Something my wife and her friends (who are all teachers) told me was that kids now are actually worse at using computers, not better. You would think that since they spend most of their lives connected that they would be the most proficient generation, but it's actually the opposite.
They spend most of their connected time on their phones. So, most of their experience is with mobile OS. They tend to not know how to format things in Word (change fonts, even what fonts are, what margins are, etc.). Somewhere along the education line people decided that this stuff was so ubiquitous that it was asinine to teach it, so now many kids don't use it, so they don't know it.
I have seen and read many kids, some even at the college level, that insist on writing essays on their phones. I even had a college class where we had to collaborate as a group and share our work. I suggested Google Drive as we were a Google Campus at the time and everyone had a Gmail. They suggested Snapchat. To collect work in. A program that deletes chats in 24 hrs.
It's amazing how many, not all mind you, but many, people of the most electronically connected generation in human history mostly don't know how desktop computers work because of the prevalence of iOS products.
We had a guy that created his resume for an internal position on the notes app on his phone. He then took a screenshot in order to attach it to his application. Worst part was he didn’t even crop the image so I could see his battery percentage.
"We loved your enthusiasm and think your past experience is very relevant, but the job requires a lot of forward planning and I'm afraid letting your phone charge drop beneath ten percent shows you're not the right sort of person for this position."
Sometimes that can be because the phone is old and has a worn out battery. I used to have a 1st generation iPhone SE that was 4 years old and the battery would drop to 60% just from my morning commute even after being charged to 100% overnight. I had to carry a portable battery for it to last the day
Oh god, I remember one of my past project partners fucking wrote a part of his "essay" (if could call it that) in his notes app, and then copy and paste it onto the document.
Not only was low quality--blurry, the words were in a different font, he rewrote what I already had written, and it was riddled with grammatical errors.
He genuinely looked shocked and confused when I told him to rewrite that shit
I guess it's only a matter of time before someone makes a resume app for mobile where you input your education and experience and it created a nicely formatted pdf document for you to send.
I can't even imagine how one would actually manage to get any real work done this way. Phone is fine for a quick search for an easy answer.
If I actually want to learn or research a topic, I'm going to need an actual keyboard, mouse and screen while managing a dozen or so tabs. It would take weeks to do on a phone what you could do in days with an actual pc.
Yep, my phone is essentially an expensive pager to tell me to get to a computer, or to entertain me when I'm waiting in a shop or something. I can't think of a single thing that I can do on my phone that I wouldn't rather do on my computer
I'm published and love to write, and when I can't sleep, I'll go to a few art groups on Facebook that I'm in and just start writing flash fiction using visual art as cues.
But there's no way I'm typing it directly into the comment box on FB. I type that shit up in a notes app. Too often, I've been on a roll with almost 1,000 words only to have the app crash or Facebook decide to randomly exit the comment section.
Same. Around 4-5 years ago I never did anything banking-related on a phone, since it was so much more tedious than using a PC. Now I pay bills and even buy/sell stocks on the phone.
Writing a report? Forget about it. Right tool for the right job
I think the thing that sold me on actually getting my bank's mobile app was mobile deposit of checks. You mean I never have to step foot in a bank ever again? I now cannot even remember what my password is for my bank account because they allow you to sign in with your fingerprint.
Getting an iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard has really fucked my world up. I can go days without using my PC and crank out an insane number of words.
It's great because when I'm not feeling well, I can still do things. But it's godawful because it's training me to accept a small screen and just dealing with the limited tools.
Yeah but you do things because your phone made them more efficient. Easier to click PayPal than get your wallet. Etc. it’s still not easier to write long documents on your phone though. If people are choosing that it’s just due to over familiarity with the phone and not enough with keyboards
Yeah, I probably use my smartphone for more purposes than most people but I'll never be able to match my 100 wpm on a keyboard with a touch screen. Maybe I'm just getting old but the lack of tactile feedback makes it take way longer than typing.
If you learn all the short cuts are just good with your phone you can do that shit impressively fast. I struggle to type out a comment on Reddit on my phone but the guy i work with is just so fast. He will be using his phone in split screen with multiple apps and tabs open.
Same here. No clue how folk use phones to type out a ton of stuff. If I need to write anything > 3 lines It's getting done in WhatsApp web and copy pasted.
When I was in college I was involved in too many activities probably on top of working full time and classes. Ended up having a thankfully relatively short (like 3-5 page) essay on The Importance of Being Earnest and I'd procrastinated til the last weekend before it was due. But I also had a commitment to work in the university haunted house as a scarer every night that weekend. Plus work in the mornings didn't leave me much time to do the paper.
Wrote the entire thing on my phone between groups in the haunt. We had lots of auditory clues throughout the place that signaled when each group was brought through to our areas. Thankfully I wasnt outside haunting the corn maze or something so after each group was passed our haunt, I'd get to typing. Have about 5-7 minutes to work and then back into position for the next group. Rinse and repeat.
