Watched someone copy an entire file of Python code, paste it into an LLM, ask the thing to ‘remove all whitespace’, copy paste it back, and then be flabbergasted that there’s even more whitespace than before.
I’m thankful it was over a video call and not in person.
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
The computer literacy of the younger generations is also alarming. While they’re pretty intuitive about using an app’s advertised features, they don’t seem interested in “exploring” computers and their capabilities like slightly older people.
What I’m saying is that the ability to convert to PDF lies exclusively with Millennials
hOrni@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I was shocked when I learned about that. I’m a millennial. I was under the impression, that since we were so far ahead of our parents concerning tech, the next generation will all be hackers. A friend of mine works in high school teaching IT. He told me, that today’s teenagers don’t know how to download a file from the internet. And when they do, they still don’t know where it is on the computer.
alternategait@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
TBF, my (work) computer relentlessly tries to hide it. Why do things go to different files based on where I download from?
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
There is a small subsection of gen z that is absurdly tech literate and the rest can mostly operate a search engine
Matthew@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
I’m older Gen Z and I notice the same. I’ll ssh to a computer across the house rather than go turn it off manually, and my friends use tik tok for their search engine. Its an ever widening gap too since things have become so convenient for the uninformed.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 2 weeks ago
The same is actually true for millennials as well. And gen X and boomers. As if it was a specific skill set one can learn.
IronBird@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
this is how it has always been
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It’s due to the fact that we are BRIDGE GENERATION … the generation that lived in a world without the internet or modern technology but got a front row seat in seeing it all come to what it is now. The generation before us were too old to care about the new things that were coming out so they never took the time to learn about it all. We were just the right age to be young enough to interested and old enough to learn about it. The generation after us have only ever know the modern internet and modern locked in devices we have today, so they didn’t have the interest or patience to want to learn about it all. We grew up in a time when computer systems ran like molasses so it was slow enough for us to have an opportunity to learn about how they worked and ran. We learned to tear apart computers and computer parts, put them back together and figure out how to run them. When we couldn’t afford to buy the latest software, we became pirates and crackers … and eventually, we learned to use Linux and open source software while also keeping our foot in Windows and for some of us with a bit more money, a foot in Mac as well. Now the tech world is becoming more and more locked in with software and hardware … it is getting harder for anyone to see what’s inside the box or to even figure out how to take it apart, rearrange it or swap parts or even to adjust anything. Young people just buy a solid state phone and they will never know or want to know what a CPU, RAM, SSD, HDD, GPU, PSU mean … and whenever that thing breaks down, they just chuck it, buy another one and start all over again.
I mentioned this before in another thread
lemmy.ca/comment/12440511
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 2 weeks ago
So many of my millennial colleagues don’t know shit. Tell them they can click with their mouse wheel and you blow their minds.
I think it’s just about what interests people. And most people on Lemmy are more tech literate and have more tech literate friends in the same age bracket, thus skewing their perception.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Lot of younger gen x did all of that shit, with even less documentation and less mainstream support and community.
medem@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
I once had to (try to) explain to a millennial how to type an URL into his browser’s address bar. To him, Internet and Google were literally synonymous. To this day, I can’t get over it.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Meanwhile, Gen X:
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Image
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I just had this exchange with my few years younger girlfriend who counts as a zoomer:
Me: So go into the Canon app and select from there the file you want to print
Her: …
Me: (showing on the phone) So go there, and now just browse for the file.
Her: uhh…
Me: Where did you save the file?
Her: I don’t know.
Me: Uh, so where’s the file?
Her: In the PDF app
She’s really smart, she uses Linux, she laughs about some of her same age and younger friends not having a clue about files and folders and stuff but phone is where this happens hah
melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
To be fair, phone OSes go out of their way to obscure where files go for some reason. Android’s filesystem is somewhat arcane even when it’s completely transparent, and it’s mostly hidden behind apps that just say “Saved” or “Downloaded” and I’m left asking “okay but where!?”
PoopingCough@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Tbf, phones needlessly obscures file storage. Like why do I have to have a specific third party app just to have the normal file management functionality
KnubbelMonster@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
How can someone who uses linux not establish knowing her phones folder structure and app folder usage?
WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Even with millennials, I feel like there’s a big chunk who still barely have any understanding. At least I assume most know a file system exists (ie know of folders and such), but most would think it’s synonymous with the gui software they use to explore it and would have no idea how to even start navigating it by command-line or even imagine it’s possible to using an alternative interface to the one that came with the OS. Whereas younger gens that grew up on iPhones that hide the file system would have no clue. And the older generations frequently just used the desktop for everything.
Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
As a Gen-X, I taught my millennial son how to build a computer (and he knows much more than me now). I assure you I know how to find where on the menu to convert to PDF. I also know how to do it via something like Gimp, or other tools. I also know when to not convert it to PDF. :p
metoosalem@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
From my observation there is a rare subspecies of gen xers who are frighteningly good with computers and by that I mean they cause me the biggest headaches and then there is the ultra rare gen x pc god who will flex about their powers at every chance.
Shoutout to that dad that helped us find and fix an error in our spf record 😅
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Yanno I thought about ending my post with “of course there’s exceptions for every generation”, but I thought as much would be common sense and could be assumed.
My father, born in the 50’s, is also very tech literate, but his existence doesn’t mean there’s not a trend with boomers to be technologically challenged.
notarobot@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
3 years ago i gifted my (then 6yo) son my old computer and basically left him alone to figure out(with parental controls). Whenever he wants to do something complex he asks me, but he is learning stuff on his own. I uninstalled YouTube (it had a shortcut on the desktop. I just removed it) and he figured out how to browse to it. The other day he remember a browser game he liked so he googled it and then asked me how to scroll down to see the full game.
I hope this becomes a real useful skill that is not forgotten once AIs can do everything and we probably interact by voice commands
PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
That’s honestly quite interesting because all around my presense I hear a lot of sw engineer guys my age or younger.
Like outside of my computer engineering uni, one of my dancing teacher is aspiring to learn coding, I hear guys talking about software dev stuffs on my bus occasionally and such. I’m 24 for reference, so that’s just barely gen z tbf
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And burn CDs 💪
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Honestly it’s been easily 20 years since I burned a CD or DVD, my knowledge is stuck at pirated Nero 6 for windows XP level.
toynbee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got my then 5-year-old a laptop and put Linux on it for exactly this reason. So far they’ve only used it to play Minecraft (fortunately they didn’t like Roblox) but I figured this way it’s here when they are ready to learn.
They’ve just started getting good at reading, so I’m really excited to hopefully share some basic stuff with them soon.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Good parenting! I hate to see most parents nowadays give their children unsupervised access to the mindless brainrot boxes that are smartphones or tablets. Personally, having grown up with computers (and at analogue screentime limit), figuring things out through one’s own curiosity is the way to learn about how things work and how to solve problems on your own.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Hi I’m not a millennial, yet I do enjoy my beloved pdftk.
Though it may have to do with a suspected level of neurodivergence.