this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
574 points (95.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27218 readers
1176 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] steve228uk@lemmy.world 109 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You should see my zoomer partner and friend try to work a computer. They all grew up on iPads 😅

[–] Boobski@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I swear I saw a study that basically came to the conclusion that there is a distinct curve in technological literacy where younger generations are used to tech “just working” and not knowing how to navigate anything outside of app-based interface. Take all of this with a handful of salt bc I don’t have source on hand.

[–] _bug0ut@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is a very interesting point and I can see it throughout zoomer culture when it comes to the down and dirty technical stuff, but I think there's a distinction to be made between being technically apt and being able to grok whatever the hot shit consumer-grade tech paradigm is right now.

In the former context, a lot of zoomers have already "failed" but that context is the territory of people who reach out to learn it - in other words, the nitty gritty tech stuff will always be for the technical types. In the latter context, I imagine millennials will probably mostly be fine and zoomers will, too. I say "mostly" because we're already seeing millennials start to kind of skip the latest trends (TikTok comes to mind immediately). Zoomers are already coming to grips with not being able to understand Alphas sense of humor via memes. Whatever the next social media platform is, I imagine it'll be primarily a home for Alphas, leaving zoomers and millennials where they are.

Will there be spillover across the board, with members of different generations populating the other platforms? Sure, there are always exceptions.

As far as physical tech goes, like how millennials got the smartphone and zoomers grew up with it? It's highly dependent on how ingrained it becomes in society. Hard to exist without a smartphone these days, so everybody has to know how to use one. Boomers have more trouble because they got it later, but there are plenty of them who are just fine with current phone tech precisely because they need to be for professional AND personal use.

[–] Bobert@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago

As a instructor of IT I can absolutely confirm. A lot of Gen Z have not grown up with computers as a tool. I have a class of around 20 students, and maybe 4-5 have any knowledge of the various compression archives. I have to give primers on the proper way to save various file types otherwise they'll just create default.config.txt (6) and wonder why an install isn't working.

[–] Albbi@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I thought you said zoomer parents and was about to get really mad and sad at the time.

[–] TheMinions@ttrpg.network 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean older Gen Z are 20-24. I’m a millennial and I was a dad at 23 haha. It’s early, but not unreasonably so.

[–] Bread@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To 26 actually. Gen Z starts in 1997.

[–] TheMinions@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 year ago

Eh the borderline years are all subjective.

But yes. Mid twenties is a reasonable time to start having kids

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Heh heh heh, I thought he said Boomer parents and I was wondering where the heck they got iPads

[–] darrelplant@mstdn.social 3 points 1 year ago

@AA5B @Albbi
Old people (I mean even older than me on the very tail end of the boom) love tablets and smartphones. They might not use a huge number of apps, or be able to install an app, but just like Donald Trump, they can text and use social media to excess.

[–] Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

My brother is gen Z and is having a kid this year

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, this is a thing. I know a lot of younger folks who don't really have a clue about how to do something if they don't have iOS version whatever or some other bespoke interface. (And no, I'm not a boomer)

CLI ultimately runs the world, and the younger folks who understand CLI are probably at a ratio roughly even to the other generations.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

What’s a computer?