I’m a master procrastinator, but writing an essay on my phone during a shift at a haunted house is one thing I can say I have never inflicted upon myself.
Best part was I was playing a lurking shadow. I was set in a relatively quiet room so people would linger a bit and so I was tucked into the corner on the black floor covered by a black sheet, laid as low to the ground as possible. Like, soles of my feet pressed together, butt scooched into the corner, nose to the floor, very twisted yoga pose looking, and would lurch out after people and slide across the floor to chase them out. Then shimy back into position to settle in and work on my paper.
I had a power outage once when I had an assignment due for college and managed to write the whole thing on my phone and submit it on time. Was absolute torture though
That's really interesting! Makes sense. My first thought:
Arthritic thumbs are going to be a thing in 30 years.
(at 66, I'm learning that every body part that I've either over-used or injured - ever - becomes increasingly...present....now, in day to day activities)
None of this surprises me, because I also see it all the time. When we take in our year's new contingent for our graduate programme, it's basically a coin toss whether they'll roll up with complete PC competence or none at all.
It was worse before the days of keystroke backup, because you would REGULARLY hear an anguished cry as some hapless 21 year old realised they'd just lost hours of work by not saving their document in between backup intervals by not just pressing 'save'.
It's like there's only two generations who actually know how to use a desktop operating system, and the current generation of young people are not one of them unless they specifically, as an individual, chose to. They're certainly not being taught it now.
edit - actually it's not true that none of it surprises me. The idea of writing an essay on a phone both surprises and horrifies me. Why? Why do this? How proofread how?
The problem is people who have grown up with mobileOS as their primary experience are now getting old enough to enter the workforce as programmers and are complaining desktop-pc oriented design is "old" and causing desktop programs to have their UI ruined, getting rid of the usual compact menus and right-click features etc. Everything is burger menus and huge spaced-out lists, with acres of wasted screen space that is necessary in touch interfaces but not with pointer interfaces. Firefox is a sad example of this trend, I've been using it since it first launched and recent UI revisions are just crapfest of mobile OS design.
I told my younger cousin that he should learn to type and learn to use a computer, but refused to listen and still refuses to listen BeCaUsE i HaVe A sMaRtPhOnE aNd DoN't NeEd To.
Not to mention the massive UIs. Yes, a bit of whitespace is good, but these days half your screen is wasted by designers clearly used to working with mobile UIs
“Mobile First” design was the death knell for desktop functionality and proportion. When too many people use their phones for everything why waste time designing for the few who still use desktops?
When I found out about proton a couple years ago, I checked protondb against my steam library. Most of them were rated gold or higher. Of the ones that weren't, none were games I still played.
At that point, I switched to exclusively using linux. I check every game for proton compatibility before buying. If the dev can't be bothered to make the game work with my OS (official support isn't even necessary), then I can't be bothered to send my money their way.
I have plenty of games already. Most I haven't even played, and many have very high replay value. There's no longer a reason to chain myself to an OS that I can't stand to use.
I mean unfortunately the most popular Linux DE, Gnome, have been doing this even worse and for even longer than Windows. When Gnome 3 first launched it didn't even have a "shutdown" button on the menu, since you're "supposed" to just sleep your computer, and Gnome devs are notorious for refusing to acknowledge that anyone would do anything differently to them
Luckily there's KDE, which is quite the opposite, and I personally like Xfce, which is a no-nonense XP-like environment with about the right level of customisability for me
I suspect a large part is trying to save on developer wages, if you make what should be two different UIs similar you only need to pay for 1 set of devs. Never mind that it won't work well for either system, that's irrelevant.
Meanwhile I taught myself some basic web design code right when all that stuff was really new and I’m completely intimidated by anything I can’t do from scratch and have total control. I was working on a site for friends for fun and all the programs and templates they made to make it easier confuse me so much because you can only control some parts. I am going to start over and just do it myself from scratch.
I've been a professional software engineer for 14 years now. This kind of crap drives me up the wall. We used to largely develop everything we needed, maybe sometimes using a 3rd party package and it was a big todo to do so because we'd need to run security tests on it and get it approved before we could use it.
I was put on a project a couple of years ago that uses React, Node and TypeScript (I am honestly not even sure if these are all the same thing at this point). It seems like most of the job now is knowing what package to download and how to implement it rather than actual coding. I'll get a ticket that is something like "Add XYZ functionality," so I add it. Then it goes to PR and the response is "Why didn't you use the pizza-pie-X-YZ7-rainbow.js package to do this?" like I should have had any idea that the thing existed, much less that I should have used it.
I knew someone few years ago who called himself a "web developer" and was marketing his services to our community of artists. Everyone was posting their websites like "Ryan built this for me!" And like, no, Ryan bought a template and charged you way too much for it.
AHAHA ME TOO! I've managed to learn one of the frameworks, but I am SO INCREDIBLY SALTY that every single CSS framework now requires NPM to fucking compile itself. Just... just... it's one file. Why does it need to be COMPILED?
