- cross-posted to:
- programmer_humor@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- programmer_humor@programming.dev
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Gen alpha grew up using tablets/smartphones pretty early, while they may not have had access to a PC. Seems like a failure of the educational system. Boomers just refuse to learn new shit.
My kid has “tech class”, where I (wrongly) assumed they would learn about computers and the internet, how they work and how to use them. Nope, they just learned how to use Microsoft Teams.
Learning new shit gets genuinely harder as you age. With how fast technology changes, I don’t think you can really blame them for it.
I’d like to think I’d keep up with technology in my old age, but who knows. I’m not even old and I’m already so damn jaded.
In Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch argues that there are three waves of “internet people”. The first was “before it was cool”, the second when it became mainstream (give or take the turn of the millennium) and the third when internet was already a thing. The third are young people, too young to remember the 1900s and therefore the time before internet, and old people who go online because it’s unavoidable and also more intuitive and easy than ever before.
Despite the generation gap, they have things in common and in contrast to the first and second wave (which she also subdivides but that’s beside the point). For example they never used mail as primary communication and they have smartphones as first device and most often second hand from a family member.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk and sorry if I took your shitpost too serious but there’s truth and science behind it and I couldn’t not share it.
I wish we’d refer to early internet era as something other than the 1900s. WWW ostensibly started in 95. Maybe we just call it “The 90s” and be good with it?
When we start referring to the “turn of the century” as the early 2000s, I may just outright die.
Eh, WWW started in '91. What milestone happened in '95? Only thing I can think of is Windows 95, but that was a general computer thing, not an Internet thing.
As for early Internet era…to me that’s the mid to late 70s up through '91. TCP/IP dates back to '74, so that’s a workable starting point (or maybe ARPANET, ha).
Eh, I got my dates wrong from memory. My point is still the same.
Fair enough! I’m also Old Enough that hearing about my childhood as “the 1900s” kinda hurts. Just feels wrong somehow, y’know?
I mean, that was the point of the comment you initially responded to.
I wish we’d refer to early internet era as something other than the 1900s.
Oh feel you. Saying 1900s for the whole century feels wrong but why tho? We do it for other centuries as well so maybe it’s time to get used to it.
WWW ostensibly started in 95.
That’s already part of becoming mainstream. I use “internet” in the broader sense that includes other technology I’m not really familiar with. But some precursors of the internet were around in the 70s and maybe even earlier? Donno, I’m second wave myself. Sorry if my terminology is confusion and not correct.
When we start referring to the “turn of the century” as the early 2000s, I may just outright die.
I used the phrase “turn of the millennium”. Sorry if old people thought I meant 1000 CE.
We didnt vote for Æthelred the Unready! Were an autononous collective.
I grew up when the internet was already a thing but I didn’t really get to use it until I was a teenager. We had a family computer with space cadet pinball on it, and as a small kid I didn’t know how to surf the web, I only knew how to play the games like solitaire. I knew you could connect your DS (It’s not a Gameboy, mum!) to the internet for online multiplayer, but it was too complicated to figure out without a grownup’s help. When I got a bit older, I got My own laptop for schoolwork and discovered the internet. I got hooked on webcomics and Reddit. I had a dumb phone for emergencies, which was later replaced with a smartphone on a prepaid plan, with too little data to use it for the internet. So I browsed the internet from the Ubuntu desktop I built at home. Eventually I got a monthly plan and joined the 21st century, but it was a long way getting there.
Technically I fall into your third group, but I don’t have anything in common with these kids.
Interesting! This sounds a lot like the experience of millennials (like me) but instead of coming to an internet that’s as young as I was, you get there a decade or so later.
I checked the book again and she’s like “of cause there are exceptions” so you’re kind of seen as well
I feel so powerful. I can develop in JavaScript, PHP and actionscript. All the hottest languages of the year 2000
I mean, both JavaScript and PHP are still widely used.
RIP Flash
I’m pretty sure PHP has died 16 times since then
PHP is Michael Meyers
They keep trying, but they have yet to find a decent replacement
Modern PHP isn’t too bad though, especially with modern frameworks like Laravel. A lot of the bad parts of the language have been deprecated or removed over time.
