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> for baseline technical literacy, you really can't beat Gen Z I disagree pretty strongly with this. I think Millennials were kind of the sweet spot in technic

> for baseline technical literacy, you really can't beat Gen Z I disagree pretty strongly with this. I think Millennials were kind of the sweet spot in technical literacy. They grew up in a time when they still needed to understand computers, and tinkered around with them a lot out of necessity (computer viruses all the time, Napster/Limewire, etc..). They also saw the start of the internet and cell phones becoming ubiquitous, which provided a lot of forced-learning opportunities. Gen Z'ers, in my experience, have had almost no computer experience. They are great at using the apps on their phones, but phones have become so polished and easy from an end user perspective that they haven't done any tinkering. They've often never downloaded an mp3 file, torrent, fixed internet issues, etc.. because things just work now. Obviously there are exceptions to this, and really technical Gen Z'ers (like with every generation). But in my experience, that isn't the norm.

freedomben 3y ago
Exactly my experience as well. Gen Z are super good at "finding an app for that" or showing you how to do something on your phone, but give them a mouse and keyboard and many start to resemble Boomers. (Of course there are tons of exceptions, this is generational lumping after all). The hacker mindset just doesn't seem to be present in Gen Z like it was for Millenials and some Gen Xers. We took crap apart as kids to see how it worked, and we could still. Now things are so integrated and miniaturized, it's much harder to do that. Add on top of that how Gen Z is almost all iPhone users and actually looks down on Android (the platform where you can dig in if you want to), it's no wonder the default is only an inch deep. Their tech providers and advisors have been telling them their whole lives how scary the world outside of the walled garden is and putting technical controls in their way to prevent them should they decide they want to. We absolutely could have had the Gen Z that is more technical than Millenials, but we ruined it. It's not their fault, any generation raised like them would have been the same way. Side note: If you're a Gen Z hacker (of which I've known a few and they are super impressive), I consider you a gentleperson and a scholar.
Aerbil313 3y ago
> phones have become so polished and easy from an end user perspective that they haven't done any tinkering I don’t get the complaint, as a dev myself. Everything being easy and just working is what we intended for. The future! It’s here.
- doubled112 3y ago
  > Everything being easy and just working is what we intended The problem being that if it doesn't just work, people just shut down. To me it's almost a double edged sword. If I have to make something work, I learn about how it works, and I can solve problems if they happen. If it just works, it's magic, and I have no idea why the magic stopped.
- spiderice 3y ago
  I wasn't raising a complaint. Just an observation and a side effect. I love that my phone just works! But that doesn't mean a phone that just works is the best way to learn about how phone's work.
- LegibleCrimson 3y ago
  Well, yes, but that wasn't the point. It's not a complaint, just disagreeing with the premise of Gen Z being the most technologically competent.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  The difference between a tool and a mere appliance is whether you can make it do unplanned things. Whether it offers a payoff for being smart.
- wolpoli 3y ago
  Yes, it's nice that everything is easy and just works. But now we can't even look under the hood on phones to tweak things.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    I have a grandma and I absolutely think Apple has done the right thing with the so-called “walled-garden” aka App Store and the lack of tweaking ability/a terminal/root access. Tech-literate people like us drastically underestimate the harm scams have (and would have if tweaking was allowed) on people. I am in college, and Gen Z is scared to install anything on their Windows laptops. Except they do anyway when a scammer tricks them. They are in a hurry and they need to do this specific thing. install_more_ram.exe, bam. Pay $X to unlock your hard disk. Don’t get me wrong, it also hurts me that I need to install an app to ssh to my server on my iPhone. Or when I can’t have a long-running process in the background. Or when I can’t automate things with shell scripts. It really does hurt. But this appliance form is really how things should be, at least until the day each and every user understands their devices, a day which will never come. Because why? They are tools. They are a means to a real life end. It’s a waste of human time to make everyone “tech-literate”. Users should not have control over their devices, because social engineering and scams will always be a thing. No matter how many “DON’T ENABLE THIS UNLESS YOU ARE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER” warnings you put grandmas will continue to be scammed. Then what can let me have a native shell with root access on my iPhone, without jailbreaking? I don’t know, maybe a small on-device software knowledge exam to prove you are a software developer and understand what you are doing by Apple? Separately sold root access enabled devices for devs? Putting a big red warning in front of the root access “IF YOU ARE NOT A SOFTWARE ENG. YOU ARE %100 BEING SCAMMED RIGHT NOW” which is read by TTS ten times until one can dismiss it? Or just get the Linux on mobile to feature parity with iOS and we won’t be beholden to corporations. Not saying it’s easy obviously. Still I’d like to see one organized FOSS mobile Linux project instead of a hundred desktop and a dozen mobile distros going on at the moment. OS lacks organization. Enormous amounts of available skilled human time wasted. Sad. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