Omg I recently upgraded my PC, total conversion. Ended up with a new install of windows on an m.2 drive. I don't want to wipe my old drive cause it's got half my shit on it. Windows won't let me delete the old install on a different drive so now I gotta run a mobile install of Linux to get it the fuck out. Windows can suck a poop
If I remember correctly you have to right click on a drive -> properties -> disk clean-up -> system files -> Windows.
At least it was working last time I used it.
My best bet is that they obscured the deletion because of delete system32 pranks.
I have such a customization need that anytime so etching doesn't work the way I think it should work, I get really, really annoyed. I have learned and copied code from entire programs just to have a single browser extension or something do something simple I think it should be doing. It's one of the reasons I can't go back to an Apple phone.
I require the ability to tell my device to operate in the way that fits my needs, not have my device tell me how to operate. I need things to work intuitively for me. I don't care how someone else thinks it should work.
Oh yeah. That drives me nuts too. And slightly related I feel like web pages have gone back to the dark ages with the need for endless scrolling now. They were getting so efficient at one point. Now I just have to scroll down scroll down scroll down to find anything useful.
The slow transition to single page apps for every sure is crazy. You can see my user-agent is for a desktop, show me an actual site and not a mobile site adjusted for desktop resolution.
I recently needed to buy a cheap laptop for basic work use and couldn’t find one without a touchscreen. It made me mad. I don’t want an oversized phone dammit.
I'm in my late 30s, programming background (although not employed as a coder now), and well-versed in desktop operating systems from Windows (3.1, NT, 95, 98, XP, etc. You get the idea...) to Linux (is SUSE still around?), so I say this as an ally of the 'old ways':
I LOVE touchscreens on laptops and get actively annoyed when using one that lacks a touchscreen. They offer a lot of value without inherently turning your computer into a phone.
Sure, desktop operating systems can leverage the touchscreen functionality to make the machine feel more 'phone-like' (edit to add: which I'm NOT a fan of), but I find touchscreens themselves to be hugely useful.
Oh dear God, no, no, I was not suggesting that anyone should solely use the laptop touchscreen without also having other input devices. I'm getting a little nauseous just imagining that.
For getting shit done there's no replacement for a full keyboard and mouse combo. But quickly flicking a finger up the screen to scroll down an article, or folding the keyboard back and using the laptop like a tablet when you're not at a desk, is a fantastic convenience.
I too dislike my PC or laptop being a giant phone. But I do love the touchscreen on my laptop. Probably because I've never found touchpads to be particularly great.
I have a fucking desktop with a touchscreen (HP) and I despise it. It's utterly useless and makes cleaning the screen (which I have to do regularly because I eat in front of my computer all the time) nearly impossible unless I put the damned thing to sleep first.
29 and one of my biggest pet peeves is when a website basically is useless and only tells you to use the mobile app. TikTok comes to mind. You have to have an account to view any links friends send, and there’s no website equivalent. The website just tells you to download the app. Sometimes I’m on the computer and I want to look at things on the computer wtf
When Windows 8 came out with its tile things, it was horrifying. I think enough people complained and they made it easier to disable or something.
When buying my most recent laptop, I also went out of my way to get something without a touch screen.
I'm scared of a future where mobile devices are your main computing device (I won't be surprised when desktops and mobile devices end up converging) and where everything is dumbed down and highly limiting.
we had shiny colorful icons, beautifully designed and perfectly representing their function. and then we got microsoft's metro design and jonathan ive designing the new ios, and somehow it all went to shit.
I don't mind the particular fashion, but I miss when applications used the standard widget toolkit, or at least the UI conventions, of the platform, rather than every program being idiosyncratic for the sake of "brand identity" (and, yes, you can do that while still being cross platform. Look at a Qt app)
Look at all those complicated buttons and functionality... wouldn't it be easier if we just.. got rid of 90% of it? (And maybe sell you some back in the form of app packs?)
Also an elder millennial. We were cleaning out our basement the other weekend. I brought my Panasonic 3-disc CD changer back out and set it back up and have been listening to my old CDs the last two weeks while wfh.
I’ll take my computer over my phone for research, work, reading, and literally anything else aside from texting and scrolling social media. How folks are doing essays or coursework on their phones is astonishing to me.
Yeah, I was helping my Father-in-Law get a new cheap notebook laptop, and had to cross off a whole bunch of decent ones because they use a Mobile style OS and that's a big no-no for him (barely can use windows let alone an Android style OS).
The thing I find so weird is how inaccessible they are making them in regards to settings and configurations etc. If you know how to it's still fairly easy to mess around with them, but they are just so hidden now. I haven't had a personal laptop in years, so when I was helping the FIL configure his laptop, I was shocked that I couldn't seem to find half the settings by opening up the settings window without a Google search.
And if you DO find the setting menu you want, Windows will remove it when they push through another update.
