6 ms·

I think you're seeing the "Generation Z" effect among your students. As a Millenial, I've noticed it too. Millenials are really the only generation that "grew u

I think you're seeing the "Generation Z" effect among your students. As a Millenial, I've noticed it too. Millenials are really the only generation that "grew up" with digital technology and the internet. We had to debug viruses, worry about floppy disk compatibility, learn how to change out failed hard drives, etc. if we simply wanted to use technology at all. Whereas "Generation Z" (those too young to remember 9/11) grew up with nothing but highly polished devices like iPad and Macbook. There was a short window from the early 90's to early 2000's where you could really call someone a "digital native" IMO.

usrusr 9y ago
Notice the slight difference between "grew up with" and "grew up alongside". The term "digital native" was coined specifically with the former in mind, those too young to remember offline. It's a misunderstanding when "digital native" is associated with widespread tech skills, that's more a thing of the homecomputer generation.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  Yup. This article from 2013 captured it quite well, I thought: http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... "A kid puts his hand up. He tells me he's got a virus on his computer. I look at his screen. Displayed in his web-browser is what appears to be an XP dialogue box warning that his computer is infected and offering free malware scanning and removal tools. He's on a Windows 7 machine. I close the offending tab. He can't use a computer."
  - watwut 9y ago
    "Ask them to reinstall an operating system and they're lost. Ask them to upgrade their hard-drive or their RAM and they break out in a cold sweat. Ask them what https means and why it is important and they'll look at you as if you're speaking Klingon. [...] How the hell did we get to this situation? How can a generation with access to so much technology, not know how to use it?" Why the hell do we expect kids to know things nobody ever told them that they exist? That seems to me like a more reasonable question. Kids don't know how human body works till we tell them, they don't know how to read unless we show it to them, why would we expect them to know how to reinstall operating system when no one ever used the word operating system in front of them? If no one ever show RAM to kid, the kid wont be able to react on request to change it. That is the default state, the state when a kid knows a thing is a state achieved by somebody teaching the thing to kid.
    - ido 9y ago
      Do you think the average driver is more knowledgeable about their car than the average computer user is about their computer (for the sake of argument lets limit both to the same age group)? Computers are now appliances rather than power tools.
      - watwut 9y ago
        I don't think they are more knowledgeable, don't expect them to be so and I am not surprised that driving schools teach driving rather then how cars works. Nor I am outraged over the fact that most people are not experts in everything and don't have deeper knowledge about my profession. I think that all the kids should be taught enough about computers to know it is no magic, that it is learnable and actually easy once you want to do it (and you dont actually need to be genius to learn it as many believe). However, I really don't think they all need to know Linux administration.
    - yoz-y 9y ago
      If I remember that article correctly they weren't saying that kids should be able to know these things, rather, that parents insist that they do because they are "digitally native".
    - sametmax 9y ago
      Do you know how to give maintenance to your car, fix your sink, install an electrical switch, sharpen a blade and cook ?
duncan-donuts 9y ago
I've never heard anyone call generation Y people that were too young to remember 9/11. I thought gen y _was_ millennials. That being said I do agree with what you're saying I just found it confusing.
- jhbadger 9y ago
  Yes. The poster is thinking of Generation Z (current teenagers).
  - ido 9y ago
    OT: do we wrap back up to generation A in 20 years?
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Hah. It started with GenX (my label) because of some book with the same name. I read it and didn't relate to it at all. It's something the news likes to do .. generalize an entire generation of Americans. Usually to write unsavory articles about how crappy they are. We got the same treatment.
- aphextron 9y ago
  You're right, I meant to say Generation Z.
- tnecniv 9y ago
  My understanding was that Gen Y originally referred to older millennial. At least, as a younger millennial, that's what I always heard them called growing up until the millennial term got solidified. Meanwhile, Gen Z is the name for the people younger than the millennial cohort until someone coins a catchier one. As an aside, I always thought that the age rage for millennials was about twice as broad as it should be. I don't really find myself identifying with the older members of the cohort.
  - dasil003 9y ago
mchaver 9y ago
I've heard something similar for Baby Boomers and motor vehicles. They grew up along side the development of cars and had to learn the basics of how a car works whereas later generations grew up with more complicated cars.
- jordanb 9y ago
  This is definitely true of my father. When he was young owning a car meant working on cars, especially for a teenager who couldn't afford to take it to the shop every couple of weeks. Cars are so reliable and take so little maintenance nowadays, he marvels at them. OTOH they're also very unfriendly to the shade-tree mechanic. The engines are covered by plastic cowling panels. Everything is packed in so tightly it's a nightmare to change anything. And it's all controlled by proprietary black-box computer systems.
- hueving 9y ago
  This in a very apt analogy. Listening to stories from my dad of his early vehicles makes me both jealous and grateful. He was forced to learn how to do all kinds of component repairs and be prepared to do them on long road trips because cars would just occasionally break down. I'm jealous in that I was never forced to pick up all of the hands-on mechanical skills but I'm grateful that I don't actually have to realistically worry about constantly repairing my car to have transportation.
- lvoudour 9y ago
  I was thinking exactly the same analogy. I think people are overreacting to simple facts of life: if a technology is mature and the services around it plenty and cheap, there's no point wasting your time learning the ins and outs of it. I don't see what the problem is if someone doesn't know how to add a RAM stick just because I do, the same way I don't feel compelled to know how to replace a light bulb to save myself a tenner
watwut 9y ago
No matter what generation,majority of kids did not had to debug viruses nor had possibility to do anything advanced. It is only small subset of families that encourared or made possible such thing (and only to subset of their children).
vtlynch 9y ago
Let's edit this comment for accuracy: "[Some of us chose] to debug viruses, worry about floppy disk compatibility, learn how to change out failed hard drives, etc. if we simply wanted to use technology at all" Now, Millennials is a pretty uselessly broad term, so depending on what age range you are actually talking about, there is slightly more truth to this. If you are talking about someone who is 29-34 today, then you would be an early adopter of these technologies and it did require a high level of expertise. However this was a very small portion of the population. If you are talking about 22-25 year olds, then computers and the internet had become more common in households and de-skilling. I know plenty of people who have used and owned computers most of their lives and have never debugged a thing. Nerds have the inability to understand that most people use computers like any other tool. They do not obsess over it, seek to understand how it works, or otherwise care. Like a microwave, they buy a new one if their current computer "breaks." Like a light fixture, if it malfunctions, most people hire a repairman instead of doing it themselves. This has always been true for the mainstream users of computers. It only seems more absurd now because 16-19 year olds have had smartphones and other technology luxuries their whole lives, and so we expect them to have invested more interest into truly learning how to use them and how they work. But availability of a technology does not have much of a connection to proficiency of said technology. Ironically, I am sure most of the people here who whine about how little other people understand computers have a similar lack of understanding for other objects they use everyday. How many people in programming/I.T. know anything about plumbing or car maintenance?

