My wife and I started talking about this after she had to help an old lady at the DMV figure out how to use her iPhone to scan a QR code. We’re in our early 40s.
I am an older millennial born in 83 and I’ve been in IT for about 21 years now and grew up building and fixing PCs for everyone. I think the newer generation is going to be the ones that need the most help. Might be anecdotal but in my years in IT at first it was the older folks with all the problems taking on and using tech. Now it’s the younger kids coming in. In my opinion it’s the way we consume tech now. All tech in the 80’s - early 2000’s required a lot of tinkering and figuring out I always figured the older folks were just set in their ways and didn’t want to learn anything new. My first 15 years in IT I always heard people say “I’m not a computer person” as an excuse to not knowing how to change a signature in outlook, an app they’ve been using for a while, or some other basic business app everyone should know how to use.
Now consumer tech just works. Out of the box you don’t need to tinker or do shit to the stuff. Younger gen is coming us used to shit just working and when anything goes wrong they don’t do well with troubleshooting also companies make anything beyond basic troubleshooting nearly impossible without them so most just don’t try to figure shit out. This type of behavior is getting worse now people get tech that can do a few hundred things and they only use it for two of the few hundred and now you are stuck trying to explain how to do basic tech tasks to an end user who is just going to forget it an hour or so later.
I’ve noticed this with IT employees and the rest of the business. Maybe I’m just a salty IT guy but I do cyber security now and the tech skill levels are just bad and it causes me grief on a regular basis.
I feel this is very similar to working on a car. Back in the day they fixed those things up until they crumbled to dust. Pretty much EVERYONE’S dad knew how to do at least a little something on the car. But I didn’t. The car was just a tool, not a hobby, my dad would fix things when they went wrong and sometimes I’d help and learn a bit, but other than that, I had it repaired or tagged it for a new one.
Cars were always there and easily accessible, but I had to learn DOS to play video games! Computers are now our dad’s cars.
Feel this, I was lucky(?) enough to have a mechanic living at my house who basically told me to fix it myself, he guided me through of course but he emphasized how important it is doing these things on your own.
That guy cannot figure out how youtube works and he’s only 45.
I’d say it all depends on how much you had to use something, while the hurdles in software may seem small to someone experienced. those who are first trekking through see it as a huge wall
Also keep in mind things are less tinkerable now, especially cars and there are a ton of added anti self repair things added that weren’t there before
100%
My buddy bought a new BMW after decades of working on older models. The whole bottom is covered in plastic. You can’t jack it up on the side of the road without a part you have to buy from BMW. Then the brake caliper bolts were metric half size. He sold it the same month he bought it.
100% this.
I have even noted a huge deterioration since I have been in the IT industry, and that’s just been since the mid 2000’s
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People have no idea how to do basic process of elimination troubleshooting anymore.
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They have no ability to look at logs and extrapolate what could be going on.
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They don’t understand how to use a search engine effectively anymore or how to rapidly filter through large amounts of information to find answers (I have no idea why)
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More and more products as you said “just work”… Until they don’t and give you jack shit to go on.
Basically just “oh… It didn’t work, try again later” nothing is more infuriating than something not working and also giving you no information to troubleshoot, it’s why I am basically allergic to anything made by Apple in particular but this is becoming more and more the standard.
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Nah, it’s a thing. Youngest of the Millennial generation and I can concur with your comment after being in IT for a few years - pretty much it’s either Baby Boomers or Gen Z people who have a tough time with technology, with a 50/50 shot of a Gen X person being either super tech savvy or a technological troglodyte. AI has also made things worse since it can now do some light coding, but I’ve seen some people use it to code out entire projects only for it to not work properly at all or break UI on websites.
I’d argue that Gen Z is the worst for the same reasoning in your post: everything works OOTB, and if something goes awry then they don’t know anything or can’t do things the old-fashioned way - which at least Baby Boomers have the option to if they want to be stubborn enough.
You’re not alone. The generation raised on the iPhone/iPad struggle to figure out how to use a “real” computer and everything related to it. There’s all sorts of studies about it.
also companies make anything beyond basic troubleshooting nearly impossible
I hadn’t really thought about this before, but it’s a pretty good point. Not just the companies who make the tech, but employers and providers seem do just about everything in their power to get you to submit a ticket or (even worse) chat with “support” rather than give you the tools to solve the damn problem yourself.
And the menus/settings you need to make more than superficial changes to your device get buried deeper every year.
