My favorite:
“Where did you save the file?”
“I saved it in Excel”
just want to add, it’s not the zoomer’s fault. they were intentionally raised in ignorance because its apparently profitable
fuck the corporations who’ve deliberately turned our living computers into soulless commercial brainwashing surveillance machines
It’s their parents fault for not using GNU/Linux
Also schools that thought just seeing the tech used would give you innate knowledge on how to use a computer.
Don’t blame the people, they often cant get a mobile and tablet and computer… blame the awful corporations who made everything an app and pushed locked down mobile and tablets environments
Then get a laptop and a phone. No one needs a tablet.
Then they get a chromium based laptop because those were the most affordable ones they can get.
Appification was generalized and its not ppls fault for growing up in that environment, especially if their parents were not big into computers and couldn’t tell the difference.
The key concept they’re missing a lot of the time is that software sits within the file system and not the other way around.
This is largely because apps hide this and data is generally stored in one place on your phone (the downloads folder).
Best way to fix it - have 1–2 lessons entirely devoted to finding shit on their computer. My favourite activity is “ok, save your word file, close word, you now have 10 mins to find that file without opening word”.
I’d at least start them with something simple like Paint or Notepad. Once they have that down, then you can throw the disaster that is the MS Office file save dialog at them.
Messing around with your old WinXP/95 computer and then fixing that mess before your parents come home and scold you does wonders to one’s troubleshooting skills. People of this generation never got to hear that scary XP error sound, and it shows.
Fun fact: Windows XP had cool day 0 loophole that saved my my ass. Once I decided to explore new options and I stumbled upon new and cool feature: setting a password. The only issue with it was that I’ve forgotten it half an hour later. I already knew ‘admin’ word so I used it in hackerman style and I logged in and I was able to reverse old password. This loophole was patched with first service pack but I still giggle when I remind myself of that.
Damn! This is some real hackerman shit.
Windows XP’s error sound wasn’t scary. Windows 95 and 98’s were. That natural alarming chime, combined with the angry faces when our parents find out the non-functioning operating system…
Turns out the one I was thinking of was the critical stop sound and the error sound was less threatening. Learnt something new…
The paradigm has changed. The rift between PC and smart phone. Is it really a surprise? My 18yr step kid can at least type on a keyboard with proficiency. Beyond that and installing games in steam, he’s lost outside of that. Both I and his mom work in IT. We try to shore up the gaps, but it seems the ‘kid’ actively refuses to learn.
We are all working class.
The working class should hold the bulk of the wealth.
“Should” is doing all the work in that sentence
More work than the 1% will ever do.
Zoomer in computer science here: I’ve noticed that there are two types of people in my age range, you have the people who are really passionate about technology for the sake of being technology and want to know how things work under the hood (like me) and people who see technology only as a means to accomlish a goal like writing a document, maintaining a social media presence, playing a game, etc, and can’t care less about how it actually works.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the latter, but there can be conflict between the two groups because their priorities are completely different.
This is not unique to technology and you see this in other fields too. For example, you have the car enthusiasts who do their own oil changes and are constantly tuning up their cars, installing aftermarket mods, etc, and then you have everyone else who see cars as just a way of getting to where they need to go, have never even opened the engine compartment, and bring it into the shop when the scary lights on the dashboard appear.
To use your car metaphor, there was a time when you basically needed to know how a car worked in order to own/operate one. I’m talking like the 1910s-1920s. They were unreliable, simply made, manual transmission, hand crank start, and needed a lot of maintenance.
Millennials grew up at a time when you needed to have some understanding of how a computer worked in order to do basically anything.
I suppose the issue is that the car metaphor breaks down because a vehicle really only does one thing. Push pedal and go. Maybe worry about snow conditions if that affects you.
Meanwhile, computers can still be used to do thousands of different tasks and the only thread tying all of those tasks together is that they’re done by the same machine. So knowing fundamentals about the machine gives you access to a lot of capability vs. just memorizing how to do a few tasks.
the problem is that there’s people out there who in the analogy don’t know how to drive a car, defend it by saying ‘I’m just not a car person’, and constantly ask to be driven around when a major part of their job is driving a car. somehow when it comes to computers employers tolerate this
You forgot the third group, !fuckcars@lemmy.world
Gen Z here, in college.
Some of these people are braindead when it comes to tech.
Like, I get if you’re not used to technology because you’re poor/had a lack of access to it, as many people might not have a home computer. So there were kids who were absolutely hopeless when it came to using windows at my tech school because they were broke, and the school only gives out Chromebooks (cause they’re shitty and cheap).
But outside of not knowing a UI and different file formats, you should absolutely know how to use anything on the web, unless you literally lived in an area with absolutely no internet and electricity.
