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There's a weird gap between Gen Z and Millenials in how each of our generations experienced what "tech" is, and I do wonder how it affects the Gen Z tech world

There's a weird gap between Gen Z and Millenials in how each of our generations experienced what "tech" is, and I do wonder how it affects the Gen Z tech world in particular. My generation, Millenials largely learned technology at a time when unpolished, non-standardized platforms were still the norm. We got comfortable with installing and rolling back drivers, setting up routers and printers, and navigating text-dominated forums and mailing-list email chains to troubleshoot issues. Lots of us were into PC gaming, and that kind of stuff was just expected if you wanted to play. When we went into technical fields later on, those skills were still really applicable. Meanwhile, my early-teen step-siblings have very similar interests to what I had back in the day (they enjoy playing games like roblox/minecraft on the computer, and FPS on consoles) - but are way less comfortable messing with the OS to troubleshoot vs what I was doing at their age. They were raised with tablets, where things just kind of work. When they do want to learn something, they pretty much always go to youtube first - and I'm not really sure if that's more effective or less effective than what we used to do, or if means they will have a harder time parsing technical docs later on in life. They've expressed interested in computer science fields, and I do think they'll be able to learn it just fine. In some ways, maybe the exposure to more polished UX will make their bar for those experiences higher than what my generation would accept.

uncletaco 5y ago
Are you sure this is a millennial/gen z problem and not just a techie/non techie one? Because this a really broad extrapolation.
- nine_k 5y ago
  One has a hard time becoming a techie when all technology is indistinguishable from magic, sleek and impenetrable.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I get the feeling you are right. I remember when I was kid during the late 90s and early 2000s, when these "unpolished" systems were the norm. A lot of my peers were starting to use them, but just like kids today, they didn't really look into how things worked, they weren't really curious about them, they didn't really tinker with them. They wouldn't go and update / rollback a driver. They would just complain if things didn't work, and maybe asked a "geek" friend for help. Today, if a random game doesn't work, people will just try the next one.
  - Tarsul 5y ago
    yes, not too many people tinkered with their computers then. But the real question is: how many of those who tinkered then, would tinker now if they were born in the 00s? Probably less then if they were born in the 80s, just because e.g. ipads or smartphones are not to be tinkered with. I mean many pupils have problems just working at a laptop (e.g. understanding the file system) because they never did it at home where all they might know are smartphones. So there definitely is a very different technological structure today than back then.
    - vladvasiliu 5y ago
      That's true, the way "technology" is set up now, with locked-down tablets and phones may be less conducive to tinkering. But then again, computers, in general, are much more affordable. So if people are curious, it's much easier to get their hands on a computer, and there's less risk. When I was growing up, a PC was a fairly consequential purchase for my family, and they couldn't afford to buy a new one very often. There was a lot of pressure to "not break it". Of course, looking things up a bit and getting help from my father and friends, I was able to figure out that "messing with drivers" would likely not break it physically. But I understand this could have been limiting for people not having someone to guide them. There's also the fact that today much more people have access to "computing", so if the part of the population interested in tinkering is roughly the same in absolute terms, the ratio between those who tinker and those who don't is skewed in favor of those who don't.
    - spideymans 5y ago
      These people might not be tinkering with iPads or iPhone, but web development has infinite possibilities and a very low barrier to entry (you only need a computer with a web browser). Anyone interested in code will find a way to scratch that itch.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  i m sure ease of tech has to do with it. In the 80s, lawyers would use SQL -- because that was the state of tech at the time. Problems that are out of sight are out of mind. btw there is no such thing as techie anymore - everyone is into tech, there are very very few luddites left. There's a tendency of UI designers to infantilize their designs , but i m not sure that's based on actual measurable improvement or a certain "contempt" for the end user.
- inamiyar 5y ago
  Agree
- sudosteph 5y ago
  In this case, I really don't think they're very different. I ended up in tech, but I didn't consider myself a techie at their age. I could do the stuff I mentioned, but pretty much everyone in my peer group could - and most of us did not end up going into tech. In some ways, they're more advanced (one of them used to play some tablet game that basically used programming concepts - though he's never touched real code or applied anything outside of roblox to my knowledge).
HDMI_Cable 5y ago
I'm a Gen Z and I've noticed the same thing. I think the ease of use for a lot of these technologies is to blame. A lot of people I know are into the Gaming PC subculture, but couldn't do much on the software side to fix a PC. The main reason why I tend to be good with low-level stuff on the computer is because I had a computer which constantly broke, and I had to optimize. I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get them interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer, or at least one that primarily uses the shell (not that those computers are bad, I use one myself).
- inamiyar 5y ago
  Also a zoomer...I don't know if I agree with the sentiment but my experience was similar. Made my first computer in 6th grade, evidently I did something wrong because I was debugging crashes on that machine for 6 years. Also significant time spent min-maxing our internet for League of Legends around that time.
- spideymans 5y ago
  >I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get them interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer, or at least one that primarily uses the shell (not that those computers are bad, I use one myself). I got deeply interested in technology the opposite way. I got an iPod touch as a kid, and I was amazed by how well designed it was. The thing felt completely delightful to use compared to the Windows XP/Vista systems that were around in the day. I immediately had dreams of writing apps for the iPod that were every bit as amazing as the rest of the system. It didn't take me long after unboxing that iPod touch for me to boot up an old Mac to start on my programming journey. And to this day, creating great user experiences is what drives my interest in software above all else.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> They were raised with tablets and macbooks. Totally opaque systems that you d rather replace than upgrade. That's OK -- it would happen inevitably, as it did with cars. The problem is that this culture has extended to software, where it is normalized that any technology must be offered through frameworks, APIs and prepackaged cloud solutions
cmehdy 5y ago
Same generation as you, and same experience. It's just that creativity went elsewhere now. Because there's three trillion ways you can write a program and all of them seem to come with dozens of READMEs and what-to-do and what-not-to-do and very opinionated maintainers, the creative minds of today might just create their games within Roblox or get to know Javascript by making mods for a browser game, or learn to use DAWs to make cool-sounding EDM, etc. This was already a thing in "our" time with Flash and Adobe's software, but now that's the norm. Effectively those minds have migrated over generations from the pure hardware to progressively thicker layers of software, which makes sense to me since that's how all human progress basically does with any other field too.
madamelic 5y ago
I think the same could be said about Gen X vs Millenials and before that as well. My dad would tell me stories of copying code from magazines by hand and how little memory they had. Today, memory and CPU speed is basically a non-factor; it's assumed to be infinite or at least extremely high for many applications.
- sudosteph 5y ago
  I believe it! My mom would always tell me about how she would do the same, as a teenager learning to program on her Commodore 64. Funnily enough though, memory constraints were still relevant for me and some of my friends - since Ti-83 calculators were the first exposure to programming for many of us. It helped that we were all required to buy them, so we could collaborate and copy over programs to each other. I would write programs so I wouldn't have to memorize chemistry stuff in HS. The teachers back then never checked, and they expected us to use calculators for normal calculations anyhow. By the time I was using real code in college though - I agree. Performance optimization like that was taught as more of a "nice to have", and the only classes where it really mattered were assembly, and one elective I took on game engine development.
eat_veggies 5y ago
I think most kids back then, just like most kids today, weren't/aren't super into computers or hacking. But the young teens I've met who do enjoy this stuff are seriously impressive -- some know rust, or machine learning, or build websites or reverse engineer apps. During the pandemic, high schoolers are figuring out ways to bypass their schools' surveillance software. That is to say, the kids are alright. Modern docs, youtube tutorials, and high quality free courses are much more conducive to learning than the forums, mailing lists, and library books of yore.