There are actually studies already showing this, it’s because they grew up on iPads and apps and everything “just working” or dumbed down. I will look for a source but your anecdote lines up.
Ditto, I have to say I’m appalled on a daily basis how software developers I work with are so foreign with the tools they use to earn a living.
Extremely infuriating as well.
i could be thinking this because i grew up around tech but im from 2002 i feel like im WAYYY ahead of the curb for tech problems. NOTHING EVER WORKS and the internet only has solutions that are close to what i need which teaches you how to extrapolate instructions til eventually you hardly need google. making minecraft servers always cause a lot of headache whether it be java not working or port not forwarding. mods not loading or an internet problem causing lag but its a wirlesscard thing not the internet ugh. or just lag in general blah blah
bottom line is im tech support for my friends and my friends are illiterate
Work tech retail, a lot of young people don’t know shit about any tech tbh
It’s because everything is now UI driven and done for them. They didn’t have to debug or solve computer issues. It’s a sad state of affairs that the better technology gets the less the population understands it. I’d say, with respect to this post, millennials may be the only generation that can truly problem solve tech, both past and future.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing
Not sure why this got downvoted. Things “just working” have a lot of upsides too: saving time, better accessibility, etc.
No one is saying things should not just work. The problem is they still break sometimes and people have no idea what to do because it’s rarer now. Also when you get into the business world, you need to use an actual computer to do work. A tablet is not going to cut it. Tablets are mostly for consuming/using, not creating. It’s a lot easier if you know how to use a computer to do that (Windows, Mac, whatever but you need to understand that basics).
It really depends on the kind of work you do. My mindset is, if you’re interested in it, invest time in learning about it. If not, then not. We don’t have to go all “kids these days…” or look down on people who aren’t as interested in techology as we are.
I don’t really. I was just explaining the reasoning there. It is still important to know how to use a computer. That said, I’ve worked in IT and many people of all ages are pretty terrible with tech anyway lol.
I think so too, but oh well, people disagreed and that’s okay :D
They don’t know how to troubleshoot tech. Gen X and early millennials has to get things to work far more often than later generations. Today most things just work.
For sure. Gen X here. I was in IT during the wild west days (90s) and it was glorious!
Even beyond troubleshooting.
Basic things I’d expect people to know:
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What and HDMI cable is
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what an Ethernet cable is
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That Samsung isn’t the only Android manufacturer
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That different tablets are different shapes/sizes and hence use different cases (seems like common sense to me but apparently not)
Etc…
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There’s actually a regression where millennial who grew up with pc are still the best at it gen z is as bad as boomers. If it’s not an app or website they are lost at even the smallest issue.
I notice this way more today with my job. The people we used to hire for computer support would know most of the things they were supposed to. Today most of the people we hire it seems like they can only follow a script or SOP and that’s it, basic troubleshooting or logic just goes out the window. It’s super sad… and even worse having to manage them.
Edit: I also don’t think it helps that they only get to deal with systems that have been made so user friendly anymore that most options to do anything are just built in or a command away so they really never deal with any of the stuff underneath to figure out how systems run.
I constantly think of the ObiWan meme. They were supposed to be the chosen ones. They were supposed to be better with tech, not worse.
I constantly think of the ObiWan meme. They were supposed to be the chosen ones. They were supposed to be better with tech, not worse.
Just like there are exceptions to all boomers being bad at tech, there is definitely are exceptions to the gen z thing as well and I hope I am one of those exceptions.
I love new tech and I’m gen X. I’ve learned new tech all my life. What will fuck me going forward is bad UI. At some point graphic designers decided a dark gray font was better than black. All the keyboard shortcuts I used were changed by Microsoft and I’m still butt hurt about it. Still use MS office but grumpy with the Ribbon.
I’m GenX and I also hate the ribbon. 🤬
Exactly, we grew up constantly learning new tech!
I just want to add that OP goes straight from Boomers to Millenials, ignoring Gen X as usual.
Probably a good thing. As long as Gen X isn’t de facto lumped into boomers :-) I’m happy being forgotten in these inter generational wars.
Unfortunately, I think they do look upon us as boomers.
I was learning to use computer during the transition to the ribbon in Office 2007, but I actually preferred the ribbon to the old interface and these days I don’t mind it. Out of curiosity, what about the Ribbon annoys you guys?
Lost muscle memory and lost productivity. I didn’t really need to move the mouse much while using word programs, especially Excel. I think Microsoft stated during the transition the top end excel users lost something like 15-20% of their use speed? Something like that.