Some people at my college STILL don’t know how to share Google documents correctly, and it’s the most insane and frustrating thing to me. Literally any device with an Internet connection can use it. Windows, apple, Chromebook, Linux, you name it. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO WORK GOOGLE DRIVE?!?!?!
Like many comments have said, devs have dumbed down a lot of shit in the name of protecting users, and people expect stuff to just work without any issues/effort, which I get, but damn, you’ve never simply done a 5 mins search on Google or YouTube for a quick fix?
My hand-me-down phone journey started with a Samsung G Note 4 as a kid, then a old iPhone (don’t remember which), moved to a Moto G Play 7 (I adore that thing today), moved to iPhone X, and now I’m at a Pixel 8a cause I put GrapheneOS on it. My mom got me it as a grad gift cause I hated my iPhone so much for all the shit I couldn’t do while I was on it. I’ve always just liked Android and Windows more for the freedom to fuck up (which I never did), instead of Apple’s shitty walled garden. And now I’m on Fedora, because I know I don’t have to subject myself to a shit user experience on Windows just for simplicity.
But other people my gen who aren’t willing to be adventurous for a bit and even try will never do that. Hell, you get shamed in school for not loving the Apple overlords and wanting Apple deciding everything in your life (green bubble shaming is real, I hated middle and early high school…). We want quick and easy, and we got it, but at what cost?
Google drive is absolutely horrible to use for any real purpose. Organizing things is awful, search sucks, sharing permissions are dumb in terms of their specific behaviors. Its not particularly hard to use for basic things where you’ve got like 10 files in there, but it’s a terrible example of usable software. Like… SharePoint is better, and I didn’t think it was possible to be worse than SharePoint.
I’ve used both for work and I’m having a hard time understanding what you could possibly find better about SharePoint. It’s consistently the most frustrating sharing and navigation experience I’ve ever had to endure.
Yep, have used both Google Drive and SharePoint for work. SharePoint is an abomination
Mate just my 2 cents ignore overlords and enjoy using other stuff and getting a more global knowledge. Didn’t know the situation was getting this bad, let me guess: they know every single thing that has been posted on tiktok, but nothing else?
That’s no different from boomers and millenials really. Boomers only know the 6 o’clock news and either the front or back page of the paper. Millennial only know 90s cartoons and how to complain; I should know as i am one.
Some people at my college STILL don’t know how to share Google documents correctl
They emulate a “files” menu (like any native office software has), where you can download/export it to a standardized format. Right?
Well, for the download/export stuff, yeah, you just go to the “File” tab and click the download drop down tab, and you can save it to the computer or Google Drive. Which some people still didn’t know about somehow but… (Some people never touch the tabs I guess)
But when I mean file sharing, I’m talking like sharing stuff to another person’s drive, or simply just letting them have access to it by clicking a link. To be fair, sometimes the sharing is wonky or really dumb, but it’s basically, give access to specific emails/accounts, give access to anyone within your organization with the link, or give access to anyone who has the link. You can specify if this access link should be viewer, commenter, or editor.
The amount of people who have shared a document with incorrect access rights where teachers can’t see their work and have to ask them to resubmit, or trying to do group projects with people who claim that it’s not working, is fucking insane. I get some of them are just being lazy and probably lying about it not working to get more time to procrastinate, but dead serious, some people just have no idea how to share files correctly. My public speaking class was full of these blunders, especially when sharing a presentation done with Canva, and we’d always have to waste like 3 minutes waiting for them to fix it…
I work on a help desk. We hired multiple Zoomers and they literally don’t understand how computers work. They don’t know what the registry is. Or what POST means. Or how to properly back up a user’s data without using automated software.
They’re fucking dumb. Nice. But dumb.
To be fair, I’m a millenial who’s fairly tech savvy and I barely know what POST means. Then again, I don’t work in IT.
To be fair, POST could mean a number of things. Are we talking in a webserver context? BIOS context? The POST Office?
I would guess 90% of “IT” people don’t know what POST (in web context, maybe bios since they might have taken an A+ cert class lmao) means nor do they know how basic http or web servers work. Most of IT are help desk and do not know technology well but are comfortable enough to tell people to reboot, uninstall/reinstall stuff, reformat, google an issue they can’t figure out… Which is better than 99% of the world.
Why would someone on a help desk be expected to know what POST is? A software engineer, sure, but helpdesk? If it’s needed knowledge…that’s what training is for. Businesses’ expectation that people will come into the job already knowing exactly how you do things and never require on-the-job training is absurd.
Guessing they’re talking about Power-On Self Test rather than the HTTP verb. I’m assuming you were thinking of the latter given you mentioned a software engineer.
Half of software engineers don’t know what a POST is either
Software engineer here, can confirm I’ve never received anything by post in my life, it’s always couriers. My assumption is that post stamps are boomer NFTs.
Ah, but postage stamps are completely fungible.