uncletaco 5y ago

Are you sure this is a millennial/gen z problem and not just a techie/non techie one? Because this a really broad extrapolation.

nine_k 5y ago
One has a hard time becoming a techie when all technology is indistinguishable from magic, sleek and impenetrable.
vladvasiliu 5y ago
I get the feeling you are right. I remember when I was kid during the late 90s and early 2000s, when these "unpolished" systems were the norm. A lot of my peers were starting to use them, but just like kids today, they didn't really look into how things worked, they weren't really curious about them, they didn't really tinker with them. They wouldn't go and update / rollback a driver. They would just complain if things didn't work, and maybe asked a "geek" friend for help. Today, if a random game doesn't work, people will just try the next one.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  yes, not too many people tinkered with their computers then. But the real question is: how many of those who tinkered then, would tinker now if they were born in the 00s? Probably less then if they were born in the 80s, just because e.g. ipads or smartphones are not to be tinkered with. I mean many pupils have problems just working at a laptop (e.g. understanding the file system) because they never did it at home where all they might know are smartphones. So there definitely is a very different technological structure today than back then.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    That's true, the way "technology" is set up now, with locked-down tablets and phones may be less conducive to tinkering. But then again, computers, in general, are much more affordable. So if people are curious, it's much easier to get their hands on a computer, and there's less risk. When I was growing up, a PC was a fairly consequential purchase for my family, and they couldn't afford to buy a new one very often. There was a lot of pressure to "not break it". Of course, looking things up a bit and getting help from my father and friends, I was able to figure out that "messing with drivers" would likely not break it physically. But I understand this could have been limiting for people not having someone to guide them. There's also the fact that today much more people have access to "computing", so if the part of the population interested in tinkering is roughly the same in absolute terms, the ratio between those who tinker and those who don't is skewed in favor of those who don't.
  - spideymans 5y ago
    These people might not be tinkering with iPads or iPhone, but web development has infinite possibilities and a very low barrier to entry (you only need a computer with a web browser). Anyone interested in code will find a way to scratch that itch.
cblconfederate 5y ago
i m sure ease of tech has to do with it. In the 80s, lawyers would use SQL -- because that was the state of tech at the time. Problems that are out of sight are out of mind. btw there is no such thing as techie anymore - everyone is into tech, there are very very few luddites left. There's a tendency of UI designers to infantilize their designs , but i m not sure that's based on actual measurable improvement or a certain "contempt" for the end user.
inamiyar 5y ago
Agree
sudosteph 5y ago
In this case, I really don't think they're very different. I ended up in tech, but I didn't consider myself a techie at their age. I could do the stuff I mentioned, but pretty much everyone in my peer group could - and most of us did not end up going into tech. In some ways, they're more advanced (one of them used to play some tablet game that basically used programming concepts - though he's never touched real code or applied anything outside of roblox to my knowledge).