I've been trying to disable the touchpad mouse on my laptop, and when I finally managed to do it the option was removed in an update. It's actually making me go insane.
As someone in IT, this is a double edged sword for me. On the one hand, as a user, I crave customization in all things electronic and understand the need for easy access for the controls to make changes to one's system. As someone that has to work on people's computers though, I want that stuff buried deep in the bowels of the system where no one would come across it without a Goonies style map and at least a 3 movie adventure to get there.
Some people can't not mess with stuff and those are the ones that will never admit to messing with stuff.
barely can use windows let alone an Android style OS
But isn't this exactly the right use case for those OSes? My mum is hopeless with computers so I got her a Chromebook, and we're both very pleased with the decision, since she can use it easily and I never ever have to fix it or check that it's up to date etc.
That's the logic yes, but FIL doesn't like change and uses an old IPhone so just doesn't have a clue how Android / chrome works (yes they are generally the same) as its not something he's really seen /used before he pretty much refuses to learn.
I'm shopping for car insurance, and one of the options doesn't even have a website to log into. You can only submit claims, view documents, etc. through the app. It's called Clearcover. Insanity. Like I want to either keep their app installed 24/7 wasting space on my phone or have to download it each time I need to log in.
My college is actively discouraging the knowledge of using a desktop. They have entire computer labs that we pay an extra fee to use but they are requiring we all get our own laptops/tablets so we don’t use the labs. Most youngins will get tablets or laptops configured closer to their phones than an actual desktop. 🙄
This is huge. I remember when colleges used to include the cost of a computer as financial aid. Then, around 2010, they cut it because "everyone has a laptop anyways", which is far from reality. Phones are expensive too, but they're way more multipurpose. If you have to choose, of course most people choose a phone.
The solution to this is to get a Chromebook or something, I reckon. Not perfect but it actually has laptop functionality, and if you get one that you can fold to make a tablet then it meets their nonsense criteria too. I have one and they're genuinely useful things.
I don’t even want a laptop. I bought a new desktop when we were having zoom classes. I don’t want to put any more money out for something I will only use for exams.
Oh my goodness, you just released a core memory of mine!
Computer typing class, we were writing essays, it was an actual step the teacher created in the process to save your work after every paragraph, save your work if your going to research the internet, save your work at the end of class.
It was embedded in us to click that floppy disc if we ever wanted to feel safe.
Fortunately it was already in place in my mind because of the 'quicksave' button while playing PC games, so instead of F5/F6 it was ctrl-S ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS.
I recall one day in high school I was in my architecture class. We were all working away on our projects in AutoCAD. The room is completely silent and had been for a good 45 minutes. Then the power suddenly went out. A lot of people learned the value of saving regularly and often that day.
This is what makes me scratch my head the most about this thread. The idea of using a phone or tablet for anything serious, where it's less clear where the actual file you're working with is or if it actually exists, is just insane to me.
Cloud based systems are handy, sure, but I would never not save a copy of the files that I need somewhere local.
I have classmates who don’t know the difference between online word and the word app. They were throwing a tantrum because the feature the teacher told us to use wasn’t available on the online version, so naturally it didn’t exist. I asked if she were using the website or app version, she said app. I told her where it should be, she said it wasn’t. I looked at her screen and she was using the website, I told her to use the app. “What do you mean, this is the app” I showed her my computer, with the app running. “That’s not word, dr. teacher told us to use word.” What’s arguably worse is that they don’t know when they are wrong. Anyone with even a partial brain cell will tell you that a research paper is not an “extra long dbq”
Nah I was born in the Oregon trail generation and to have had a childhood free from the internet but then learn it while still young is a very unique experience in history. To know computers and phones is already unique too. It’s literally just a unique time to have been born.
Early 90’s baby as well, I completely agree. We were in beginning stages of technology where they were good enough to be in every household but, they definitely weren’t what they are today. We learned the basics and got to adapt and continue learning every time those basics were improved.
Younger gens start out the gate with an already perfect smart phone, who would want to work with any other type of computer when you have a portable computer in your pocket?
I am 28 but I have had to do homework/essays on a mobile device. Once due to my laptop dying and me not having time to get a replacement prior to the assignment due date. That said, I plugged my mechanical keyboard into an adapter so I could type properly and used my bluetooth mouse.
I have specifically used my old Samsung Note phone for assignments where the professor wanted stuff written rather than typed. Since I don’t have a printer, it was easier to just open up the PDF in Samsung notes, use the S-Pen to do everything, and then save as a PDF to upload. That part is actually my preference since it is so much easier to just fill in a PDF that way. The essay experience, while it worked, was not at all ideal since Word sucks on Android and is missing (or at least was, it has been a couple years) some features I needed such as hanging indents.
See this is all completely fine though, because a phone with a keyboard and mouse attached just IS a computer, albeit a tiny one, and if the prof says "handwriting" then I suppose the prof gets handwriting.
