this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Honestly I expect, just like in the early days of personal computing, that Gen Z and beyond will suffer from PC illiteracy. The main issue is that phones and tablets are being used almost exclusively during school and on personal time, so they have no idea what Windows nor even Mac looks and feels like. What happens with Zoomer gets an office job for the first time? They have to figure out how to use Windows and Office for the first time. It's crazy to think that your 70 yr old Grandma and your 17 yr old Nephew could potentially be on the same level of knowledge of how to use Windows, Office, etc...
Just wanted to say that - young people don't grok files and folders, it's hard for me to understand how they manage
Indeed! I teach an introductory web design class for undergraduates and despite my best efforts it takes a lot of students the whole semester to figure out file paths. If I had more time in the term, I think I'd dedicate a unit to it, just to get everyone up to speed — and I may have to do it anyway. In fairness to the kids, even Mac and Windows machines these days do a lot to minimize users' exposure to file structures in the name of usability. Meanwhile, the phones and school Chromebooks they've grown up using completely obfuscate this information.
I wish you luck with that class, and I expect the students get the other stuff - I have colleagues with masters degrees who aren't really sure how stuff works outside of the downloads folder
Thanks! Yeah, students do pretty well in the course overall. It's for non-devs and is oriented toward exposure to different technologies rather than mastery of them — basically demystifying how web apps work.
To their defense not everyone have a scanner these days.
that's not a defense, there are countless scanning apps for phones and tablets which magically correct the perspective and distortion and remove the creases. In a way, these are even better than scanners because they have a very high resolution.
Adobe Scan is a free phone app for creating scans of docs. There are dozens of others like it.
I'm a millennial and when I was in university I let people use my computer to send assignments to their lecturers rather than going to the labs a few times. More than once I had to stop them copying and pasting the contents of the word document into the body of the email and show them how to attach a file
Perhaps PCs will become obsolete. Even programming languages.
The most useful skill set for Gen-whatevers of the future will be winning an hours long debate with their personal AI on why it should get out of its digital bed and be productive today.
Just yesterday I was watching an episode of Star Trek DS9 where Sisko and Bashir get transported in time back to San Francisco in 2024 and Bashir has to examine a patient without a tricorder or any other equipment. It made me wonder how these people are able to have so much ingenuity and rote knowledge when they have computers and AI to take care of literally everything for them in 99.9% of circumstances.
They get new knowledge placed in their heads while using the transporters.
There's plenty of zoomers out there with office jobs already and the world hasn't collapsed. They'll learn just like the generations before them learned.
It's insane how true this is. I've actually worked with some kids that have no idea how to use windows, let alone know how to type. It's so odd, and almost disorienting at times, to experience this from both those older than me (parents, etc) and those younger than me.
I've taught a basic web programming class to 17/18 year old's. Hardly anyone had ever heard of file extensions (windows by default doesn't show them anymore), and most of them didn't understand the concept of folders and files, at all. I was shocked.
I spent 4 hours with them before the whole class was able to create a "index.html" file inside a specific folder, it was like teaching old people. I now feel a lot safer in my programming job.
I've had conversations with young people who started work in an office environment that required a lot of text editing/text creation, and they didn't know how to type on a keyboard.
Their opinion was that typing on a physical keyboard was an outdated skill that just wasn't required any more.
I asked them if they used voice-to-text or some other input method instead, and they said no.
Are that point, I just talked away, because I didn't have any polite follow-up questions, and we simply didn't seem to speak the same language.
I wonder if in the future people will use their smartphone as an input decive for desktop PCs. If they really can't be bothered to learn how to use a proper keyboard, that could maybe still be a lot faster than typing with your index fingers.
Yeah, I get that, and hypothetically you could just use a mobile device for text creation, using your preferred method of inputting text (e.g. a swipe keyboard, or a stylus with text recognition, etc.) on the mobile device and then send it all to the desktop.
I asked about that, and I didn't get a definitive answer. The conversation was more like:
"You don't get it, we grew up with touchscreen devices, physical keyboards are outdated."
"So do you use voice to text or something?"
"No! You don't get it. We grew up with mobile devices!"
"But... How do you enter text!?"
"Nobody cares about your typewriting skills!!"
They stared at me.
I stared back.
The generational gap felt like the Grand Canyon.
What's astonishing to me is that there is software which allows you to use your phone's keyboard as an input method for the PC. However, they didn't even think about it because they never needed to connect two devices together without them magically finding each other. Send a file? Do it through WhatsApp, even though the person stands right next to you.
I was taught how to type on a keyboard. I much prefer using my phone to type things because I can do it in any position rather than sitting at a desk.
I think this can happen to any generation. I'm currently training someone at work who allegedly has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science who had to be reminded of the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste.