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@ryancbriggs - 18 Oct 2024 > When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that

by andai 4mo ago

@ryancbriggs - 18 Oct 2024 > When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that knows how computers work? https://x.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844 https://x.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844 https://xcancel.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844 https://xcancel.com/ryancbriggs/status/1847391612428517844

WJW 4mo ago
No, that person is just the only one in his family who knows how computers work. There's plenty of people in generations both older and younger that know too, just apparently not his parents or his kids. Some of the most impressive assembly written today is by people younger than 20. It'll be fine.
- mywittyname 4mo ago
  It's broadly true though, that younger people struggle with the fundamentals of computing, even if there exists specific examples of young people accomplishing exceptional feats. We raised a generation of people on consumption-based computing devices, which means they don't develop the skills necessary to produce things using computers. Of course, we can teach these skills, but to do that, we must first acknowledge it's a skill which needs to be taught.
  - Legend2440 4mo ago
    Most people in my generation didn't know the fundamentals of computing either. That's why I get paid the big bucks to make computers work for them.
    - StanislavPetrov 4mo ago
      >Most people in my generation didn't know the fundamentals of computing either. That's true of my generation as well, but computers weren't ubiquitous and used by everyone all the time for virtually everything.
  - CommieBobDole 4mo ago
    I agree; the situation "young people know all about computers" was maybe a twenty-five year phenomenon; before that, there weren't enough computers for it to be generally true, and at some point you no longer needed to know all about computers to successfully use a computer for the sorts of things the general population does.
    - WJW 4mo ago
      "Young people know all about computers" was never true either. It was maybe true for people like you and me, the type of people who now frequent places like HN. But for the vast majority of people, computers were never all that interesting.
      - StanislavPetrov 4mo ago
        >"Young people know all about computers" was never true either. That's true, but only because not all young people owned or used computers. I was born in the mid 70s and got my first computer as a young child. Back then you had to "know all about computers" to use the computer and get it to function. These days, every kid grows up surrounded by computers, with a computer in their pocket, and very few have even an inkling of how they work. Thus "young people who use computers know all about computers" used to be a true statement, but no longer is.
        WJW 4mo ago
        It wouldn't have been true even if all young people in our generation would have had all the access to computers they would've liked. Most people just don't like tinkering with technology and that's fine! The whole argument is pretty dumb anyway. Just try replacing "computers" with any other technology and you see how weird it starts sounding. - "People use roads every day but almost nobody even knows how to make asphalt from scratch these days." - "People use electricity every day but almost nobody even knows the basic equations for electric generators." - "Children these days use refrigerators only as consumers, they don't even understand the differences between HCFC and A3 type refrigerants..." Computer programmers despairing about how few children understand computers has strong vibes from https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/ IMO.
  - WJW 4mo ago
    When I look around at my generation it's all too noticeable that most of them are barely capable of using a computer for more than watching youtube either. And both generations older and younger than mine have generated exceptional programmers. Whatever dictates if people are capable of creative work with computers, year of birth does not seem to be it.
- andai 4mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h8ElOpITBjQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h8ElOpITBjQ > It was a Minecraft convention. We had the game set up with a keyboard, and a controller. By the 2nd day we realized, none of the kids could use a keyboard. So on the 2nd day we set up two controllers instead. > Then I noticed something else. We counted it. 50% of the kids would come up to the console, push the controller out of the way, and try to touch the screen.
  - Hfuffzehn 4mo ago
    I never felt more violated than when a coworker 15 years younger than me started to touch my work laptop screen. I mean, she was right, it turned out to be a touch screen, but really who does something like that?
    - andai 4mo ago
      When I was growing up, my school had Macintosh Computers, and their displays were Soft and Squishy, and we'd spend long periods of time just squishing the displays to observe the satisfying visual effects that this would produce.
Barrin92 4mo ago
maybe another angle to this that I observed: my working class dad who had little education happily taught himself a bit of programming with computer magazines in the 80s an 90s. He actually could figure out his way around a command prompt. I went on to study CS and teach undergrad courses and what I noticed, this started already maybe a decade ago, is that CS students who we handed bootable linux usbs couldn't figure out how to set their system up. And not just that, they just kept emailing us with statements like "it didn't work, what do I do?". It's not just lack of knowledge but complete helplessness when something doesn't work in 2 minutes. That's the biggest problem with this reliance on ChatGPT or whatever. I think the young generation is in an even worse position. Not only do they not know how computers work, they don't even have the basic DIY problem solving attitude our parents have.