freedomben 3y ago

Exactly my experience as well. Gen Z are super good at "finding an app for that" or showing you how to do something on your phone, but give them a mouse and keyboard and many start to resemble Boomers. (Of course there are tons of exceptions, this is generational lumping after all). The hacker mindset just doesn't seem to be present in Gen Z like it was for Millenials and some Gen Xers. We took crap apart as kids to see how it worked, and we could still. Now things are so integrated and miniaturized, it's much harder to do that. Add on top of that how Gen Z is almost all iPhone users and actually looks down on Android (the platform where you can dig in if you want to), it's no wonder the default is only an inch deep. Their tech providers and advisors have been telling them their whole lives how scary the world outside of the walled garden is and putting technical controls in their way to prevent them should they decide they want to. We absolutely could have had the Gen Z that is more technical than Millenials, but we ruined it. It's not their fault, any generation raised like them would have been the same way. Side note: If you're a Gen Z hacker (of which I've known a few and they are super impressive), I consider you a gentleperson and a scholar.

Aerbil313 3y ago

> phones have become so polished and easy from an end user perspective that they haven't done any tinkering I don’t get the complaint, as a dev myself. Everything being easy and just working is what we intended for. The future! It’s here.

doubled112 3y ago
> Everything being easy and just working is what we intended The problem being that if it doesn't just work, people just shut down. To me it's almost a double edged sword. If I have to make something work, I learn about how it works, and I can solve problems if they happen. If it just works, it's magic, and I have no idea why the magic stopped.
spiderice 3y ago
I wasn't raising a complaint. Just an observation and a side effect. I love that my phone just works! But that doesn't mean a phone that just works is the best way to learn about how phone's work.
LegibleCrimson 3y ago
Well, yes, but that wasn't the point. It's not a complaint, just disagreeing with the premise of Gen Z being the most technologically competent.
erik_seaberg 3y ago
The difference between a tool and a mere appliance is whether you can make it do unplanned things. Whether it offers a payoff for being smart.
wolpoli 3y ago
Yes, it's nice that everything is easy and just works. But now we can't even look under the hood on phones to tweak things.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  I have a grandma and I absolutely think Apple has done the right thing with the so-called “walled-garden” aka App Store and the lack of tweaking ability/a terminal/root access. Tech-literate people like us drastically underestimate the harm scams have (and would have if tweaking was allowed) on people. I am in college, and Gen Z is scared to install anything on their Windows laptops. Except they do anyway when a scammer tricks them. They are in a hurry and they need to do this specific thing. install_more_ram.exe, bam. Pay $X to unlock your hard disk. Don’t get me wrong, it also hurts me that I need to install an app to ssh to my server on my iPhone. Or when I can’t have a long-running process in the background. Or when I can’t automate things with shell scripts. It really does hurt. But this appliance form is really how things should be, at least until the day each and every user understands their devices, a day which will never come. Because why? They are tools. They are a means to a real life end. It’s a waste of human time to make everyone “tech-literate”. Users should not have control over their devices, because social engineering and scams will always be a thing. No matter how many “DON’T ENABLE THIS UNLESS YOU ARE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER” warnings you put grandmas will continue to be scammed. Then what can let me have a native shell with root access on my iPhone, without jailbreaking? I don’t know, maybe a small on-device software knowledge exam to prove you are a software developer and understand what you are doing by Apple? Separately sold root access enabled devices for devs? Putting a big red warning in front of the root access “IF YOU ARE NOT A SOFTWARE ENG. YOU ARE %100 BEING SCAMMED RIGHT NOW” which is read by TTS ten times until one can dismiss it? Or just get the Linux on mobile to feature parity with iOS and we won’t be beholden to corporations. Not saying it’s easy obviously. Still I’d like to see one organized FOSS mobile Linux project instead of a hundred desktop and a dozen mobile distros going on at the moment. OS lacks organization. Enormous amounts of available skilled human time wasted. Sad. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.