usrusr 9y ago

Notice the slight difference between "grew up with" and "grew up alongside". The term "digital native" was coined specifically with the former in mind, those too young to remember offline. It's a misunderstanding when "digital native" is associated with widespread tech skills, that's more a thing of the homecomputer generation.

FooHentai 9y ago
Yup. This article from 2013 captured it quite well, I thought: http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... "A kid puts his hand up. He tells me he's got a virus on his computer. I look at his screen. Displayed in his web-browser is what appears to be an XP dialogue box warning that his computer is infected and offering free malware scanning and removal tools. He's on a Windows 7 machine. I close the offending tab. He can't use a computer."
- watwut 9y ago
  "Ask them to reinstall an operating system and they're lost. Ask them to upgrade their hard-drive or their RAM and they break out in a cold sweat. Ask them what https means and why it is important and they'll look at you as if you're speaking Klingon. [...] How the hell did we get to this situation? How can a generation with access to so much technology, not know how to use it?" Why the hell do we expect kids to know things nobody ever told them that they exist? That seems to me like a more reasonable question. Kids don't know how human body works till we tell them, they don't know how to read unless we show it to them, why would we expect them to know how to reinstall operating system when no one ever used the word operating system in front of them? If no one ever show RAM to kid, the kid wont be able to react on request to change it. That is the default state, the state when a kid knows a thing is a state achieved by somebody teaching the thing to kid.
  - ido 9y ago
    Do you think the average driver is more knowledgeable about their car than the average computer user is about their computer (for the sake of argument lets limit both to the same age group)? Computers are now appliances rather than power tools.
    - watwut 9y ago
      I don't think they are more knowledgeable, don't expect them to be so and I am not surprised that driving schools teach driving rather then how cars works. Nor I am outraged over the fact that most people are not experts in everything and don't have deeper knowledge about my profession. I think that all the kids should be taught enough about computers to know it is no magic, that it is learnable and actually easy once you want to do it (and you dont actually need to be genius to learn it as many believe). However, I really don't think they all need to know Linux administration.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    If I remember that article correctly they weren't saying that kids should be able to know these things, rather, that parents insist that they do because they are "digitally native".
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Do you know how to give maintenance to your car, fix your sink, install an electrical switch, sharpen a blade and cook ?

