"Kids Can't Use Computers" is now ten years old, and it's only gotten worse

As someone also near the border between Gen Z and Millennial, I relate a lot to this comment. I was also the family tech kid, and since like middle school I've always told people "I'm not good with computers, I just know how to use a search engine"

My "computer literacy" is literally just basic research skills; knowing how to formulate a web search and how to identify bad sources.

I think we can blame the education system. At some point it became solely about passing some arbitrary threshold of students with high exam scores rather than about teaching students how to get by in life.

End result was an education system that simply teaches kids how to pass exams rather than basic life skills like critical thinking.

The late 90s Gen Z/Millennial DMZ is a painful place to exist. Constant and mandatory tech support.

I'm also between gen Z and millennial and was the family's tech kid and still get calls. Are you me? :D

Just yesterday I got a call asking how to select all images in a directory... And then another call about how to get those images to Google Drive, which is literally just drag and drop... And one of the people involved was my gen Z younger sister.

Teach a child to fish, basically.

If we keep making it easy for them... Ask and I'll give you all the answers... They'll never learn.

My first response these days is, "What have you tried so far?" And, "What are you searching for in 'Google'?"

So when the author says it's the 30-50 year olds that know how to use computers, today it's the 40-60 year olds. I'd say it goes older than that.

One thing that used to bug me on reddit was youngsters going on about how over-50s wouldn't know how to use a computer. That hasn't been the case for decades now.

I still remember getting in trouble at my public school with the IT admin because my friends and I discovered how to write BAT files, and had the brilliant idea to create a bunch of fork bombs that self-replicated until they froze their host computer.

Unfortunately I think kids today don't even get enough leeway to figure that sort of shit out. But kids are awfully good at finding cracks in systems, so maybe they've just figured out how to get up to similar hijinks with GUIs and cloud storage.

Teaching direct tech through schools is problematic too because by the time they update the cirriculum the reality had changed. Concepts and diagnositcs would be a lot more useful, then let the kids have the tools to find the issues from there

I mean... Technically it would.

Maybe he thought it was an all in one device.

I had to program my first computer for it to do anything.

Sadly, most people have no grasp what that even means. I've had adults think that means I "downloaded something into the computer" and then it worked.

It was around that time I just stopped talking to anyone outside of my geek circle about anything technical. Best to play dumb.

Good thing search engines are optimized for advertising instead of utility!

I learned how to use computer since i was 5 years old, mostly through video games, then by playing with the Microsoft office, i'm 25 now going computer engineering, and i'm teaching my dad how to use a computer lol

Exactly this. I am 27 and if there's anything I've learned about the importance of different skills in tech, is that the most important one is finding the information you need. Everything else, you can look up as you need it

And he thinks TL;DRs are for kids with ADHD. Totally egotistic. I'm sure his whole point can be heavily TL;DR'd.

Ask them what https means and why it is important

Ironic

Looks like they haven't really posted to the site since 2014 (there was a post in 2017, but they were no other posts between then and 2014.) LetsEncrypt wasn't nearly as prolific back then.

This article looks like it is seriously a decade or older at this point. The writer goes on about how phones can't be upgraded or repaired and go obsolete in two years but also buys a macbook pro.

Much of the article is some boomer going on about how they had no computers and they know computers better than people who do have computers. But I bet you this guy doesn't know how to make laundry detergent but they rely on it all the time. Bet you need manufactur-dad to the fucking rescue for you eh?

It's so frustrating when people are like "Well I don't need to know how computers work."

Every aspect of our lives is governed by computers in one way or another. I can't imagine not being curious to know how they work.

I giggled at that too, especially when combined with the blogger's quote "Ask them what https means and why it is important and they'll look at you as if you're speaking Klingon."

Well, your comment just shows your tech illiteracy. https is useless when you don't need to deal with sensitive data.

https://xkcd.com/763/

But forreal, I think it's really interesting how people who aren't familiar with computers never think to themselves, "there has to be a better way to do this."

Like, I'm an EE, and electrical engineering software is notoriously terrible (I like to joke it's because it's written by EEs). Even knowing that, if I run into a problem where I want to accomplish something where the default option is to click and drag something 200 times, the first thing I do is google "how do thing Altium." Sometimes the answer really is to do it the hard way, but I at least check first.

