Comment by jballs@sh.itjust.works on Despite tech-savvy reputation, Gen Z falls behind in keyboard typing skills

Yeah I don’t know why the article mentions Gen Z’s “tech-savvy reputation”. Being able to operate a cell phone doesn’t make you tech savvy.

Gen X and Millennials grew up using command line and troubleshooting computer problems before the Internet. Their tech skills are way higher than Gen Z.

The average user experience has abstracted away understanding how things actually work.

Software is still jank. Well maybe except zfs and sqlite, but the rest is jank. Also seL4.

Being able to operate a cell phone doesn’t make you tech savvy

it does, to a boomer

I never needed to use command line, but I did hone my typing skills on MIRC and ICQ.

*Mavis Beacon.

Anyone responsible for the family IT services had to learn cmd.

Also, the article reminds me of this

I’m thankful my father was so insistent on teaching me to type properly. At the time I was super annoyed at him putting a cardboard cutout over the keyboard so I couldn’t see keys. But touch typing has been a boon ever since, I doubt dad was prepping me for typing quickly mid-game but it sure is nice!

My dad was similar. Guess thats a good thing looking back. I’m going to teach my kid pivot tables so they can rule the world.

What about cl_gibcount 1000 in half life.

I learned mine playing a MUD

You typed fast or you died.

For me it was WoW back when it was more social and you had to communicate via text mid fights and whatnot

Definitely RuneScape that did it for me

Pretty sure booting into DOS before loading Windows and playing the Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe both count as command line experience.

I also think that as smug as a lot people feel about this, it doesn’t seem far off to think that physical keyboard typing skills could be substituted with newer technologies, or refined versions of existing tech. At least in terms of performing most office job functions.

I’m not saying it’ll be more efficient, or better, just that it wouldn’t be a surprising next step given the trends being discussed here.

If that happens, I have no doubt that smugness will turn into self-righteous indignation and a stubborn refusal to abandon the tactile keyboard for older generations, myself included.

I just hope that if that transition occurs during my lifetime, it’s an either-or situation, and not a replacement of the keyboard.

AI powered keyboard let’s go. Honestly the amount of typing I’ve been able to cut out by just clicking the ai suggested replies in Teams instead of actually typing something out to respond to my coworkers is pretty high.

Anyone else play Montezuma’s Revenge or that DOS King Kong game throwing explosive bananas after inputting stuff for height, angle, force?

You mean that inferior version of Scorched Earth?

Lol. I just went googling and it was Qbasic Gorrilas! Now that takes me back.

Scorched Earth is the mother of all games. Therefore, all games are inferior to Scorched Earth.

I remember taking that game home from school with a floppy disk to put on the home pc.

Key chording has always been faster than conventional single letter typing, and that tech has been around for a long time now in the form of stenography machines. Yet most people learn on a conventional keyboard because it’s simpler and more ubiquitous. This is true even now that chording has been adapted to programming and similar tasks.

You have to remember we live in a world where most people don’t even know how to write properly, even those who do it as part of their job like doctors. If you draw letters by moving your fingers, you’re doing it wrong by the way. The actual proper technique involves using your shoulder, elbow, and wrist to do most of the work. We’ve known about this for centuries, and these techniques were designed with dip pens, quils, brush, and fountain pens in mind. The cheap ballpoint pen along with rather bad instructions from teachers has led to proper handwriting technique being forgotten, and causes problems like RSI in people who handwrite regularly.

Oh ball point pens. Last I heard one of the thing they do preserve in primary school over here is the good ole progression from pencil to fountain pen and sticking for that for the whole four years. Pencil because if you use too much force you break the thing without breaking it, it’s just annoying, and that’s the point, once they switch to fountain pens they’re not going to bend them. Also, cursive from the start. There’s important lessons about connecting up letters in there: Writing single letters properly is harder than cursive because on top of moving your pen over the paper, you have to lift it. Much easier if you already have proper on-paper movement down.