A lot of the “PHP bad” crowd haven’t used it in 20 years.
I agree. I’ve only really used it for basic templating but things like twig made that a breeze
I once wrote a game with hidden folders and txt files
So I was on the internet in 1995 and was visiting BBS’s for about 10 years before that so I’m good with computers. I feel for my parents and the young ones because I’m a basic when it comes to phones and tablets, if shit goes beyond touching what I want to do I’m full on lost
But both know how to use apps. What more can Corpos ask for?
I hate how true this is. Watching teens flail and panic at the library as they have to spontaneously learn how to use a non-chromeOS computer has been an upsettingly nostalgic reminder of one of my first jobs
The key concept conflict is they think files are inside apps (I teach some basic IT in one of my modules).
When asked to locate an excel file on their computer they point at excel and say the file is in excel. If you show them a .txt file, they’ll claim it’s in notepad.
The idea that a file is like a book, and the program is the glasses you use to read it, and their computer is the bookshelf seems to resonate well though. Then you just have to fight the clusterfuck that is Apple’s file storage, since most bring an apple device to uni.
It can be even more fundamental than that. I’ve seen people cocking their heads at the existence of multiple windows and programs running simultaneously. As in, “whoa, where’d my assignment go?” after they click on the browser. They’re used to everything running through a single window due to school computers offering everything through the browser. It’s terrifying to me.
Honestly, I’ve not had that one but I’ve seen something close. Some students are unaware they need to manually save sometimes, they just assume autosave is always there.
For Microsoft office this tends to be ok (OneDrive default doing something good for once), but once they step out (into SPSS/minitab/R) there is always some lost work in the first two weeks.
they point at excel and say the file is in excel.
the clusterfuck that is Apple’s file storage
Out of genuine curiosity: What makes this so bad? I’ve been in similar teaching situations myself, and find that Finder in column-view is pretty helpful for helping people learn to navigate their file system. One of the first things I do is drop a link to the root folder in their favourites-menu in Finder, then tell them to try to navigate to whatever they need from there, and open it with “Open with”. Usually, they start understanding the concept of a file system pretty quickly after that.
Edit: The fuckery that is “iCloud trying to trick you into thinking that files on the cloud are actually stored locally” can go fuck itself though. I’ve had way too many cases of people suddenly discovering that they have exactly zero files on their computer, because “Desktop” and “Documents” turned out to be links to iCloud…
Yeah, it’s the iCloud-local issue. I swear, almost all of them default to that.
It plays fine with R 90% of the time, but when it borks it takes FOREVER to troubleshoot!
Watching them use the card catalog.
There are YouTube channels with letting the youth try to figure out old tech.
You mean the Fine Bros.? The people who tried to copyright the idea of reacting to things on YouTube and wanted to make people buy a license to keep doing what they had already been doing? Those channels?
Use a slide rule and protractor to find the card catalog. Now write your name in cursive to check out a book.
Writing cuneiform on wax tablets with styli
That better be in Latin this time, young man!
scoffs
Writing things down?!?
If you do that you’ll cease to exercise your memory and will grow to rely on external means.
Back in my day we built our memory.
(If you’re not familiar this was basically Socrates’ (as portrayed by Plato) view on writing things down)
those teens obviously were forced into consumerism by their parents and corpos
*schools and corpos
I know a teenager whose parents stopped her from using FOSS and getting Linux on her own computer because it was “impulsive and would mess things up”
Trends are cyclical
Hey, if only we could blame the generation in charge of raising Alpha and making sure they knew how to tech?
Fuck. Us? Really?
my mom made sure that we learned how to type effectively, and goddamn was she ever right about that. it amazes me how many people cannot type quickly on a keyboard.
Whelp, looks like PCs will become a thing of the past at this rate, no use denying it
Already there. Ask any major website what their user agent stats are. Amazon is something like 90% mobile. I can’t even fathom doing any serious shopping via app.
They are like 4 tbf no?
