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.
Absolutely. They will try to plug keyboards and screens into the neuralink chip.
As a millennial that was born near the end of the cut off I think millennials will adapt well and likely better than most any other group except maybe Gen x.
We were brought up in the infancy of personal computer technology where everything was more difficult and convoluted than it is for preceding generations. We started out at minimum using DOS and having to circumvent the older operating systems where even the simple task of chatting with your friends online was a multi step process. Since that point things have really only gotten simpler.
If we were to create a meta person who has the general computer competence of their generation and tested them I think we would find that Gen x and millennials are not only as well adjusted to modern technology but also faster to adapt to it. They will likely be faster at solving issues and problems as the skills and knowledge they had to adopt early in life to do even simple things still applies to the basis of all computing that we have today. Even very simple things like file navigation, adjusting basic computer settings, setting up a computer, modifying files, and even using web searches to troubleshoot problems are strengths that millennials and Gen x will have that will likely see a fall off from there after in the other generations.
Computer incompetence has become increasingly more common over time to the point we are reaching now in the United States where it’s fallen off so much is becoming a crisis as kids growing up now can simply only use phones and tablets and actual basic computer skills have become an issue. With the cheap cost of electronics there is even less interest in kids to learn how to solve issues on their devices as they see it as easier to just buy a new device altogether and avoid troubleshooting altogether.
I think there are fewer tech-savvy people in the world than people think. Most people are capable of using tech just enough to do what they’re trying to do, and don’t take the time to learn to use newer technology, preferring to stick with what they know.
On the other hand, people with a desire to keep up with new technology probably will.
100% sure, I don’t even know how to use discord, that shit is confusing as hell while the fediverse is no biggie
And I am completly ignorant about tech I intentionally chose to ignore like tiktok and snapchat
About the same. Everyone has a point where they decide to stop learning for some it is just way further out there.
I know people in their 30s who can’t manage and I know people in their 60s that do fine.
Nah, I’ve met kids who know more than I did back then.
I don’t think so. I do think there will be a decline as we get older, but the overall level of aptitude will be higher than the generations before and after. It’s the younger generations I’m worried about. Other commenters have already mentioned it, they’ve grown up with already well-polished UX to the point that they don’t need to understand how a device works to use it. Most of us here have a high level understanding of how computers work, the app or browser you’re reading this from, because we had to understand how they worked if we wanted to be able to use them when we were younger.
I don’t think it’ll be nearly as bad. Of course, younger generations will always be quicker than the last when it comes to new tech. I’m sure I’ll be struggling with Timmy’s fulldive VR system at some point
I’m 39 and I’m already starting to get bad with certain parts of technology, so absolutely yes. That said, I’m also getting to the point where I’m starting not to care anymore.
The most common complaint I hear on most websites is “I have been here on this website since the first days, and now they redesigned the site and I can’t find the place to change my profile picture”, so you can already see signs of this.
The reverse also applies too. I notice other Gen Z members often asking things like “how do I make a forum” when they clearly just made a forum thread (they’re called threads, not forums) to ask the question. It’s like the internet equivalent of “how do I get Green Mario”, “why can’t Metroid crawl”, “why does Zelda always have to save the princess”, and “what gives X-man his long nails”.
To be fair, some companies seem to go out of their way when redesigning their software and websites to obfuscate basic features.
Oh, you want to change your profile picture? Obviously you go to Settings > Privacy > Verify Account > Profile Picture! It’s just the most logical place to put it!
It feels like some people will struggle with technology and for others it will be effortless, no matter what era they are from. Some people are curious about these things and want to know how machines work. It’s the curiousity, systematic thinking and joy of learning that remain relevant.
I agree with people here saying that younger people are just not very computer literate anymore. I bought my daughter a starter desktop computer so she would get more computer literate, but it sits on a desk while she uses her iPad. The schools have Chromebooks, which is the push-here-dummy of operating systems, especially when the school restricts it. Apps on phones and tablets just work. There’s no learning curve.
Unless they’re specifically interested in computers, they don’t need to be computer literate anymore.
That said, I think future technology will reflect this. They won’t need to be for most jobs.
Boomers are not bad with technology, at least not boomers working in tech… It’s the younger guys with ipads that have no clue how anything works. :)
One teenager I met wanted to be a data scientist and had a running jupyter notebook but couldn’t write a simple python loop on his own.
I asked him why, and he said he wasn’t interested in learning that, he just wanted to do AI easily and get quick results. It was all about getting to the end result as quickly as possible and skipping the foundations.
This is the YouTube generation. Very impatient people. And you actually need patience to learn more difficult things…and you have to be OK with feeling stupid too.
Yes. Now that tech has been refined and turned into fashion appliences, 20 somethings have no curiosity about tech and no desire to bend it to their will. Learning the underpinnings of tech bores them. I’m a boomer and feel like I grew up at the perfect time for a hacker/engineer. Tech was much simpler when I started out. It took work/programming to get your Commodore 64 to do anything interesting.
Its dependant on how much of a jump in tech we can go. To me, the next jump is immersive AR, and/or realistic AR. That could be a hurdle for people not grown up with it.
