No offense but you sound SO old lol. Tiktok isn’t just full of 12 year old’s and hasn’t been since, well, probably since covid started. With what a shit show standard search engines are these days I don’t blame them for searching what they know. There’s plenty of good info on tiktok that’s being presented by people that know their craft. The short format is nice too because it keeps them from telling their whole life story before they show me what I need to know.
The fact that you’re just basing your whole opinion here on an article kinda says it all really. I would have hoped my generation would outgrow this boomer bullshit but here we are.
Y’all are so worried about using things like Google pay but it’s going to become a standard whether you like it or not. It’s just another way to pay for shit and banks reimburse scammy bullshit just like they do if your card info gets stolen.
Nah, the article was something I went searching for after the fact. I guess “old” is in the eye of the beholder. My 8 year old thinks I’m old.
Just your bog standard Millennial here though. Started out with no tech growing up, and basically grew up along side and with the modern era of technology.
As for search engines, I agree, that’s why I use a selfhosted SearXNG instance. It’s not shoved down your throat google ads (much more akin to what google was 5 years ago or older), but TikTok surely isn’t the answer for “specialists in their field”, just like I wouldn’t have used Vine to source specialist knowledge before that. The problem with the format is there is to much “jumping to the end” without understanding why. You literally cannot get into the “why” in short video format, it’s a bit like “and now your draw the rest of the owl”.
I actually feel like some of the youngest generations while “perceived” to be technical because they grew up with tech actually lack much of the deeper understanding of how that same technology works. This is gonna sound very much “in my day we had to walk uphill both ways” kinda thing, but we did actually have to struggle with technology growing up. If you wanted it to work, you had to frequently do it yourself, and figure out why something wasn’t working with out reddit or online forums sourcing thousands of technical people. I use those skills to this day and it’s a skill I try and mentor into new hires at work.
I recall once early in my career, I caught a co-worker attempting to perform a change on a server for a Fortune 500 financial company using instructions on a webpage that looked like it was from a 1990’s Geocities website (this was probably 2012, so not sure where he even found it!). I slammed his workstation closed so fast and walked him into a conference room. Being “old” doesn’t mean out of touch, but it does often mean wiser.
Edit: Also, not sure where you got that I’m against google pay, venmo, paypal, square, amazon pay or any of those apps, I have them all installed on my phone. What I AM saying is that those apps are at risk to people who root their phones and install applications from sketchy sources. My point about kids using their phones at vending machines was to prove they are probably MORE at risk because they don’t understand the hows or whys to what they did when they rooted their phone and installed Minecraft (or any game!) from a sketchy crack page.
If any of the younger gens have a lack of understanding in tech then it’s on us. It’s on the older gens. We failed to guide them and push for the kind of education that they needed. Millennials, older millennials especially, were kind of privileged in this regard because we grew with the tech. We HAD to figure it out or just not interact with it. It’s not like we’re just built different or anything we just had different opportunities to learn. I don’t see how “watching a 30 second video by a 12 year old on tiktok” is realistically different from watching the video by a 12 year old typing in a notepad on YouTube that I used the first time I rooted a phone.
I swear every single generation makes things easier for the next and then immediately complains about “kids these days” and their lack of struggles
Alright this wasn’t supposed to be a TED talk but turns out I’m passionate about this and the Adderall kicked in…
I don’t think it’s on older gens on a user level for the most part.
I try to teach the kids in my life computer stuff all the time. I know lots of “my dad’s in IT” kids that grew up understanding how computers work even on a basic level.
We who care, do so fervently, and are often drowned out by the noise.
Let’s point the finger more accurately: It’s 99% on how tech companies forced the evolution of computing to their benefit. They decided what “the future” would be, and sold us out to it.
Instead of fully functioning computers, “Kids these days” have grown up with flat little content-consumption devices that make sure you literally can’t understand how they work. Everything is framed as some esoteric black box service brought to you by a cabal of qualified wizards. (Look at Windows’ whole “We’re doing things for you behind this pulsing blue screen” schtick. Funny how opaque an OS called “Windows” has become.)