duncan-donuts 9y ago

I've never heard anyone call generation Y people that were too young to remember 9/11. I thought gen y _was_ millennials. That being said I do agree with what you're saying I just found it confusing.

jhbadger 9y ago
Yes. The poster is thinking of Generation Z (current teenagers).
- ido 9y ago
  OT: do we wrap back up to generation A in 20 years?
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Hah. It started with GenX (my label) because of some book with the same name. I read it and didn't relate to it at all. It's something the news likes to do .. generalize an entire generation of Americans. Usually to write unsavory articles about how crappy they are. We got the same treatment.
aphextron 9y ago
You're right, I meant to say Generation Z.
tnecniv 9y ago
My understanding was that Gen Y originally referred to older millennial. At least, as a younger millennial, that's what I always heard them called growing up until the millennial term got solidified. Meanwhile, Gen Z is the name for the people younger than the millennial cohort until someone coins a catchier one. As an aside, I always thought that the age rage for millennials was about twice as broad as it should be. I don't really find myself identifying with the older members of the cohort.
- dasil003 9y ago

mchaver 9y ago

I've heard something similar for Baby Boomers and motor vehicles. They grew up along side the development of cars and had to learn the basics of how a car works whereas later generations grew up with more complicated cars.

jordanb 9y ago
This is definitely true of my father. When he was young owning a car meant working on cars, especially for a teenager who couldn't afford to take it to the shop every couple of weeks. Cars are so reliable and take so little maintenance nowadays, he marvels at them. OTOH they're also very unfriendly to the shade-tree mechanic. The engines are covered by plastic cowling panels. Everything is packed in so tightly it's a nightmare to change anything. And it's all controlled by proprietary black-box computer systems.
hueving 9y ago
This in a very apt analogy. Listening to stories from my dad of his early vehicles makes me both jealous and grateful. He was forced to learn how to do all kinds of component repairs and be prepared to do them on long road trips because cars would just occasionally break down. I'm jealous in that I was never forced to pick up all of the hands-on mechanical skills but I'm grateful that I don't actually have to realistically worry about constantly repairing my car to have transportation.
lvoudour 9y ago
I was thinking exactly the same analogy. I think people are overreacting to simple facts of life: if a technology is mature and the services around it plenty and cheap, there's no point wasting your time learning the ins and outs of it. I don't see what the problem is if someone doesn't know how to add a RAM stick just because I do, the same way I don't feel compelled to know how to replace a light bulb to save myself a tenner

watwut 9y ago

No matter what generation,majority of kids did not had to debug viruses nor had possibility to do anything advanced. It is only small subset of families that encourared or made possible such thing (and only to subset of their children).

vtlynch 9y ago

Let's edit this comment for accuracy: "[Some of us chose] to debug viruses, worry about floppy disk compatibility, learn how to change out failed hard drives, etc. if we simply wanted to use technology at all" Now, Millennials is a pretty uselessly broad term, so depending on what age range you are actually talking about, there is slightly more truth to this. If you are talking about someone who is 29-34 today, then you would be an early adopter of these technologies and it did require a high level of expertise. However this was a very small portion of the population. If you are talking about 22-25 year olds, then computers and the internet had become more common in households and de-skilling. I know plenty of people who have used and owned computers most of their lives and have never debugged a thing. Nerds have the inability to understand that most people use computers like any other tool. They do not obsess over it, seek to understand how it works, or otherwise care. Like a microwave, they buy a new one if their current computer "breaks." Like a light fixture, if it malfunctions, most people hire a repairman instead of doing it themselves. This has always been true for the mainstream users of computers. It only seems more absurd now because 16-19 year olds have had smartphones and other technology luxuries their whole lives, and so we expect them to have invested more interest into truly learning how to use them and how they work. But availability of a technology does not have much of a connection to proficiency of said technology. Ironically, I am sure most of the people here who whine about how little other people understand computers have a similar lack of understanding for other objects they use everyday. How many people in programming/I.T. know anything about plumbing or car maintenance?