Edit: I'm just remembering a story where I was asked to review a PCB and schematic design for a client. I think they had hired like someone's kid to do the design work to save money as there were problems all over the place.

Probably the most glaring was with the component markers or "reference designators." In Eagle CAD, when you place a component (resistor, chip, etc), it comes with a little label to be printed on the PCB. This label has a default location next to the part and moves with the part, but you can't move it relative to the part without using a separate tool to allow that. This is important when designs get dense as labels might overlap each other or other parts.

Any way, rather than searching for how to move reference designators relative to components (it's called the "Smash" tool), this kid deleted all reference designators from the design and just manually placed labels. That means that when you move a component, you have to manually move the label. Also, normally, reference designators are hi-lighted when you select components so you know which one goes with which component. These manual labels had no association with the parts. The only way to tell if a label was next to the right part was to select the component to figure out its name, and then visually scan the labels to look for the one with a matching name.

There were hundreds of parts on the PCB. This was $1500 software, and they assumed that this was the correct user flow. Place parts, delete labels linked to parts, make new labels not linked to parts.

Off topic here, but do you speak a slavic language? Your username means boring eccentric right? I speak some Czech (am American) and I definitely miss the Czech subreddit

To be fair it doesn't help that Microsoft keeps moving the damn thing.

Ive worked with a few people that had completed CS degrees that couldnt do basic troubleshooting. One of them still works for my old employer and ive been informed that hes still as bad as the first day they hired him!

He was there to learn, right? Is a first semester student expected to know specific programs without explanation?

As a current computer science college student who was a TA for 2 semesters, can confirm... It's wild out here

I read the (original?) article on the Verge covering this and my understanding is that it's not an issue. The files/folders way of thinking is already a metaphor for 0s and 1s scattered around on silicon. Using a "laundry basket with a search robot" isn't inherently a worse way to store data than a "file system with hierarchy".

We are just used to one way and the other baffles us because it goes against our way of thinking about 0s and 1s scattered on silicon.

The people who are them problem aren't the intended audience. The intended audience are people who are in positions to direct youth education programs.

It sure is getting worse, though.

easier than trying

I'm sure there are plenty of cases of this, but I feel the need to point out that a lot of times there can be mental illness at the root. Which is definitely not easier than trying.

It’s just another in a long list of things that some grown-ass adults act like is somehow beyond them because that’s easier than trying.

That's the funny part. It's not really easier. They have to go through life depending on others to do trivial things for them.

Imagine taking your car to a mechanic for low tire pressure rather than learning how to use the pumps at a gas station.

To me, it just came across as petulant. Ironically, the "conclusion" was basically a TLDR for anyone interested.

The entire thing reads like an edge-lord self aggrandizing. If they were an english lit nerd instead of a computer nerd I'd bet they'd write fan fiction about themselves being a god.

3.5!

No kids myself, but I saw something really interesting at a restaurant the other day. Kid, maybe 3, was watching something on an iPad. When it was time to go, the parents asked "it's time to go, can you pause your movie?"

Kid taps the screen to bring up the menu, and taps pause. No problem.

I found it really interesting that that UI paradigm is maybe 10-15 years old, and it really isn't super intuitive, but it's universal, and this little kid knew how to do it. And it looked like his parents taught him how to do it and encouraged him to do it.

So it isn't all hopeless, it's just a matter of parents teaching kids how to use computers. Just like they teach them to eat, brush their teeth, and dress themselves.

Start with the sl command, and you can do it now 😁

I'd wait until the "yank the key from keyboard and eat it" bug is fixed.

Tech support calls that amount to wiping someone's ass for them. I was helping someone setup their new computer and they managed to install spyware while I was using the restroom. Another time, ransomware got onto to someone's computer and I instructed them to unplug the computer while I made my way over. They plugged in their only backup of office files into the infected computer and all that data also got encrypted.

This is what I tell people when they get frustrated learning how computers work. Its not like math or natural science, it's all just useful levels of bullshit people made up to make the electric rocks do things. Learn what helps you understand how the rocks work to make it think about the things you care about.