How old is this screenshot?
Young people don’t even know what a directory is.
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
196 points (98.0% liked)
Microblog Memes
10712 readers
3123 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I don't know what the age gap is in her office, but my personal experience is that the top "basic computer skills as a default" peaked before her generation. Except for plugging in the projector. No one knows how to do it.
Students are currently arriving at the university without any basic understanding of file hierarchies (folders containing folders and files). And they have no clue what a zip file is. Nor do they know what to do with it.
I used to be able to just say "please download the materials from [learning platform] and organize them so you can work with them before class" and that would be fine. Nowadays I have to give step-by-step instructions that involve things like "create a folder", "navigate to your download folder" and "cut (ctrl-x) the files and paste (ctrl-v) them into the new folder" unless I want half the students to get lost.
Some don't even have a concept of downloading a file. They're so used to streaming and mobile UIs that they seem to think that a downloaded file is simply gone once you close it (and needs to be re-downloaded).
God, that's depressing
Time to bring back the manuals from the 80s when students were seeing computers for the first time in university.
80s... pshaw. Try the 60s. Or just go back all the way to Babbage. If you don't know who that is, then look it up.
I looked up Baggage, I don't think it would make a difference.
Nice troll. ;)
Or any concept of the physical realities of what a computer actually is.
Scary
Depends, in some technical fields it's starting to flip because kids don't need to learn computer skills as much when they just use iPhones and tablets where everything "just works".
Yeah. My friend from high school works in high school. Among others he teaches IT. Compared to today's kids we were hackers. We knew how to crack a game, install a driver, replace some hardware. Today's kids don't know how to download a file.
I went to school with someone who didnt like deadlines, so she would do the following:
- fill a word document with nonsense
- open word document in hex editor
- corrupt file through some means she googled
- submit the file to our submission system
- wait for teacher to open the file, get 'corrupted' message
She'd do the work at her own pace in the mean time, and when she got asked for another copy because it was corrupted, shed hand it up. She graduated with me, and I dont know what she does now but I hope she's in infosec.
Our IT teacher knew if we did something late because he would look at when the file was last edited. We had a great IT teacher that also wanted to teach us how to think instead of just teaching basic word and excell.
Couldn't you then just change the system clock before editing the file? Or hell, is the metadata able to be altered by the user?
The server logs the submission time
My IT experience as Gen-X.
Boomers: Look to me because somehow they have avoided learning anything IT related in the last thirty+ years.
Millennials: Look to me because I have more experience and a wider breadth of knowledge. Thumbs up for Millenials.
Gen-Z: About as confused as Boomers but excusable since they just started. Surprising lack of basics in some. Those that do know enough, have less knowledge and experience than Millenials and way way less than us gray beards. So they rarely get to solve problems, thus they rarely get to grow and learn.
I work in IT and can guarantee this person generates a disproportionate amount of tickets.
If I need someone to wind up a SpeakNSpell or onboard an iPhone for someone, I'll call you.
My IT experience as a "Generation Jones" Boomer.
Older Boomers: Ugh. Please.. let me sort it and you just go back to watching TV.
Gen-X: Ah, you got that? Fantastic!
Millennials: You're going to need something better than a phone to set that network up with. We have to do some port forwarding on the new modem, so the camera system can connect, so at minimum we need the office laptop. Can you squeeze under the cabinet and pull those ethernet lines I snaked up from the basement? I think they're just inside the bottom of the pocket..
Gen-Z: That is awesome that you want to help! Let me show you a few neat tricks. I've got some ancient laptops you can dabble with.. they're bang-up for running torrents, I know you are tight for cash and streaming costs and arm and a leg now. Lemme show you how to save some money.
It needs a young backup.