The entire design motif of modern devices seems to scream:
“Don’t ask questions. You’re too stupid for that. Know your place. Just put a payment method on file and tap whatever you could want for just 99¢ more!”
They’re black-box appliances that were aggressively marketed to families at home, and these companies shelled out tablets and chromebooks as “grants” to schools, to secure a mind-share of future customers who were “raised on it” and know nothing else.
The Silicon Valley titans have normalized addiction algorithms, invisible data mining, zero privacy, planned obsolescence of entire devices with non-replacable parts, browser-based-everything, subscription-tiers for everything, no ownership over purchases, and consumption-first design.
Computing knowledge has become a “magic box” to the point that colleges need to spend valuable time explaining file types and folders. Before college?
Hah! We’re back to the 80’s again: Only real nerds have a desktop in the house.
Elementary schools have replaced their computer labs with cheap e-waste-quality chromebooks where students do everything through a browser. Computing education went the way of arts, history, and music. Gone, unless it’s a fancy private school.
They’re stretched thin as it is, and the curriculum is increasingly based on standardized testing on “STEM” over everything else. Why?
Because employers want a large pool of punctual test-passers to choose from, and corporations want generationally vendor-locked customers to secure future earnings.
This is why, despite how the world runs on computers, to the majority, emails are space magic. Nobody knows nor cares about their privacy being sold off, and nobody bothers to learn about computers in the first place.
A “technical user” is super intimidating to “normies” because they know things like “There are multiple browsers” and “You can copy and paste”. I’m not even kidding.
It’s depressing as hell. Maybe some of it is on our generation, for not fighting harder for user rights.
This is why Linux has such a cult following: it flies in the face of this hypercapitalist customer-farm nonsense, and people find that refreshing. I’m happy to hear of more kids using it, and messing with things like Pis.
No offense but you sound SO old lol. Tiktok isn’t just full of 12 year old’s and hasn’t been since, well, probably since covid started. With what a shit show standard search engines are these days I don’t blame them for searching what they know. There’s plenty of good info on tiktok that’s being presented by people that know their craft. The short format is nice too because it keeps them from telling their whole life story before they show me what I need to know.
The fact that you’re just basing your whole opinion here on an article kinda says it all really. I would have hoped my generation would outgrow this boomer bullshit but here we are.
Y’all are so worried about using things like Google pay but it’s going to become a standard whether you like it or not. It’s just another way to pay for shit and banks reimburse scammy bullshit just like they do if your card info gets stolen.
Nah, the article was something I went searching for after the fact. I guess “old” is in the eye of the beholder. My 8 year old thinks I’m old.
Just your bog standard Millennial here though. Started out with no tech growing up, and basically grew up along side and with the modern era of technology.
As for search engines, I agree, that’s why I use a selfhosted SearXNG instance. It’s not shoved down your throat google ads (much more akin to what google was 5 years ago or older), but TikTok surely isn’t the answer for “specialists in their field”, just like I wouldn’t have used Vine to source specialist knowledge before that. The problem with the format is there is to much “jumping to the end” without understanding why. You literally cannot get into the “why” in short video format, it’s a bit like “and now your draw the rest of the owl”.
I actually feel like some of the youngest generations while “perceived” to be technical because they grew up with tech actually lack much of the deeper understanding of how that same technology works. This is gonna sound very much “in my day we had to walk uphill both ways” kinda thing, but we did actually have to struggle with technology growing up. If you wanted it to work, you had to frequently do it yourself, and figure out why something wasn’t working with out reddit or online forums sourcing thousands of technical people. I use those skills to this day and it’s a skill I try and mentor into new hires at work.
I recall once early in my career, I caught a co-worker attempting to perform a change on a server for a Fortune 500 financial company using instructions on a webpage that looked like it was from a 1990’s Geocities website (this was probably 2012, so not sure where he even found it!). I slammed his workstation closed so fast and walked him into a conference room. Being “old” doesn’t mean out of touch, but it does often mean wiser.
