They’re in their 60’s, finally convinced them.
They say things like “This is the same…”
and I’m like
“Ya because that’s Firefox, the only program you use…”
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
They’re in their 60’s, finally convinced them.
They say things like “This is the same…”
and I’m like
“Ya because that’s Firefox, the only program you use…”
“What was Windows even doing for us?”
Today’s 40 year olds graduated in the high school class of 2002…there are people from that era that can’t copy/paste? For real?
I’ve met people who don’t know what a URL is.
The kind of people that google “facebook” when they want to visit facebook.
Completely flabbergasted that we run internal services not indexable by google.
I expect someone in their 40s to not know copy and paste. The more savvy that I have worked with/taught knew they could right click and then click “copy” from the drop down list. Ctrl+c blew some peoples minds when I showed it.
People who are good with tech VASTLY overestimate the general public’s tech literacy. But don’t take my word for it, take this study’s word: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
As a Gen X member who is 50 yrs old, a grandparent of two Grand kids, I never touched a computer until I was 12 years old (1986), this, I think gave me a head start into the computer world with an old Radio Shack Color Computer II (hooked up to my TV) with a Tape Drive to load programs with. With some of the older Gen X group starting to reach retirement age, I think we will probably have a larger portion of the population more adapted to computer than the Boomers before us. That’s not to say that during the 80’s and 90’s everyone was into computers though. The important thing was that schools had Timex Sinclair computers and mostly Apple II computers which were the workhorses even into my high school years in the early 90’s, so exposure to computer basics such as copy/paste and Word processing were certainly well know then!
I say all of this to mention that while right now, some of the older generation generally knows how to copy/paste, isn’t scared of breaking the computer and pretty much get a long fine with them. I’m more skilled than my peers in a lot of areas but that’s because I’ve used them non stop for so long and the others used them only in school but never saw the value until around Windows 98 or Windows 2000.
I believe there will be a shift of more computer literacy as the Millennials and Gen Z’s reach my age and older. The writers then may say that compared to the previous generation (ours), that they are miles ahead in their skills and literacy. Even my Grand kids are growing up with exposure to tablets and phones (VERY SPARINGLY), but also live out in the rural country so are getting great life exposure to great outdoors. :) (Ages 2 and 6). One can only dare to imagine what technology we may have 40-50 years from now when they reach my age range.
I’ve heard that newer generations are becoming less tech literate on average than previous generations. They don’t try to fix their device, they just expect it to work. When it doesn’t, they don’t have the troubleshooting skills to fix it. They never had the opportunity to learn them.
Can confirm. I work as an IT tech at a school with students between 16 to 19 years old. Most of them are raised with tablets and phones and expect the same behavior from computers. I don’t know how many times we have had to try and rescue documents they wrote and never saved because “it’s in word so it’s already saved”.
Yeah but…I mean…wow. I graduated HS class of 2003 and I can’t remember anyone handing in a hand-written paper in any of the 4 years.
How do people be around this stuff for half their life and not know basic things like Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.
We must live in entirely different realities then. I’m 50, and I find myself being the goto guy for anything tech for anyone between 15 and 40 in my environment. It just so happens that most tech savvy people in my environment are between 45 and 65 years old.