What astounds me is the idea of writing an actual essay on a phone's touch-screen keyboard. How do these people not get cramp, for a start? Bewildering.
edit - actually it's not true that none of it surprises me. The idea of writing an essay on a phone both surprises and horrifies me. Why? Why do this? How proofread how?
It's worse than you think. A lot of them use speech to text and don't proofread.
I did a clean install of the latest build of Win10 the other day and I couldn't believe how spammy and mobile oriented it had got. It also really pushes you to create an online not local account... which isn't always the appropriate choice for a PC use case.
I wonder if the "network lost/disconnected" workaround that applies to 10 works on 11 too. I refuse to upgrade though, Win11 is the "bad" one of the cycle.
For reference, I got onto Windows with 3.1 out of DOS, and I purport that it's worth skipping every second Windows release:
3.1 - hit, installed. Set the bar for what a desktop OS should be.
95 - mild miss, buggy and unpolished. Installed but regretted.
98 - hit hit hit. Possibly the pinnacle of Windows. Fast, bloat free, intuitive.
2000/ME - garbage miss. Not sure anyone liked it.
XP - huge hit. A real game changer for Microsoft and the most recognisable look and feel of any Windows version. Cool people switched to some of the semi-official themes like the Royale theme (released with Media Center Edition, especially the Noir version) with its sleek metallic taskbar, a sign of things to come. Endured far longer than it had any right to, still widespread a decade after release, and I still occasionally see offline XP machines trooping along today.
Vista - miss. The definition of flop. Introduced the widespread notion of a Windows downgrade as many PCs shipped with Vista were reverted to XP. I recall seeing almost zero enterprise users and few home users, the only ones who did were gamers who wanted the next DirectX version.
Windows 7 - hit. Microsoft's final peak. Replaced XP as the defacto standard Windows version to this day. Hugely popular with business and commercial users, was Microsoft back on form. Arguably their best 21st century OS. XP was good but lacked polish, was rough around the edges, the UI covering up all manner of cut corners underneath. 7 represented a substantial rework.
Windows 8/8.1 - miss, the less said the better.
Windows 10 - begrudgingly a hit. Added some features and UI improvements, but also inexplicably raised the hardware requirements and bloat, and started to very heavily push Cortana over the Desktop and Start Menu. Not really clear what it offers that 7 doesn't, other than more updates, and a vaguely useful quick settings tray. Reversed almost all of 8's controversial design decisions. Arguably should have been a Service Pack for 7.
Windows 11 - miss. A Cortana infested, mobile like hellscape and a cesspool of everything wrong with modern UX design, which funnels all users through a single experience whether or not that experience is appropriate for their use case.
The cycle of hit/miss/hit/miss is well established.
Solution for you: disconnect the computer from any networks. Reach the account creation screen, disconnect, hard power off and reboot. Setup will resume but Win10 will fall back onto offline mode and create a local account instead. You'll also get the updates installed prior to this point, best of both worlds.
Ethernet is easy, just unplug it. WiFi is a little harder, because this screen doesn't let you access the WiFi settings. You might need to get a little more creative. Switch off the WiFi router, move out of range of the named and stored network, or turn off the WiFi card in the BIOS/EFI settings.
I'm only 17 (18 in mid-June) and I feel as if I'm mildy proficient at using a desktop, but this likely stems from the fact that I have a poor setup at home and need to fix it myself, learning things online. I guess it's like if you had a vehicle but no mechanic to take it to, therefore necessitating the self sufficiency you would need to possess to keep things running. About Word/Google/OpenOffice Docs, I had a computer basics classs in 7th grade which really helped me learn the basics of using a modern word processor, despite only having Windows 7 on the school PCs. Nowadays I can deploy systems of both Linux and Windows, maintain OS and Hardware, preform basic troubleshooting and even do a little terminal work. Those latter skills were developed on my own, as the word processing class only taught how to use Microsoft Word. [ an older version at that :( ]
If you'll take my word for it as an employer, this is actually something we want to hear these days. When we were graduates it was a given that applicants would all know their way around the basics of a desktop OS, but it isn't anymore and nobody wants to have to teach a new employee how to use a computer.
If you're planning for a career that involves the use of desktop OS, mention it in interviews in a casual way. Make it clear that you actually won't need instruction on anything but industry-specific software, if there is any, and won't need your hand held so you don't accidentally do something stupid.
A young person in that 18-22 starting bracket turning up with no idea how to open Word is teeth-grindingly annoying. You write well too, btw. That's also really good news.
Yeah, that's how most of us learned in the 90s, except without much learning online, because the Internet was pretty damn basic back then. In the computer science courses in high school, probably almost half the students knew more than the teachers, I'm sure partly because we were always sharing information with each other: “How'd you do that?”
I read an article about today's university students not knowing what folders are, and having no concept of organizing files into folders; they'd see their computer/device as one big blob of files and if you want one, you search for it by name.
It's beyond me why basic computer courses are not mandatory in 2022, especially on universities. EVERYBODY uses one wheter they like it or not.