Edit: Also, not sure where you got that I’m against google pay, venmo, paypal, square, amazon pay or any of those apps, I have them all installed on my phone. What I AM saying is that those apps are at risk to people who root their phones and install applications from sketchy sources. My point about kids using their phones at vending machines was to prove they are probably MORE at risk because they don’t understand the hows or whys to what they did when they rooted their phone and installed Minecraft (or any game!) from a sketchy crack page.
If any of the younger gens have a lack of understanding in tech then it’s on us. It’s on the older gens. We failed to guide them and push for the kind of education that they needed. Millennials, older millennials especially, were kind of privileged in this regard because we grew with the tech. We HAD to figure it out or just not interact with it. It’s not like we’re just built different or anything we just had different opportunities to learn. I don’t see how “watching a 30 second video by a 12 year old on tiktok” is realistically different from watching the video by a 12 year old typing in a notepad on YouTube that I used the first time I rooted a phone.
I swear every single generation makes things easier for the next and then immediately complains about “kids these days” and their lack of struggles
Alright this wasn’t supposed to be a TED talk but turns out I’m passionate about this and the Adderall kicked in…
I don’t think it’s on older gens on a user level for the most part. I try to teach the kids in my life computer stuff all the time. I know lots of “my dad’s in IT” kids that grew up understanding how computers work even on a basic level.
We who care, do so fervently, and are often drowned out by the noise.
Let’s point the finger more accurately: It’s 99% on how tech companies forced the evolution of computing to their benefit. They decided what “the future” would be, and sold us out to it.
Instead of fully functioning computers, “Kids these days” have grown up with flat little content-consumption devices that make sure you literally can’t understand how they work. Everything is framed as some esoteric black box service brought to you by a cabal of qualified wizards. (Look at Windows’ whole “We’re doing things for you behind this pulsing blue screen” schtick. Funny how opaque an OS called “Windows” has become.)
The entire design motif of modern devices seems to scream:
“Don’t ask questions. You’re too stupid for that. Know your place. Just put a payment method on file and tap whatever you could want for just 99¢ more!”
They’re black-box appliances that were aggressively marketed to families at home, and these companies shelled out tablets and chromebooks as “grants” to schools, to secure a mind-share of future customers who were “raised on it” and know nothing else.
The Silicon Valley titans have normalized addiction algorithms, invisible data mining, zero privacy, planned obsolescence of entire devices with non-replacable parts, browser-based-everything, subscription-tiers for everything, no ownership over purchases, and consumption-first design.
Computing knowledge has become a “magic box” to the point that colleges need to spend valuable time explaining file types and folders. Before college?
Hah! We’re back to the 80’s again: Only real nerds have a desktop in the house.
Elementary schools have replaced their computer labs with cheap e-waste-quality chromebooks where students do everything through a browser. Computing education went the way of arts, history, and music. Gone, unless it’s a fancy private school.
They’re stretched thin as it is, and the curriculum is increasingly based on standardized testing on “STEM” over everything else. Why?
Because employers want a large pool of punctual test-passers to choose from, and corporations want generationally vendor-locked customers to secure future earnings.
This is why, despite how the world runs on computers, to the majority, emails are space magic. Nobody knows nor cares about their privacy being sold off, and nobody bothers to learn about computers in the first place.
A “technical user” is super intimidating to “normies” because they know things like “There are multiple browsers” and “You can copy and paste”. I’m not even kidding.
It’s depressing as hell. Maybe some of it is on our generation, for not fighting harder for user rights.
This is why Linux has such a cult following: it flies in the face of this hypercapitalist customer-farm nonsense, and people find that refreshing. I’m happy to hear of more kids using it, and messing with things like Pis.
In some places there’s hope.
Thanks for hearing me out.
Thanks for this. Well put.
Thank you for reading it, and for your appreciation. It means a lot. :)
You may have missed where I specifically said I mentor new hires for those skills.
Stupid comment
Stupid reply
👍