I actually miss the pop down menus that used to be accessible with the Alt key. Every single functional used to be listed there, albeit some things were sub functions, but the display had both icon and description. Icons alone are kind of annoying.
Ah! The other thing that pisses me off about the ribbon is that some parts of it are not visible until the use initiates a certain work type. Like picture functions are only visible if a picture is selected. What other hidden command groupings exist? A user can go poking around to discover what all Excel can do. Got to stumble into the magic combination of clicks to find what isn’t immediately visible.
Not at all. I’m a late Gen Xer, almost a millennial. I thrive on learning new technology. I live for it.
In my experience, if anything, late iterations of Gex X tend to be slightly better with new tech than Milennials, because we grew up having to know how it works in order to use it.
In the days of constant blue screen of death.
There seem to be a lot of us GenX /“Xenials” here in the fediverse already and I think that’s why. We don’t need everything handed to us in its final form.
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Same. Except when teleporters come around. You’ll only teleport me over my dead body.
Me too
No, I think we’ll be fine. It’s Gen Z and Gen Alpha that are acting like boomers in regards to technology. My eldest niece and eldest nephew are tech-illiterate even though they grew up with PCs, tablets, and smartphones in their daily lives.
My eldest nephew can’t figure out how to use Libby, or how to install unlock origin on his mobile Firefox browser, and my eldest niece has no idea how to troubleshoot or look up solutions to any tech problems at all.
It’s frustrating and I had ban them from asking me anything tech related because I got tired of being the free, family tech support. Now I tell them “well, what did the sources say after you researched the solution?” And that always shuts them both up because I know they didn’t even try looking up the solution on their own.
They also have the bad habit of believing everything they read online. I tried telling them both that they should look at more than one source when researching important information (nephew was doing a paper on the American Civil War) and they stared at me like I was nuts.
They are the living, breathing examples of Intelligence VS Wisdom.
I think us Millennials will, for the most part, have an easy time keeping up with new tech, even as we get older.
Man that is my biggest pet peeve is someone coming to me asking for help saying IT DOESN’T WORK without either trying to figure it out or even doing the tiniest bit or research. It usually takes one single Google search. My mother in law thinks she has the nuclear codes and she’s gonna blow everything up if she touches her laptop wrong
I’m thinking new interfaces/concepts of interaction might be where we lose touch.
Just like the previous baby boom generation had people with a lot of technical knowledge about for example how punch cards were used to configure computers and how to type with an old typewriter, we might know much about more advanced technical software and touch interfaces, but many might skip the Snapchat/TikTok scene and feel out of place.
Not to mention future upcoming things like a Brain-Computer Interface connected to an AI; perhaps to socialize, to create tools / content. Some of us, and maybe you as well, will join this scene too, but I already see people giving up and staying away from new stuff.
We will have a role in the technical side because of our knowledge, but that core knowledge is not that important any longer in many fields just like most developers don’t have to worry about machine code any more.
Speaking as a millennial I’m not bad at new technology but I really fucking hate how dumbed down and the planned obsolescence in everything nowadays. So that leads me to avoid using new shit a lot of the time. My phone for instance is 6 years old because there’s nothing currently available that wouldn’t be a downgrade in functionality. I’m also dreading getting a new car because all the newer ones I’ve been in have really shittily designed infotainment systems and a bunch of extra crap I don’t need. I really feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I look at where technology seems to be going these days compared to how optimistic I was a decade ago.
Yep, for a car you really only need a phone holder and Bluetooth (fuck it, you could even get one of those tape deck attachments). All the other infotainment stuff looks 5 years behind even in a brand new car.
I really like CarPlay and wouldn’t give it up for the past.
I was just thinking about this. I’m really not sure. I think technological progress is not the core issue but rather a sudden paradigm shift in how you interact with what you use on a daily basis.
For instance, there was a generation that grew up without cars and never learned to drive even after they became commonplace. Just too big a jump from previous methods of transportation. But their children who grew up with cars didn’t have any issues as the technology matured and new features were added.
So the question is will there be another significant paradigm shift in our lifetime that isn’t just an evolution of current interfaces and tools, but rather a sudden change in how we interact with technology?
Who knows…
There’s a neat phenomenon where people born before a life changing technology will never see it as being life changing.