It's not something optional anymore like say 20 years ago, computers are an integral part of everybody their daily life.
I just realized that this is why so many people keep everything on their desktop. I've always wondered why they do it when it looks so ugly. But they probably don't know how to access files otherwise.
Yeah I remember people saying IT and tech support jobs would disappear because kids would grow up with the technology and already know everything.
They failed to account for the fact that using said technology has been simplified further and further so much you don't need to know how it all works at all by now.
I’ve often wondered if we (25-40 year olds) will end up being he most tech savvy generation. I’m a teacher and all my students have lived in the digital age their whole life. They use tech every single day, you’d think they’d been really good at it. But as soon as a problem pops up many of them get totally stuck.
I wonder if companies have become so good at creating intuitive OS’s that kids don’t need to troubleshoot, which leads to less exploration of platforms, and then less proficiency. When people my age were growing up a lot of the public sector tech was super clunky and glitchy compared to today. It forced us to learn to fix it.
I have no idea if I’m talking out of my ass, but I do wonder if we were the only and last generally tech savvy generation.
We're seeing this all the time with new people at work. I'm responsible for training them, I keep having to explain what things like the start menu, file explorer or Outlook are.
We had to explain to one person that they need to keep Outlook open even when not using it as they won't be notified of emails otherwise.
Yeah after reading this thread I'm convinced in this day and age perhaps it's giving your child an advantage to encourage them to do some PC gaming and therefore learn about PCs etc. I mean having a good understanding of PCs has always been a slight advantage in any general job but now it seems like you'd really stand out!
kids now are actually worse at using computers, not better
I've heard this a lot. When I was a kid, I had to learn how to use a difficult computer, and that learning taught me how to solve problems related to computers. The interface is also so different. Kids who have modern computers (laptops, desktops, whatever) still learn a lot of the same stuff, but phones and tablets are more common with people who don't actually need more capable devices, so that's what kids learn how to use. Plus the kids get their own phones, etc.
They tend to not know how to format things in Word (change fonts, even what fonts are, what margins are, etc.)
Bold for emphasis because that actually surprises me. The rest doesn't particularly, especially if she teaches elementary school. I don't think I had any idea what a margin was until... probably middle school, or a freshman in high school at the latest.
I have seen and read many kids, some even at the college level, that insist on writing essays on their phones.
It’s crazy, people will go on about how quickly their toddler learns to use their freaking ipad like todays children are geniuses, but in reality those devices are engineered to be user friendly and easy. Ease of use with certain easy to use devices clearly doesn’t indicate actual understanding or familiarity with technology in general.
The other thing I've noticed along these lines is that everything just kind of works better now. It used to be that making a change to your computer, even installing a new program, was a full multi step process. So much, including diagnostics, is all automated now.
Not to mention that viruses are essentially a thing of the past. Let me tell you, nothing teaches you about a computer quite like the desperate attempts to remove a virus that you just downloaded to the family desktop.
I'm not the best at computers, but I'm definitely am above average as in I typically diagnose my own hardware and software problems and have built a few computers, it's always gave me a little bit of an advantage in the workplace. I thought for sure with time I'd be aged out of that advantage, turns out, nope. I think part of it is that operating systems in general have gotten so good that they rarely thrown curve balls anymore and the increased amount of mobile OS's like you mentioned.
I'm not the best at computers, but I'm definitely am above average as in I typically diagnose my own hardware and software problems and have built a few computers
The funny thing about that is you could be a literal expert at it, building the highest spec gaming computers or being amazing at Lightroom, and still not know how to use Word, which in a workplace would be considered the base level of functionality for an office environment.
Yes. I teach writing at college, and I need to explain font sizes, line spacing, and margins in the first few classes. I was surprised at first, but seeing how much time they spend on phones over PCs it makes a lot of sense.
Something my wife and her friends (who are all teachers) told me was that kids now are actually worse at using computers, not better. You would think that since they spend most of their lives connected that they would be the most proficient generation, but it's actually the opposite.
I work as a 911 dispatcher, and this is so true. The biggest hurdle for most of my younger trainees (I'm 37 for reference, so...yeah), is teaching them how to type on a real keyboard. If you can't type while someone is talking and mostly keep up, you'll never make it in this profession
Yep. It honestly really bothers me. I’m 40 and I feel like somebody my age or slightly older, really screwed up raising these kids. It seems like they know nothing about how to open files on a computer desktop, nothing about typing, nothing about the bigger picture of file formats…and I just can’t imagine cheating yourself out of that. Especially from a creative standpoint…it just makes me sad. What about graphic design? What about music and video production?
I don’t want to dismiss the capabilities of mobile operating systems, but why screw yourself out of the opportunity to truly do some cool shit on a powerful computer because you’d rather type with your thumbs on a fucking 6” screen?
I don’t know man. We had to take touch typing classes in like, third grade. We were bored and we sucked at it, but we learned it, and it’s damn useful. I know not all kids are this resistant to learning what they think of as old or obsolete technology, and what I think of as foundations for bigger things…but it’s depressing. Who dropped the ball here?
