memes

My ssd is sda (with a sda1 boot partition and an encrypted root partition). I may be in Gen Z but I also have Autism, granted I didnt grow up with a lot of technology but I always squeezed every ounce out of them. When I was 13 I installed Linux, by 16 I already knew how to use a terminal (and manage the entire system with it), today I would say im relatively good at basic IT and basic network management (although im struggling greatly at installing coreboot).

Conclusion: Gen Z/Alpha probrally wont be great at computers but there will probrally be many individuals who will be significantly more advanced at computers. I was watching YouTube and a found a video of a 15 year old installing Arch manually in less than 10 minutes on a Chromebook. So tbh I wouldn't be worried tbh (at least about this specifically).

CD drives were too big so drives were developed that only took half a CD, which is shaped like a C.

I'm a xennial. I was so excited by computers, and later the internet. It completely absorbed me to the point that I would get up an hour early for school so I could mess around with the computer before catching the bus. A beautiful (ugly) Compaq with a 200n megabyte hard drive, 2 megs of ram. 86 architecture. I was about 11 years old.

I played a few games, but I spent much more time messing around the system in DOS. Making batch files, then working with qbasic. Of course I played Nintendo games as well. After we got internet I used a 28.8kbps modem to upload my own webpage via FTP.

I remember thinking, even as a child/teenager, that the kids of the future were going to be incredible, being born into the digital internet age. I was so wrong. My classmates struggled with computers because they weren't amazed by them like I was. Touch typing class had nothing on ICQ.

I think there are a lot of xennials on Lemmy. It was crushing to see that the generations before and after us can't comprehend the basics of computers. Then smartphones happened and everything got so much worse.

I wonder: Has this happened with anything else?

Where an older generation struggled to understand at all, a middle generation adapted to it early enough to witness all of the quirks, and then a later generation was born into an already-smoothed out system — and they all lived simultaneously?

Seems like a uniquely modern thing, but then again agriculture and clothing and currency have all had periods of rapid change in the past.

Like were there Generation F dudes out there like “omg we’re the only ones who understand knitting frames smh”?

They're about as well prepared to deal with computers as people who had a teddy bear when they were children are prepared to be a veterinary.

I know a bunch of people who got into webdesign cuz of MySpace.

There exists a generation of people today that do not know that the save icon shows a floppy disk. They have no idea what a floppy disk even was.

I feel old now and will go back into my cave and weep quietly.

I completely blame schools adopting ChromeOS for this generational failure.

At least give them a functional OS god damn. People out here not knowing you can do more than access like 5 websites and apps with literally anything that has a microprocessor in it.

I love that Gen Alpha won't even get this reference because the movie came out 30 years before they were born.

Gen Z: Where is my file and what is a directory?

https://web.archive.org/web/20250128111653/https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z

"We set our sights and spent our nights waiting

For you

You, insatiable you

Mommy let you use her iPad, you were barely two

And it did all the things we designed it to do"

Bo Burnham's Welcome to the Internet (2021)

At a recent gaming expo one of the tables was showing a new game for pc. 50% of the kids that approached the table didn’t know how to use mouse and keyboard. The next day they added Xbox controller support and more than half of the people that didn’t know before then were able to figure out how to play.

I think this boils down to not education but poverty. Entry level computers cost way more than an entry level console. Sure you can buy a piece of crap laptop for $250 but it won’t be able to play ANYTHING. A $250 Xbox does everything you need and more. Most games today are not made to be played on $250 computers.