As opposed to images on the internet… XD
If anything it would actually take more effort to replicate a physical stamp now that I think about it.
help desk definitely doesn’t need to know that either. “does the shit turn on… no, well send it in then we will give you a new one”
I was thinking of the HTTP verb, you’re right.
Yes, helpdesk should know the basic steps that happen when you power on a computer.
maybe in 2005. Today it is “did it turn on? No? Ok we will give you a new one”
Do you think that’s what he meant by POST? Could have meant data delivery through http? Do you think they should know that one too?
That’s not one helpdesk needs to know, unless you’re in a specific niche where it’s relevant to how your normal users interact with your product. (For example, some backend service, where your users are web devs)
I got used to looking for registry tweaks, but I don’t even know what to call it exactly.
The closest I’ve got is: A place for accessing hidden settings in Windows. I’ve made a couple typos in there and nuked an install or two of XP, but I never really changed much personally. Just kinda looked up various ways people would use it to accomplish x, y, or z, out of curiosity.
I don’t have to deal with it anymore at least.
In my experience, Zoomers largely lack a lot of computer skills (specifically in troubleshooting), but, for me the huge difference between them and the older folks has been that the older folks will say things like “I’m just not a computer person ::laugh::” and refuse to be shown how to do anything whereas the Zoomer just doesn’t know, yet, but are more than willing to learn.
ETA: NOTE: that’s just the generalized trend … some of the most knowledgeable technical people I’ve met are Boomers and some of the best computer techs I’ve worked with have been Zoomers.
Oh god this was my previous colleague. “Hey MBech, mind showing me how I do this thing in Excel you’ve shown me 100 times?” Sure thing, but at least try to remember. He even told me he forgets it instantly because he just doesn’t give a shit about computer stuff. Then you probably shouldn’t have a job that has you working on a computer 90% of the time.
Don’t show. Guide them to do it themselves. Never be the one to actually do it beyond the first time.
If they still refuse to learn, make them take notes. Make them read to you their notes from last time. Make them tell you what each step is and means.
Make asking you the hardest option for them to get what they want.
That’s similar as the saying:
Give them fish, and they will have something to eat for days. Teach them how to fish and they will have something to eat for a lifetime.
Something along the line 😅
Build them a fire and they’ll be warm for a night. Set them on fire and they’ll be warm for the rest of their life. 🤣
Hahaha dark humor, nice !
“I should be able to ask my team for help” - The guy asking me to do his job for him after the umpteenth time of him refusing to learn a basic process.
You are helping - they clearly need the additional training, and you’re doing everything you can to supply that. Their job can’t be relying on you.
They shouldn’t (and almost certainly don’t) have delegation authority.
For corporate bingo, the keywords are upskill, cross-training, and bus factor.
This person had been taught the process multiple times before and simply refused to do it. It became relying on me to do the job for him in when my job is to help everyone on this large team with more advanced things then that.
I 100% agree with the caveat of SAP. I’m not letting those cunts having a single microgram of my brain space. I’m asking accounting for help everytime
I started as a graphic designer back in November with absolutely zero experience. It’s crazy being whown how to do stuff in Adobe suite by a 68 year old man
Ha. My young coworker said “wow you really know this software in depth, how long have you used it?” me: meh 26 years. He was like “dude that is longer than I have been alive”
I’m an older zoomer but still a zoomer. Its a crazy dynamic seeing people my age and younger just not getting IT stuff. There’s a high ratio of older to younger people where I’ve worked in IT too.
The challenges thst existed to use technology no longer exist, so there is no longer a reason to look under the hood for most people. It’s like how a lot of generations after boomers don’t know about how to change a tyre or spark plugs etc, cars got more reliable and industries created services to stop you needing to worry about that stuff.
As a kid I remember WANTING to play games with a friend on PC, he knew we needed a null modem cable and we went to pc shop 2 towns over got one and tried to figure out how to play together using it. Then when the Internet came out and we had to fight against Internet connection sharing so one computer could share Internet with friends pc. Trying to use no-cd patches just so we didn’t need to keep grabbing cds to play games etc.
There were so many things you learnt back then but it was because we had no alternative, I get why tech knowledge has vanished and I don’t blame them, they have had no need to solve the same problems and haven’t grown with technology, it’s been already established and they have had no need to concern themselves with it.
Problem is the working world still heavily needs PC skills and basic analytical ability so there needs to be more focus on those old “computer driving license” style courses so people can certify they know how to find a file and end task when something hangs.
Last night I offered to help my Zoomer classmate torrent Kamen Rider and he told me he was afraid of going to jail.
Back when computers were a novelty, we had schools dedicated to teaching people how to use them in my country.
The classes ranged from the most basic stuff, such as how to use a mouse, to more advanced topics, such as how to use the Windows registry.
We might need to bring these schools back in the near future.
If we can get them to teach Linux instead of Windows and tell people - this will run on whatever computer you bring to class