Most definitions use 2011-2013 as starting range for Gen Alpha, so the older Gen Alpha kids are 13-15
hell, even zoomers cant tell the difference between windows and chromeos
Gen alpha is six years old, they’ll get there
nah some of them are already 10 years old
(I know 2 of them, that’s more than 1, my 16y.o. gen-z kid wishes to distance themselves from these “alpha babies” and so I am scientifically proven correct)
Most definitions use 2011-2013 as starting range for Gen Alpha, so the older Gen Alpha kids are 13-15
I don’t see why I have to agree with the mainstream opinion on generations when they don’t even exist. My brain craves simplicity, so I use this system:
1945-1959: Baby boomer
1960-1979: Generation X
1980-1999: Millenial 2000-2019: Zoomer 2020-2039: Generation Alpha2013 is a random year that makes no sense and takes actual effort to remember. I don’t want to put effort into generations because they’re nonsense horoscopes, so I’m gonna stick with the easy way.
I watched a gen alpha iPad kid play a Nintendo DS recently. He held it on his lap and only mashed his thumbs on all the controls, fingers splayed wide. Raged like hell at it. A piece of me died.
this is just an accurate fact
Zoomers too
The oldest zoomers are 29 rn
Wow, they’re almost people
Hm
Life begins at 30
…and ends at 35. It’s hardly fair.
The average gen-z person knows more about computers than the average millennial.
Lol. Lmao, even.
Are you sure you have “gen-z” correct? We’re all adults now
I spent 8 years doing tier 2 IT support with a tier 1 helpdesk staffed primarily by gen-z who were just entering the work force. Yes, I’m very sure.
Your generation fucking sucks at tech.
From experience, they mainly know how to navigate, not troubleshoot.
Also, bold statement. Millennials had to learn on computers that weren’t always user friendly. It didn’t always “just works.”
You’re talking about people that could be as young as 14. Do you really think a 14 year old knows what a filesystem is? What a CPU architecture is? Knows how to clone a project from GitHub and build it? Could they identify RAM slots on a motherboard? Could they install an OS? Do they know what a subnet is?
Then you run into the problem of generalizing about a wide spectrum of ages. I’m older genZ, and have experience with all of these things as part of hobby projects and my career. Obviously the iPad kids haven’t.
Boomers are reliably feeble with technology across their entire age spectrum. Gen Alpha has very few experienced enough because of their circumstances and age gap.
when i was that age (for the things that existed in your list), I did. I knew that stuff.
Yes…? I was 14 when I learned how filesystems worked in the mid 90, installing dos6.0, win3.1, and doom wads lol. I grew up in an analog world before that, there wasnt and internet I could fall back on for support, it was a ridiculously expensive appliance and if I broke it I had better figure out how to fix it again before my mother figured out I fucked something up.
A 14 year old today, I would imagine, would have grown up in a world filled with /bin and /var and /lib folders to explore (and break…)
Dude, I’m an electrical engineer born in 02.
dude, i was 1 year away from finishing high school when you were born. Holy shit I’m old.
I’m an electrical engineer born in 02.
One one had, nice job dude.
On the other:
That’s not possible, you’d only be …
Oh.
No… I thnk your brain might be wrong.
Oh well, I dont respect Time, its an odeious concept.
*Oedipus
Pretty sure they did mean Odious, but to be fair Chronos did kill his dad….
Yep, the future is now, huh?
Get off my lawn.
See I don’t entirely blame young people here. I downloaded a linux distro from their torrent mirror last year and my ISP started emailing me literal threats about piracy laws. It’s the corporations.
(Tho I am pretty young myself for lemmy standards tbf)
To be honest, it is complicated nowadays for no reason. So i can understand.
How so? Genuine question
Take windows 11. This os have multiple ui, ads are showed in your face, and microsoft ask you every month if you want to use onedrive or buy an xbox rent. Drivers for printers are a nightmare. Linux is amazing, but to much choice. And if something doesn’t work or it’s broken, it’s even harder to repair. And so on.
I know how to use a computer because i like to learn geeky stuff. But i understand that for someone that doesn’t care, it just want something that work.
There’s not “too much choice” in Linux. There’s too much bad advice for potential new users from the existing user base. Every time someone new comes I see hordes of people shilling for their particular flavor of the month.
It’s pretty simple: just tell new users to use Ubuntu (by far the most popular Linux distribution). They can figure it out themselves from there.