Anyone who grew up before the internet only sees it a some place to chat with friends and not the de facto way international business is now conducted. Anyone who grew up before planes only see them as some way to get to a holiday destination quicker and not as the way a huge amount of cargo shipping is done today.
To these people, going back in time seems simple. They could certainly live without the internet or planes or any other new fangled devices! They might, but society wouldn’t be able to. I can see AI being the new thing that changes society that we all think of as being some silly little toy.
I think this is right. I’ve been thinking about this a bit as I watch who in my office starts using LLMs and more importantly how they are using them. The folks in their 40s or 50s have largely ignored it, I remember a gen xer sending an email around in may talking about this neat new ChatGPT her middle school kid showed her. I know one xer in my office whose straight up afraid to even try it. Those closer to gen z will use it, but in a very basic way - just asking straight questions seeking information, get frustrated when it can’t handle complex questions or they get lied to, then quit. Millennials seem to be better about using it for what it’s good at, generating ideas, startingn places for documents, editing/proofreading, etc. Maybe it’s because millennials were in that sweet spot between the older folks who didn’t grow up with tech and the younger folks who are used to apps that just work without having to think through how to make the thing do what you want. Maybe millennials are more interested in tech generally since we saw it change so rapidly in our lifetimes. Maybe it’s just my small sample size of a 40ish person office.
Speaking as an elder Millennial, probably. As I get older, I get lazier and desire convenience over shiny and new. I recently got back into rebuilding my music collection and the high seas have changed since last I sailed. That being said, my desire for music drove me to learn the new ways, even though I didn’t really want to. The bigest things that stop people from keeping up with technology is desire and ease of access. Most people could give a fuck less, so they don’t bother with it, and the older we get, the less fucks we give. Those of us with a desire, for whatever reason, will choose to learn.
Arr
I’m a primary school teacher, not related to computers, but every year kids are getting measurably worse with coins and money. I can give quite a few 9 year olds a few coins, and they would have a seriously hard time quantifying the amount. It’s funny the parents come to me saying their kid needs to be extended, but I’m just here saying “bro, your kid can’t even buy himself an ice-cream.”
I’ve tried very hard to teach my child about money and she does have an allowance and kind of gets it, but she’s got a lot of difficulty with change and with sales tax. I wish I was a better teacher, but I do my best.
Sales tax being added after-the-fact fucks with literally everyone. It’s stupid.
Well… not everyone. Mostly just people in the US.
My family got its first PCs in the mid-80s.
My mother was a huge part of training people how to use PCs. She would drive a night computer lab (RV with 7 PCs) to business and train all the employees in his to use them as they began adopting the technology, and as the moved on she became a leader in information technology and project automation in the engineering world.
Her long, successful career was all very technical. She was an inspiring person who adopted new technology a decade ahead of time and never feared the future.
Now she can’t operate the TV remote or her cell phone without cussing about all this damn confusing technology.
Yep, I was in IT from 95 to 2013. Today’s tech is much more confusing
Your question reminded me of an interesting article I read a while back: Gen Z Is Apparently Baffled by Basic Technology.
It’s kind of a click bait title, but I think it’s still interesting. Technology is definitely generational, and I’m sure there are some things millennials will be better prepared to use in old age, but there will likely be lots of new tech that will be a struggle to learn.
I feel the’ve gotten too much of a streamlined experience compared to what millenials grew up with, who had to be able to do a lot more bugfixing to get things to work the way we wanted to.
Definitely. I feel very lucky to have been able to experience it all. I wonder if my personality would have led me to it anyway but I guess my personality was shaped by growing up through it. Would I be as curious otherwise?
i think everyone can learn how to use new tech, its more a question if you still want to.
For example i dont feel the need to get into tiktok…but if tiktok existed 15 years ago i would have.
Here are still old people using CLI text based browsers on a dialup connettion who never felt the need to upgrade to a more visual way to browse the web…even if they could learn it.
At a certain age u just stop giving fucks about new things maybe.
Depends on the personality of the person.
I knew someone born in 1905 who was excited by personal computers and happily using email into her 100s.
It seems like my generation (Gen Z) is a lot worst with technology than millenials. Most of my generation don’t know simple stuff like how filesystems and directories work or how extract a zipped folder. I blame the usage of phones as the primary computer and really dumbed down software that dosen’t allow any sort of self troubleshooting or configuring.
Most of the basic tech issues and dumb questions I deal with at work are for people over 50 or under 25. Younger GenX and Millennials generally pick things up quickly and have no problem with basic troubleshooting.