I am quite partial to ink rollers nowadays but still can’t stand ordinary ball points. They feel wrong.

Forcing children to do cursive was not really the point I am trying to make. Yes it’s technically more efficient to write that way, but it’s also considerably more complicated. Forcing children with disabilities to do it leads to all kinds of problems, and makes their writing less legible. I am more talking about techniques that avoid issues like RSI. If we are making children do things we should be teaching them the correct way to do it, not half assing it. While I think we should still teach cursive, I don’t think it should be mandatory. In fact I actually want to see more keyboard use with proper ten finger technique, as that is useful for the real world. Typing technique is also something schools love to neglect. It’s also better to give kids that option as even with better handwriting instruction some just do not have the required motor skills through no fault of their own. People like me were forced to do handwriting practice despite having significant coordination issues, and never being taught the right technique. Eventually I had to dig through obscure corners of the Internet to find out the right way. Situations like that should never be allowed to continue for as long as it did in my case. Either by actually teaching the right technique in the first place, or in cases where that doesn’t work by switching to typing instead.

Forcing children with disabilities to do it

If we are making children do things we should be teaching them the correct way to do it, not half assing it.

…which includes cursive. Also for disabled folks, as far as possible: At that point you’re teaching fine motor mechanics first and foremost, secondly writing. How quickly they write is of no great consequence (or we’d be teaching shorthand), how well their motor skills develop is. The usual approach here is that you get a set cursive with a couple of options and alternative glyph shapes for the first four years, then you can develop from there as you wish. Some kids arguably should get more hand-holding in the “develop for yourself” part.

That you didn’t learn it the right way is a thing you can blame on your teachers, but not cursive. Like, I mentioned pencils and fountain pens, ball-point pens are outlawed in schools here: It’s so that kids don’t use pressure, which makes them not tense up and cramp, which makes developing proper technique way easier. Though if the coordination issues are sub-clinical they generally should be sorted out before primary school starts, that’s a job for the kindergarten, making sure that everyone has a proper baseline in physical, social, and language skills.

I too think ball point pens are horrible. Fountain pens are not that expensive, last a lot longer as they are refillable, and just write better. There are some rather bad fountain pens out there though lol. Platinum Preppy is pretty much the gold standard for cheap pens under £10 or $10. Platinum plasir is a little more expensive but has a more durable body and cap made of metal using the same nib and feed as the preppy. You can also get disposable fountain pens now that aren’t half bad.

Liquid ink roller balls are a good product too and are a nice middle ground between ball point and fountain pen. Although to be fair I wouldn’t be against a return to good old fashioned dip pens as these are the best for calligraphy and honestly look cool as heck in my opinion.

The trouble with fountain pens is that they don’t really expect you to not write for a month or two. The ones with built-in tank would be less annoying there as you can easily uncrust everything by pulling in some ink through the feather (is that what the tip is called in English? I have no idea), but their great downside is that when they make a mess, they make a real mess. Ink rollers you can put in a pocket without worrying and they don’t really dry out. Mostly though you don’t have to ram them into the paper to write.

Also, clutch pencils. Those mechanical ones that take leads that are as thick as usual wood-encased ones, and that you sharpen. If you ever have like 10 bucks burning a hole in your pocket get yourself some koh-i-noor clutch pencils and collection of leads (usual is HB but I’d suggest trying out 2B for writing), suitable sharpener (pencils come with an emergency one but it’s not too nice), as well as two tombow erasers: The ordinary one, and the dust catch one. Life’s too precious to waste nerves on shoddy leads and erasers. Also a Faber-Castel kneadable eraser: Even if you don’t draw it’s occasionally useful to be able to have a fine eraser tip. koh-i-noor leads are reportedly good enough for both artists and engineers and, truth be told, what could be a more perfect combination of endorsements. And, as said, like 10 bucks total.

This is why I feel disconnected from most of my gen z people

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