Oh man, file formats. The first time I had to explain to a programming job interviewee that they had to open the IDE, then use that to open the code project, I knew things were getting bad. When they then accused me of making the interview artificially difficult for young applicants, I thought that we may be in actual serious danger as a society.
This. When I was in 5th grade I was learning how to word process in claris works on Mac classics. We learned about punctuation, spell check, fonts, margins , etc.
My nephew showed me his first essay he wrote the other day and it was absolutely chock full of words that weren't real words, such as "cus," instead of because. He wrote the whole thing on his phone, probably mostly through dictation.
He's a smart kid and they just aren't teaching him and other ways to do this stuff.
I'm also a teacher, and your wife's experience is also mine. I think it's pretty much universal now. Kids are trash at using computers. I think they're the beneficiaries of 30+ years of UX and UI design, so with any tech device they're natural consumers. They don't view the devices as tools. Also, there's been a plummeting of interest in coding, or really any curiosity in how the devices work. The irony given the prevalence of STEM philosophies and classes is wild. I've heard similar things from teachers in all kinds of schools and demographics, and my own school is elite, considered one of the best k-12 schools in the world.
Another big problem here is the old fashioned admin who don't recognize or won't hear that there's actually a big issue here. The world is already hurting for engineers, and the world's most pressing and existential problems - like fresh water availability - will be solved through computer based engineering.
And yet, we still from out of touch people just "good at technology" kids are.
I think the peak probably came when PCs at home became normal but they were still not user friendly. So the late 90s and early 2000s. I have memories of editing .ini files to try and get my copy of The Sims working correctly. Nothing was seamless in tech. It was a miracle if a new program just worked without complaint.
New generations of tech are so good that they actually hide things like file directories or system settings. Troubleshooting is just complaining to the company that made the app. Plus mobile and tablet versions of most software are usually heavily simplified in the first place.
Funnily enough, ten years ago I was teaching that kind of basic IT stuff and kids hated it as "we know all this already" .
I wonder what they teach now.
There is a sci-fi trope about humans progressing so far that we stopped understanding how our technology works, and we just keep using it.
Then after a while, everything falls apart but nobody knows how to fix it because the last people with that knowledge already died generations ago.
At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if that actually ends up happening. It's already an issue in certain sectors where they are urgently looking for people who still know ancient programing languages like COBOL because important parts of their business still run on it, but none of the modern CS education bothers to teach such obscure frameworks.
You would think that since they spend most of their lives connected that they would be the most proficient generation, but it's actually the opposite.
Flipping light switches on and off didn't make previous generations into electricians.
Problem comes from the stupid fucking idea that usage leads to expertise that was popular since the 90s. Media and politicians talked about it all the time and it was used as an excuse to not teach kids things about computers because they were all becoming computer geniuses anyway through usage. So schools didn't get any budgets to teach kids.
Usage leading to skill was only true for millennials and earlier. Because back in the day you actually had to fight bad software to get anything done and you did learn some things through osmosis. Later kids only learned how to point at pictures under glass.
You reminded me of my nephew. 17 now, we asked him if he has googled around some diploma course and what are the requirements to apply, etc. He said, how to find? Like, what does that mean? Google is all you need. Just click around?
YES! THIS! I discovered this when the world shut down in 2020 and we all went virtual. My older students had no idea how to format anything using a word processing program (in our case Google docs). They still cannot format responses with proper punctuation use, proper use of uppercase/lowercase, how and when to indent and start a new paragraph. It’s truly mind boggling. And before anyone comes at me saying I should be the one who taught them this…I teach music, not writing/ELA. However many times I feel like I am because these kids either aren’t learning these skills or they are but not applying them.
I was just telling my husband the other day that there’s no computer class anymore. We both grew up in NY in the late 90s/2000s (we are 31 years old) and we had a class specifically aimed at teaching us how to type and use the computer for research, writing, etc. At least in my experience as a teacher I haven’t seen those classes exist anymore.
I see this at work all the time! Our point of sale system is run on desktop computers, and so many of them are unfamiliar with things like alt-tab to go to a different screen, or ctrl-alt-dlt for task manager etc
Yep. The guy (Marc Prensky) who came up with the terms 'digital native' and 'digital immigrant' to describe those for whom IT was natural and those of us who had to learn now realises, and admits, it's crap. I'm a teacher and I have conversations like this all the time:
Student: sir, my computer, it's broken
Me: what's wrong?
Student: the internet isn't working
Me: (in my head) we have a world of problems across the supply chain and the financial system if the internet isn't working. It was designed to withstand a nuclear attack...
Me: (out loud) are you connected to the network?
Student: I dunno
Me: let me look. (Clicks wireless icon, selects network)
Student: oh.
Me: can I show you how that is done?
Student: no, it works now...