by andai 4mo ago

WJW 4mo ago

No, that person is just the only one in his family who knows how computers work. There's plenty of people in generations both older and younger that know too, just apparently not his parents or his kids. Some of the most impressive assembly written today is by people younger than 20. It'll be fine.

mywittyname 4mo ago
It's broadly true though, that younger people struggle with the fundamentals of computing, even if there exists specific examples of young people accomplishing exceptional feats. We raised a generation of people on consumption-based computing devices, which means they don't develop the skills necessary to produce things using computers. Of course, we can teach these skills, but to do that, we must first acknowledge it's a skill which needs to be taught.
- Legend2440 4mo ago
  Most people in my generation didn't know the fundamentals of computing either. That's why I get paid the big bucks to make computers work for them.
  - StanislavPetrov 4mo ago
    >Most people in my generation didn't know the fundamentals of computing either. That's true of my generation as well, but computers weren't ubiquitous and used by everyone all the time for virtually everything.
- CommieBobDole 4mo ago
  I agree; the situation "young people know all about computers" was maybe a twenty-five year phenomenon; before that, there weren't enough computers for it to be generally true, and at some point you no longer needed to know all about computers to successfully use a computer for the sorts of things the general population does.
  - WJW 4mo ago
    "Young people know all about computers" was never true either. It was maybe true for people like you and me, the type of people who now frequent places like HN. But for the vast majority of people, computers were never all that interesting.
    - StanislavPetrov 4mo ago
      >"Young people know all about computers" was never true either. That's true, but only because not all young people owned or used computers. I was born in the mid 70s and got my first computer as a young child. Back then you had to "know all about computers" to use the computer and get it to function. These days, every kid grows up surrounded by computers, with a computer in their pocket, and very few have even an inkling of how they work. Thus "young people who use computers know all about computers" used to be a true statement, but no longer is.
      - WJW 4mo ago
        It wouldn't have been true even if all young people in our generation would have had all the access to computers they would've liked. Most people just don't like tinkering with technology and that's fine! The whole argument is pretty dumb anyway. Just try replacing "computers" with any other technology and you see how weird it starts sounding. - "People use roads every day but almost nobody even knows how to make asphalt from scratch these days." - "People use electricity every day but almost nobody even knows the basic equations for electric generators." - "Children these days use refrigerators only as consumers, they don't even understand the differences between HCFC and A3 type refrigerants..." Computer programmers despairing about how few children understand computers has strong vibes from https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/ IMO.
- WJW 4mo ago
  When I look around at my generation it's all too noticeable that most of them are barely capable of using a computer for more than watching youtube either. And both generations older and younger than mine have generated exceptional programmers. Whatever dictates if people are capable of creative work with computers, year of birth does not seem to be it.
andai 4mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h8ElOpITBjQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h8ElOpITBjQ > It was a Minecraft convention. We had the game set up with a keyboard, and a controller. By the 2nd day we realized, none of the kids could use a keyboard. So on the 2nd day we set up two controllers instead. > Then I noticed something else. We counted it. 50% of the kids would come up to the console, push the controller out of the way, and try to touch the screen.
- Hfuffzehn 4mo ago
  I never felt more violated than when a coworker 15 years younger than me started to touch my work laptop screen. I mean, she was right, it turned out to be a touch screen, but really who does something like that?
  - andai 4mo ago
    When I was growing up, my school had Macintosh Computers, and their displays were Soft and Squishy, and we'd spend long periods of time just squishing the displays to observe the satisfying visual effects that this would produce.

Barrin92 4mo ago

maybe another angle to this that I observed: my working class dad who had little education happily taught himself a bit of programming with computer magazines in the 80s an 90s. He actually could figure out his way around a command prompt. I went on to study CS and teach undergrad courses and what I noticed, this started already maybe a decade ago, is that CS students who we handed bootable linux usbs couldn't figure out how to set their system up. And not just that, they just kept emailing us with statements like "it didn't work, what do I do?". It's not just lack of knowledge but complete helplessness when something doesn't work in 2 minutes. That's the biggest problem with this reliance on ChatGPT or whatever. I think the young generation is in an even worse position. Not only do they not know how computers work, they don't even have the basic DIY problem solving attitude our parents have.