just had a chat with my oldest (almost 13 years y.o.) asking him some theoretical questions in the hope to spark some curiosity: "When you connect to a Roblox game, what do you think you're connecting to?". It took him a few leaps of imagination to realize that he's connecting to a physical machine somewhere, and now he's curious as to how such a machine looks. So that server stack I'll be setting up, he's interested in tagging along.
He already knows full well that there are more to PCs than just the windows UI, as I'm a linux guy, but I don't think they're aware of just how much can be done with a computer once you go outside of the usual GUI app that connects to some cloud service.
So, provided that his teacher agrees (after all, I have to take him out of school for what effectively will be "alternative education" for a few days so we can fly down to the head office), he'll end up with bragging rights of having dealt network hardware that costs more than the average computer, and computers that cost more than the average house.
Good on you. You can teach your son some valuable perspective, while getting in some quality time as well. Please let us know how it goes, if you don't mind. I feel invested now.
It's really not a generational thing. Every generation has their nerds and they always are just a tiny minority.
The late Gen X/early millennials may have been an outlier because they were forced to learn to get anything working but also from those years most don't care about tech.
This is quite a few years old now, but I think the main points are still valid. As you said, everything is so polished, kids don't need to figure out how it works.
http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/
Gen-z here - I know how to torrent lol. It's insane how tech illiterate a lot of my friends are, even in my IT classes don't know what HTTPS is or what an ethernet cable is so... yeah
Feels weird being known as "the guy who's an expert at computers" despite being a noob
bro you're on lemmy, you're already outside of the curve for most gen-z
I'm probably the only person in my entire school who knows what lemmy is lol
16 years ago, that was Reddit for me.
Guess we'll see.
I wonder if anybody at my uni uses lemmy
Edit: Anybody from cal poly pomona feel free to comment below
I wonder if anybody in my town uses Lemmy lol.
I feel like if you know how to look up the answer and can follow a guide to apply 5 steps, you are probably more capable than 80% of the people on this planet.
I’m an older Gen Z, but same here. I really don’t know that much but can torrent, so people see me as some sort of tech god lol.
My younger sister on the other hand, also Gen z, is so tech illiterate that her downloads folder is a mess and thinks deleting installers will delete the installed program.
It's absolutely amazing how we went from the majority of people not knowing how to use a computer in the beginning of computers to everyone knowing how to do at least the bare minimum on a computer in the 2000s to now circling back to the majority of people not knowing how to use a computer because pretty much everything they do can and probably is done on a phone. It's also real scary to think since I'd assume most of us Gen Z-ers aren't properly able to object to privacy eroding tech bills because we're too tech illiterate to understand the impacts.
It's also real scary to think since I'd assume most of us Gen Z-ers aren't properly able to object to privacy eroding tech bills because we're too tech illiterate to understand the impacts.
Millennial here, putting my tinfoil hat on for a minute:
This is exactly what the big tech corpos wanted all along. They've been curving the arc of history towards people at large being digitally dependent but incapable of self-service. They want addicts, not citizens. Serfs, not an educated populace.
In the 70s, 80s, 90s, and into the early 00s there was this "hacker culture" which was centered on the idea that as long as we keep our wits about us we could use computers as a great equalizer. The common person was empowered. Any and all software would be distributed for free so anyone who couldn't afford it could get it. Bill Gates was painted as a villain because he was overtly capitalistic. The corpos were kept in check by a diverse, rapidly evolving market and a ton of savvy users who knew what they wanted.
Giant corporations pretty much caught on that they needed there to be fewer tech savvy people who could get one over on them. When politicians needed to ask experts what to include in school curriculums, guess who had lobbyists ready to go? Microsoft and Apple. Eventually Google too.
And now that there are fewer tech savvy people? Everything got shittier. Shinier, faster, dumber, more locked down and shittier. And the enshittification is just going to accelerate until people straight up reject it, then it'll pause for 6 months to a year and start up again.
20yrs ago I had to help my comp sci housemate build a website for his module. I was not a CS student.
Some things never change.
Gen-z too, finding can be somewhat hard but the mega threads help. Torrenting itself is easy of course. Just get transmission or any other FOSS client, put on a proper VPN and good to go.
qbittorrent search makes it stupid easy too
Dude I was born in 2000 and I get so mad when I realize how true this is. Apps/"smart" phones might be regarded as the biggest double edged sword in the history of technology.
It literally feels like we are at a moment in history where we are evolving backwards by force. This will only worsen as the ipad babies grow older.
You will own nothing and be happy. You will also know nothing and be happy.
You will also know nothing and be happy.
Ignorance is bliss after all
We are actively being held back by companies catering exclusively to the lowest common denominator.
This might be true, but it's rapidly changing due to a collaborative effort from big gaming companies, streaming services and hollywood. People are relearning the art of torrenting.
"be bisexual" ???
I think they're using this style: https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-does-eat-hot-chip-and-lie-mean-the-viral-copypasta-and-meme-explained
What's the original to template? It looks hilarious!
Found it! It's eat hot chip & lie. The text in the original reads:
any female born after 1993 can’t cook… all they know is mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie
I heard that some employers are having to teach new 'gen z' employees how to download email attachments...
Gen Z struggles with file systems in general, because the vast majority of their technical experience is on mobile OS's. However, Gen Z compsci students are somehow far beyond the skill set that millennials had at their age. Or at least that has been my experience with interns over the past 12 years.
I guess because the Gen Z comp sci students are the people who are truly fluent in computers. We were immersed in the internet and digital technology from a young age, but also had the curiosity to go beneath the surface of them, and get a real understanding of how things work. Most people just use the technology superficially, even if they have grown up with the internet and computers.
100%, as a Gen Z CompSci student lol
I was born in 2001. I didn't use a smartphone until I was like 16. We grew up with regular computers too. I also grew up with Windows XP and 7, as well as playing Doom using DosBox. Then again I am a computer science graduate, so maybe not the best example.
Gen Z here. Totally agree, though I personally am a bad example for this one. There was someone in my CS class once who I was put into a group with for a project. I needed some code that they had, so I asked them to put it on my flash drive. It was taking a while and eventually I asked why. They didn't know where their IDE saved their code, and were using Windows search to try and find it. They were pretty good at actual programming, logic, etc. though.
I can torrent, I just suck at it.
Besides 1337 who is good?
Besides 1337 who is good?
Literally any private tracker is a million times better
Are those the trackers which demand you have accounts with other private trackers before you join or the ones which demand everyone have a >1 ratio to download anything which is impossible by definition, so everyone either gets huge seedboxes, cheats the ratio or has to download niche but big files from other sites and switch out the tracker to artificially up the ratio?
I'm sure there are actually good private trackers, but I've found there are open/effectively open (sign up only with no verification/requirements) trackers with better communities than any restricted one I've found
Teach us then 😭
Ha I was actually just thinking that we need to teach them as I was reading this. We had to go through a shit ton of trial and error. God forbid if he started with something like LimeWire. Viruses... Viruses everywhere
I was born after 2000 I have to teach my parent how to torrent its not a generational thing lol
Reading this as someone who torrents debian ISOs instead of directly downloading then in the hopes of reducing server load, while at the same time, not torrenting any pirated stuff.
But well, I was born a wee bit before 2000