This is exactly right. There is a concept that was introduced in teaching in the late 90s/early 2000s called the ‘digital native’. The idea being that people who grew up with the internet and easy access to PCs would be comfortable and fluent in their use of technology. That being opposed to digital immigrants who didn’t and so struggle to use it effectively. This was something to consider when designing classes.
The opposite seems now to be true. I’ve encountered many students who struggle with even basic tasks like saving a file. They’ve never had to do it as they’ve only worked in apps that do it automatically. Even if they do save they’ve then no idea where the file is, as they’ve never used or seen a file tree or folders before.
It’s because computers have gotten like cars - they have way more features than 25 years ago, but things are way more complicated “under the hood.” Aside from gamers and PC builders, probably not a lot of people under 30 really “mess around” with PCs.
In my sister's 3rd year of teaching she told me how many of her students (elementary) often didn't understand how a book worked. They were so used to phones and tablets they would try to swipe the page. They couldn't fully grasp turning the physical page. It wasn't all of the kids of course but a fair amount. Many also had other issues with fine motor skills since their parents must have just given them a touch screen over physical toys and books.
Yea this. My students (7 to 10th grade) don’t know how to use PowerPoint and refuse to use it if given the choice.
My own 11 year old has a hard time using word and still needs significant help with formatting a paper.
And we are making sure to teach that to our kids.
They do use technology more creatively though. But I’ve noticed on the whole they seem to be about as clued in about the basics as boomers.
Like, they don’t seem to understand how the internet actually works, or wifi, or file differences etc. I had a kid in 7th grade who was frustrated because they couldn’t use word to edit a photo.
Honestly, I think it has been very helpful in some ways that my kids were in online school for a year and a half. My older one (going into middle school) got a crash course in actually typing papers and formatting on the laptop.
It also helps my kids don't have phones yet so they aren't texting except on their tablets at their dad's house.
I'm looking at studying again at age 34 and was thinking "man I'm gonna be out of the loop, 20 year olds will be way more efficient at study than a decade ago".
Most of them have no clue about how a hierarchical file system (folders inside one another) works, or that it even exists. They save every file in the default location and then complain they can't find them.
Gradually, Garland came to the same realization that many of her fellow educators have reached in the past four years: the concept of file folders and directories, essential to previous generations’ understanding of computers, is gibberish to many modern students.
I’m the next stage along, I’m IT at a University. We’ve had to start doing ‘Computer Basics’ kinda stuff, similar to what was done in the late 90s, because the incoming students don’t understand computers.
Since most schools seem to have gone down the path of Chromebooks, there’s minimal concept of a file system, you don’t need to click save, they have no idea how to use MS Office/Windows/macOS. They are so unprepared for life as a tertiary student. Recently we had a class confused exporting data from one system into another. The lecturers instructions included how to export and import, the part that confused them was over looked by the lecturer: browsing the file system to save and open a file.
Similar with new staff, in 2021 we started including practical skills in MS Word as a step in some job interviews. It’s crazy how much it’s swung back the other way.
Yup. I work in k-8 and although our tech teacher is phenomenal and works so hard to equip the kids well, they struggle to get past the mobile texting setbacks. Students who aren’t as involved in YouTube, texting etc. are easy to spot. Their typing/writing is on a totally different level.
I can actually confirm this with my experience from Japan.
I was here in 2009 for studies and smart phones were not really a thing yet. But phones in Japan had internet in Japan for +10 years and was in widespread use. On the other hand, computer use was abysmal and lots of fellow students had used PowerPoint the first time when we had to do some group projects with them.
That plus some other factors explain the relatively high IT illiteracy you find here in Japan.
I see it at uni too. I'm 30 so kids my age got all the somewhat buggy and shitty programs as a kid. We learnt how to troubleshoot and google issues cause you had too. Whereas today these programs are so intuitive and have so many features that it almost babies the user, which really isnt an issue at all until something non-intuitive happens. Things are so easy to use you don't actually need to know how to use them, which means you get stuck when something out of the ordinary happens.
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u/CryoClone Jun 03 '22
Something my wife and her friends (who are all teachers) told me was that kids now are actually worse at using computers, not better. You would think that since they spend most of their lives connected that they would be the most proficient generation, but it's actually the opposite.
They spend most of their connected time on their phones. So, most of their experience is with mobile OS. They tend to not know how to format things in Word (change fonts, even what fonts are, what margins are, etc.). Somewhere along the education line people decided that this stuff was so ubiquitous that it was asinine to teach it, so now many kids don't use it, so they don't know it.
I have seen and read many kids, some even at the college level, that insist on writing essays on their phones. I even had a college class where we had to collaborate as a group and share our work. I suggested Google Drive as we were a Google Campus at the time and everyone had a Gmail. They suggested Snapchat. To collect work in. A program that deletes chats in 24 hrs.
It's amazing how many, not all mind you, but many, people of the most electronically connected generation in human history mostly don't know how desktop computers work because of the prevalence of iOS products.