cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27501866
source: @n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca
There are tech savvy people in every generation and some dumbos. IMO the low bar for being tech savvy has nothing to do with PDFs, it’s whether or not you can install a functioning operating system on a device. Anyone who can do that can figure out any of that other stuff.
I’m conflicted on this. Back in the day, I would normally say: building your own computer was the bar (which includes the OS to me).
Times have changed and all of a sudden (or so it feels) it seems that navigating UIs seems to be making people tech savvy? Quite a lot of kids can navigate things faster than I can, but don’t really get what an OS is at all. That makes sense because iPads, Android Phones, Macs and most machines don’t require any building or OS installation.
That’s not the bar it used to be. You don’t even need to worry about device drivers anymore.
Even the most difficult Linux installs now aren’t that much more complicated than XP was.
Anything from Home Assistant / Sonarr / Radarr / ntfy / MQTT / LoRa would make my current basic savvy list.
Classic Lemmy Linux users forgetting that access to a PC and the knowledge to use it is a privilege not afforded to most unlike budget smartphones which cost less than the keyboard you own and are becoming more and more of a necessity than a trivial toy as it was when we first had them.
Lamenting generational failures is a pastime reserved for the old to soothe their egos. If you actually care, understand the systemic reasons why young people are less tech literate and take the steps to reach them.
I understand the reasons, but so many people I’ve had to deal with don’t seem to want to learn.
Bingo. I have noticed a huge downfall in curiosity and engagement with not only technology, but pretty much everything in the world. People just want to be spoon-fed and will fight you throw a hissy fit rather than just… learn or make an effort to figure things out on their own.
I used to be a part of a DIY repair space for tech and mechanics and left because around 2022 it went from fun to just… a bunch of lazy people showing up and whining that other people were not doing the work for them. And you’d explain it was a DIY space for people to self-learn and they would just give you this vague look and get angry and then complain that ‘I thought you were suppose to do it for me.’
I don’t know what it is, social media or phone addiction or what. It seems to be just as bad will millennials now as any other gen. People just… don’t want to try anymore at anything. And trying is the only way you properly learn anything.
Also, people don’t seem interesting in figuring tech stuff out, its so easy to just google an error message, and read what it says.
Most people carry a smartphone more expensive than my all organs combined to be fair, at least in US.
Linux and technology in general is not that hard as long as you aren’t scared of clicking everything and messing around. And I say this as someone who didn’t have internet access until 2020.
I bought a 2013 MacBook Air for $60 a year ago to take with me on a backpacking trip.
It is running the very latest release of EndeavourOS and runs it well. It can do video calls. Honestly, there is little it cannot do.
You can use it to learn to program C, C++, Rust, Python, Go, Java, C#, and F#. It runs Distrobox and Docker so you can learn about containers. I guess after using QEMU/KVM to learn about VMs. You can use it to run K3S. You can run Postman, RestAssured, and Selenium to learn about Web APIs and testing. It runs WASM. You can orchestrate AWS or Azure from it as it runs both Terraform and OpenTofu great. It can run a host of cybersecurity tools including BurpSuite. You can run both SQL and Document databases. You can use it to package your own software and contribute to Linux distro development. You can emulate older machines and even run digital design tools and PCB layout. Obviously it runs all the major modern web browsers and a couple different Office suites. It can even do basic video editing and run smaller LLMs. It can run Steam if you are happy with older games. I know it can do all these things because I have.
Without going on and on, I think you could use it to rotate a PDF.
It comes with keyboard, trackpad, screen, and networking built in. It takes up hardly any space. And it is considerably less expensive than most phones and tablets. Of course, there are many less expensive computers that would also do the trick if you cannot afford $60 and just want to learn.
I don’t think you can argue that basic computer skills are elitist. We are not talking F1 racing here.
computers have never been cheaper
while that might be true for the e-waste teirs of pcs, that idea is laughable for anything actually usable. just take a look at nvidia’s pricing, and I don’t mean msrp I mean the actual price you actually pay at checkout.
Youth bad, hate youth
Haha funny
This is the same rhetoric the Boomers used to keep us down.
Every generation is smarter than the last, us millennials need to learn to cope without ageist propaganda.
I’m not a millenial, I’m a part of gen z.
A high amount of this generation is hopeless when it comes to tech. There is outliers and exceptions, but as a whole, tech literacy has gone down.
I’m a millennial computer scientist
This is literally propaganda
This is the exact same as boomers thinking they are superior to millennials for knowing how to drive stick shift or write cursive.
But both cursive and manual stick shift (at least in the USA) are being used less and less, but computers are being used more, while literacy goes down.
I think it has to do with barrier of entry. Way back in the day, you had to be quite the hacker to operate a computer (say Amiga or ZX Spectrum). Then, with Windows XP (or 98), it became easier to operate one, but some tasks still required clever ways to solve. Fast forward to now, all you have to do is click one icon at the bottom bar, write what you want in the top bar, and you got a billion answers.
Most of the stuff I learned was because the path to successfully perform stuff required knowing lots of different stuff.
For context, first PC was Win 98 when I was 7, born 1996.
At the very least, your generation has the ability to eventually learn tech usage. Its not too late like it is for boomers.
I’ve had a not insignificant amount of people who don’t want to learn how to. Boomers can learn how to. I love showing old people how to use google lens.
IMHO, the tone is entirely different from “millennials are all worthless, lazy, whiny bitches” to “zoomers aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.”
For one, we millennials don’t think it’s totally true, and I think it’s more a point of pride, because we grew up learning technology as it grew with us, than shitting on another generation.
I have never rotated a PDF
And I can’t actually imagine why you’d need to?
But I can imagine it’s pretty simple, like “print” then “print to pdf” and landscape? Or something?
it depends on the person. some zoomers are great with tech, hardware and software. others aren’t. same goes for every generation. this reeks of the “haha let’s shit on the younger generations” millennials have been mad about for years
Sorry, but its different this time. A much smaller chunk of gen z is good with tech, and most of them struggle with basic concepts (like filesystems). Saying this as a gen z person.
It’s always “different this time.” Every generation.
Spoken as another gen Z person, I know exactly one other gen Z person who’s bad with tech. The rest are great with it. It’s entirely Dependant on who you surround yourself with.
No, there is a good basis for this. It’s not their fault, the technology they learned to use didn’t involve troubleshooting or managing the system. There will always be some who understand, but most Gen X and Y are competent on computers. The same cannot be said for Zoomers.
Yeah I suspect what’s happening is that plenty of boomers were actually just bad at tech but they got to use the excuse that they didn’t grow up with it. Any gen z people that are bad at tech don’t have that excuse so it seems like they’re stupid, when in reality there have always been stupid people or people who just aren’t interested.