HDMI_Cable 5y ago

I'm a Gen Z and I've noticed the same thing. I think the ease of use for a lot of these technologies is to blame. A lot of people I know are into the Gaming PC subculture, but couldn't do much on the software side to fix a PC. The main reason why I tend to be good with low-level stuff on the computer is because I had a computer which constantly broke, and I had to optimize. I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get them interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer, or at least one that primarily uses the shell (not that those computers are bad, I use one myself).

inamiyar 5y ago
Also a zoomer...I don't know if I agree with the sentiment but my experience was similar. Made my first computer in 6th grade, evidently I did something wrong because I was debugging crashes on that machine for 6 years. Also significant time spent min-maxing our internet for League of Legends around that time.
spideymans 5y ago
>I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get them interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer, or at least one that primarily uses the shell (not that those computers are bad, I use one myself). I got deeply interested in technology the opposite way. I got an iPod touch as a kid, and I was amazed by how well designed it was. The thing felt completely delightful to use compared to the Windows XP/Vista systems that were around in the day. I immediately had dreams of writing apps for the iPod that were every bit as amazing as the rest of the system. It didn't take me long after unboxing that iPod touch for me to boot up an old Mac to start on my programming journey. And to this day, creating great user experiences is what drives my interest in software above all else.

cblconfederate 5y ago

> They were raised with tablets and macbooks. Totally opaque systems that you d rather replace than upgrade. That's OK -- it would happen inevitably, as it did with cars. The problem is that this culture has extended to software, where it is normalized that any technology must be offered through frameworks, APIs and prepackaged cloud solutions

cmehdy 5y ago

Same generation as you, and same experience. It's just that creativity went elsewhere now. Because there's three trillion ways you can write a program and all of them seem to come with dozens of READMEs and what-to-do and what-not-to-do and very opinionated maintainers, the creative minds of today might just create their games within Roblox or get to know Javascript by making mods for a browser game, or learn to use DAWs to make cool-sounding EDM, etc. This was already a thing in "our" time with Flash and Adobe's software, but now that's the norm. Effectively those minds have migrated over generations from the pure hardware to progressively thicker layers of software, which makes sense to me since that's how all human progress basically does with any other field too.

madamelic 5y ago

I think the same could be said about Gen X vs Millenials and before that as well. My dad would tell me stories of copying code from magazines by hand and how little memory they had. Today, memory and CPU speed is basically a non-factor; it's assumed to be infinite or at least extremely high for many applications.

sudosteph 5y ago
I believe it! My mom would always tell me about how she would do the same, as a teenager learning to program on her Commodore 64. Funnily enough though, memory constraints were still relevant for me and some of my friends - since Ti-83 calculators were the first exposure to programming for many of us. It helped that we were all required to buy them, so we could collaborate and copy over programs to each other. I would write programs so I wouldn't have to memorize chemistry stuff in HS. The teachers back then never checked, and they expected us to use calculators for normal calculations anyhow. By the time I was using real code in college though - I agree. Performance optimization like that was taught as more of a "nice to have", and the only classes where it really mattered were assembly, and one elective I took on game engine development.

eat_veggies 5y ago

I think most kids back then, just like most kids today, weren't/aren't super into computers or hacking. But the young teens I've met who do enjoy this stuff are seriously impressive -- some know rust, or machine learning, or build websites or reverse engineer apps. During the pandemic, high schoolers are figuring out ways to bypass their schools' surveillance software. That is to say, the kids are alright. Modern docs, youtube tutorials, and high quality free courses are much more conducive to learning than the forums, mailing lists, and library books of yore.