I’ve seen so many people on the “Only Millennials know how to use computers” and just kinda forgetting how many of this cohort didn’t get their hands on a computer until that first generation of Apples and Dells ended up in resale shops or on eBay for deep discounts.
So many folks who see kids on touch screens and throw fits, because that’s not how a “real computer” works, were throwing fits at their parents ten years ago for not understand how intuitive a touch screen is.
Feels like its all an excuse for people to get mad at one another, while occluding the simple fact that using a thing for a long time gives you more experience with the thing.
Yes, people keep finding ways to put others down in order to feel superior. It’s called being a bully. When everything was “blame and shame millenials for this”, there was a section of us millenials that swore we’d break the cycle of generational blaming. Now it’s all about blaming and shaming Gen-Z, because that shit gets clicks. Apparently being a bully never really goes out of style.
It’s not really so much the form factor of the hardware. I think it’s more to do with the increasing complexity of the apps and how they’re designed to hide a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. Think about how the earliest versions of Android didn’t even come with a basic file browser, for example.
It’s the overall push to turn computers into single-use appliances, rather than general purpose devices.
Think about how the earliest versions of Android didn’t even come with a basic file browser, for example.
They didn’t offer an official app, but the Google Store was flooded with 3rd party alternatives practically the day the OS was released.
Even then, knowing what an “App Store” is and how/why you’d use it is a skill more common among younger users. My mother, who happily goes on her laptop and installs all sorts of garbage, had no idea how to add an app to her phone. My younger coworkers are much more comfortable working through Citrix and other Cloud Services, because they don’t expect a file system to be living under every app they use.
It’s the overall push to turn computers into single-use appliances, rather than general purpose devices.
I more felt that the phone was becoming a kind of mono-device or universal remote, with a lot of the IoT tech trying to turn it into an interface for every other kind of physical appliance. If anything, I feel like the phone does too much. As a result, its interface has to become more digital and generic and uniform in a way that makes using distinct applications and operations confusingly vague.
But growing up in an analog world has definitely tilted my expectations. Younger people seem perfectly fine with syncing their phones to anything with a receiver or RFID tag. And the particularly savvy ones seem interested in exploiting the fact that everything has a frequency. I’ve met more than a few kids who have fucked around with the Flipper and other wireless receiver gadgets.
I’ve seen so many people on the “Only Millennials know how to use computers” and just kinda forgetting how many of this cohort didn’t get their hands on a computer until that first generation of Apples and Dells ended up in resale shops or on eBay for deep discounts.
So many folks who see kids on touch screens and throw fits, because that’s not how a “real computer” works, were throwing fits at their parents ten years ago for not understand how intuitive a touch screen is.
Feels like its all an excuse for people to get mad at one another, while occluding the simple fact that using a thing for a long time gives you more experience with the thing.
Yes, people keep finding ways to put others down in order to feel superior. It’s called being a bully. When everything was “blame and shame millenials for this”, there was a section of us millenials that swore we’d break the cycle of generational blaming. Now it’s all about blaming and shaming Gen-Z, because that shit gets clicks. Apparently being a bully never really goes out of style.
It’s not really so much the form factor of the hardware. I think it’s more to do with the increasing complexity of the apps and how they’re designed to hide a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. Think about how the earliest versions of Android didn’t even come with a basic file browser, for example.
It’s the overall push to turn computers into single-use appliances, rather than general purpose devices.
They didn’t offer an official app, but the Google Store was flooded with 3rd party alternatives practically the day the OS was released.
Even then, knowing what an “App Store” is and how/why you’d use it is a skill more common among younger users. My mother, who happily goes on her laptop and installs all sorts of garbage, had no idea how to add an app to her phone. My younger coworkers are much more comfortable working through Citrix and other Cloud Services, because they don’t expect a file system to be living under every app they use.
I more felt that the phone was becoming a kind of mono-device or universal remote, with a lot of the IoT tech trying to turn it into an interface for every other kind of physical appliance. If anything, I feel like the phone does too much. As a result, its interface has to become more digital and generic and uniform in a way that makes using distinct applications and operations confusingly vague.
But growing up in an analog world has definitely tilted my expectations. Younger people seem perfectly fine with syncing their phones to anything with a receiver or RFID tag. And the particularly savvy ones seem interested in exploiting the fact that everything has a frequency. I’ve met more than a few kids who have fucked around with the Flipper and other wireless receiver gadgets.