The one ray of hope is that the number of entirely tech illiterate people I deal with has decreased. They’re retiring/dying. It’s not nearly as common now to deal with people that don’t understand how to literally turn something on. I also got out of the private sector, so I’m not dealing with the general public, which always made me want to drive my car into oncoming traffic on my way home every day.
But yeah, I always make a point of embarrassing someone when I have to drive somewhere to do something a toddler could have done if they put them on the phone with me.
As another IT guy I’m getting less and less optimistic about that future.
Software these days “”“just works”“” and so now you have kids and young adults who barely know how to interact with a file explorer, don’t know what the different file extensions mean, or even things I would consider basic like the difference between “network connection” and “WiFi”.
This is why being an elder millennial kinda gives you the edge, especially if you have been using computers since the 80s. Old MS-DOS machines forced you to understand how directory management worked.
There’s a whole new generation of tech illiterates being born with a smartphone up their asses. I feel that 80’s kids peaked at tech literacy, then steadily declined from the mid 90s maybe.
I worked in customer service for 7 years. There are people who have no idea how to hang up a phone call on their cell phones… lots of them. Like I used to find one several times a week.
When I used to work support for home Internet, it was accepted practice to ask if we could speak to the child in the house if we were having trouble with an adult…
Defensive, or outright steering ticket notes was my FAVORITE skill. I learned of so many shitshows weeks later because my department head read my notes, shut the person down and didn’t even mention it to me. It actually got a few employees in trouble with their management.
Been doing IT for 20 years.
The one ray of hope is that the number of entirely tech illiterate people I deal with has decreased. They’re retiring/dying. It’s not nearly as common now to deal with people that don’t understand how to literally turn something on. I also got out of the private sector, so I’m not dealing with the general public, which always made me want to drive my car into oncoming traffic on my way home every day.
But yeah, I always make a point of embarrassing someone when I have to drive somewhere to do something a toddler could have done if they put them on the phone with me.
As another IT guy I’m getting less and less optimistic about that future.
Software these days “”“just works”“” and so now you have kids and young adults who barely know how to interact with a file explorer, don’t know what the different file extensions mean, or even things I would consider basic like the difference between “network connection” and “WiFi”.
This is why being an elder millennial kinda gives you the edge, especially if you have been using computers since the 80s. Old MS-DOS machines forced you to understand how directory management worked.
Elder millennials and baby genXers be like
The Oregon Trail Generation will fix your shit!
You’re catching the middle wave. Wait until the iPad kids in Gen alpha come up and don’t understand anything with a cord.
There’s a whole new generation of tech illiterates being born with a smartphone up their asses. I feel that 80’s kids peaked at tech literacy, then steadily declined from the mid 90s maybe.
I’d say 2000s was when it peaked.
Knowledge peaked in the 2000s, but those are the 80’s and 90’s kids. The ones born in the 2000s had an iPhone with 14 and know nothing…
Yup. People under the age of 25 don’t even understand files or directories.
iPhones and Chromebooks have abstracted everything away.
Thankfully Chromebooks have very low popularity outside US
I worked in customer service for 7 years. There are people who have no idea how to hang up a phone call on their cell phones… lots of them. Like I used to find one several times a week.
When I used to work support for home Internet, it was accepted practice to ask if we could speak to the child in the house if we were having trouble with an adult…
Defensive, or outright steering ticket notes was my FAVORITE skill. I learned of so many shitshows weeks later because my department head read my notes, shut the person down and didn’t even mention it to me. It actually got a few employees in trouble with their management.
Bot, this never happens and was bait.