this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
574 points (95.6% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26903 readers
221 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world


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.


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 1 year 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
[–] UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I actually think the opposite. Millennials grew up during the boom of technology and many had to rapidly adjust to all of that in a short amount of time. That's why so many are so good at it. Gen Z on the other hand has trouble managing folders and files. This is largely due to tech getting easier... too easy almost. The direction of tech right now is AR/VR and my grandma was able to quickly grasp it because the controls are so natural.

I don't think that millennials will be behind in the tech field, but trends? Yes.

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

This dismissive sentiment is actually why I think eventually many Millennials will end up clueless as they age. Yes, Gen Z might not know how filesystems work, but that’s because they don’t have to. It’s fast becoming an obsolete user abstraction, replaced in many places by tags, dates, and other contextual / searchable hints. If I want to find photos of my sister’s wedding, I just tap the map where it was and I see the entire gallery - no need to navigate to /home/MooseBoys/Photos/2017/JanesWedding.

Being able to adapt to new tech is as much about the ability to learn something new as it is to unlearn something old. The amount of people criticizing Gen Z for not knowing how some antiquated system works suggests to me that plenty of Millenials are holding on dearly to their mental models of how technology works. When presented with something vastly different, like a computer without a screen, they’ll probably be just as clueless as a boomer trying to figure out where to put the postage stamp on the email to their nephew.

[–] UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't think it's so black and white. Instead I think it's created both clueless gen z kids and extremely computer literate gen z kids. I see so many kids now picking up on computers and coding so quickly that I don't think things like the filesystem will ever be too archaic, it'll just remain in the background managed by those who can now simplify tasks for the others who don't understand it as well. The proof is in Linux's growing numbers that people have more interests in computers now than ever before.

It's just that equally as such, there are people who are just going to navigate the world of tech in a completely different way. They either see the world (literally lol) through their phones or even with upcoming AI. Though I still think millennials have the capacity to keep up better than previous generations when it comes to tech.

[–] ricdeh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you sir, you nailed it!