This misconception comes from the fact that gen X were basically the first crowd to be the bulk of the Internets at the dawn of it, and all of them were technically proficient enough to do it, so there is a bias: you had to know something about computers to be on the internet. Nowadays you don’t need to know anything, the barrier is virtually non-existent and basically anyone can do internets with their phone and some “app” without knowing anything at all about how it works or how to setup a connection or even type an address.
Most of us were and are pretty dumb when it comes to technology or even problem solving, nothing changed in that regard.
Yeah. Gen X is weird since people just forget them in the “boomer/millenial” nonsense. But some older GenX’ers were having fun on BBSes just like some older millenials (yo) did.
But largely, by the time all the tech savvy millenials got involved? We were already in Windows 95/98 and were basically just using web browsers and double clicking everything.
And the main point for why zoomers clearly don’t understand anything is… zoomers don’t care about folder structure. Which… is arguably a better approach to file systems and is similar to the logic of redis/nosql versus sql/relational databases.
Like, whichever Windows got rid of the start menu (8?) largely made me realize that I was barely using my start menu anyway and mostly would click it, go to programs, and then type the name of what I wanted.
There are definitely harder jumps to go from “I use computers” to “I am a computer scientist/engineer/whatever” but… that is the point of school. And we already saw t with a lot of millenials not having shop class equivalents. We tend to not “build” things because… repairing your TV is more effort than it is worth. Same with cars where the vast majority of maintenance is either less needed (because of better tolerances on hoses and the like) or is just swapping out parts rather than hammering your radiator pump until it fits.
This misconception comes from the fact that gen X were basically the first crowd to be the bulk of the Internets at the dawn of it, and all of them were technically proficient enough to do it, so there is a bias: you had to know something about computers to be on the internet. Nowadays you don’t need to know anything, the barrier is virtually non-existent and basically anyone can do internets with their phone and some “app” without knowing anything at all about how it works or how to setup a connection or even type an address.
Most of us were and are pretty dumb when it comes to technology or even problem solving, nothing changed in that regard.
Yeah. Gen X is weird since people just forget them in the “boomer/millenial” nonsense. But some older GenX’ers were having fun on BBSes just like some older millenials (yo) did.
But largely, by the time all the tech savvy millenials got involved? We were already in Windows 95/98 and were basically just using web browsers and double clicking everything.
And the main point for why zoomers clearly don’t understand anything is… zoomers don’t care about folder structure. Which… is arguably a better approach to file systems and is similar to the logic of redis/nosql versus sql/relational databases.
Like, whichever Windows got rid of the start menu (8?) largely made me realize that I was barely using my start menu anyway and mostly would click it, go to programs, and then type the name of what I wanted.
There are definitely harder jumps to go from “I use computers” to “I am a computer scientist/engineer/whatever” but… that is the point of school. And we already saw t with a lot of millenials not having shop class equivalents. We tend to not “build” things because… repairing your TV is more effort than it is worth. Same with cars where the vast majority of maintenance is either less needed (because of better tolerances on hoses and the like) or is just swapping out parts rather than hammering your radiator pump until it fits.