this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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The computer literacy of the younger generations is also alarming. While they're pretty intuitive about using an app's advertised features, they don't seem interested in "exploring" computers and their capabilities like slightly older people.
What I'm saying is that the ability to convert to PDF lies exclusively with Millennials
And burn CDs 💪
Honestly it's been easily 20 years since I burned a CD or DVD, my knowledge is stuck at pirated Nero 6 for windows XP level.
It's due to the fact that we are the BRIDGE GENERATION ... the generation that lived in a world without the internet or modern technology but got a front row seat in seeing it all come to what it is now. The generation before us were too old to care about the new things that were coming out so they never took the time to learn about it all. We were just the right age to be young enough to be interested and old enough to learn about it. The generation after us have only ever know the modern internet and modern locked in devices we have today, so they didn't have the interest or patience to want to learn about it all. We grew up in a time when computer systems ran like molasses so it was slow enough for us to have an opportunity to learn about how they worked and ran. We learned to tear apart computers and computer parts, put them back together and figure out how to run them. When we couldn't afford to buy the latest software, we became pirates and crackers .. and eventually, we learned to use Linux and open source software while also keeping our foot in Windows and for some of us with a bit more money, a foot in Mac as well. Now the tech world is becoming more and more locked in with software and hardware ... it is getting harder for anyone to see what's inside the box or to even figure out how to take it apart, rearrange it or swap parts or even to adjust anything. Young people just buy a solid state phone and they will never know or want to know what a CPU, RAM, SSD, HDD, GPU, PSU mean ... and whenever that thing breaks down, they just chuck it, buy another one and start all over again.
I mentioned this before in another thread
https://lemmy.ca/comment/12440511
So many of my millennial colleagues don't know shit. Tell them they can click with their mouse wheel and you blow their minds.
I think it's just about what interests people. And most people on Lemmy are more tech literate and have more tech literate friends in the same age bracket, thus skewing their perception.
There was a long time when the middle mouse button didn't do anything, because the standard PC mouse was 2 buttons. I had a Logitech 3 button mouse where the middle button didn't get much use. In I think RiscOS it had a function, then there are some actions like "both click" where you click both left and right buttons at the same time, which is sometimes also implemented as middle click. In Linux, middle clicking pastes from the primary buffer. And when you know what that means, it's actually pretty damn handy.
Lot of younger gen x did all of that shit, with even less documentation and less mainstream support and community.
To be fair, they're rare. Most Gen X are boomer-lite. The adult learners and tech enthusiasts built the digital world we live in though.
Yeah, I was shocked when I learned about that. I'm a millennial. I was under the impression, that since we were so far ahead of our parents concerning tech, the next generation will all be hackers. A friend of mine works in high school teaching IT. He told me, that today's teenagers don't know how to download a file from the internet. And when they do, they still don't know where it is on the computer.
Let's not excuse the tech industry on that one. Data has been getting more and more walled off on many platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if they never had to download anything.
It's all streamable and accessible but downloading from places takes a little more knowhow. Not a lot but more. We have access but they keep ownership.
It's not the only reason but it's Def part of it. That and using tablets and smart phones which are also more locked down.
TBF, my (work) computer relentlessly tries to hide it. Why do things go to different files based on where I download from?
3 years ago i gifted my (then 6yo) son my old computer and basically left him alone to figure out(with parental controls). Whenever he wants to do something complex he asks me, but he is learning stuff on his own. I uninstalled YouTube (it had a shortcut on the desktop. I just removed it) and he figured out how to browse to it. The other day he remember a browser game he liked so he googled it and then asked me how to scroll down to see the full game.
I hope this becomes a real useful skill that is not forgotten once AIs can do everything and we probably interact by voice commands
I once had to (try to) explain to a millennial how to type an URL into his browser's address bar. To him, Internet and Google were literally synonymous. To this day, I can't get over it.
Even with millennials, I feel like there's a big chunk who still barely have any understanding. At least I assume most know a file system exists (ie know of folders and such), but most would think it's synonymous with the gui software they use to explore it and would have no idea how to even start navigating it by command-line or even imagine it's possible to using an alternative interface to the one that came with the OS. Whereas younger gens that grew up on iPhones that hide the file system would have no clue. And the older generations frequently just used the desktop for everything.
I just had this exchange with my few years younger girlfriend who counts as a zoomer:
Me: So go into the Canon app and select from there the file you want to print
Her: ...
Me: (showing on the phone) So go there, and now just browse for the file.
Her: uhh...
Me: Where did you save the file?
Her: I don't know.
Me: Uh, so where is it?
Her: In the PDF app
She's really smart, she uses Linux, she laughs about some of her same age and younger friends not having a clue about files and folders and stuff but phone is where this happens hah
To be fair, phone OSes go out of their way to obscure where files go for some reason. Android's filesystem is somewhat arcane even when it's completely transparent, and it's mostly hidden behind apps that just say "Saved" or "Downloaded" and I'm left asking "okay but where!?"
EDIT: I suppose it's not necessarily the OS's fault but more of the app culture
People should install a good file explorer like Cx, it actually shows where the files are....i also use it to access my nas and stream video from there.
This os only true if the apps play nice. Some save stuff in their own arcane space, never to be seen again.
I believe this was the reason hah. Pictures are in the picture app, documents are in the documents app...
Tbf, phones needlessly obscures file storage. Like why do I have to have a specific third party app just to have the normal file management functionality
How can someone who uses linux not establish knowing her phones folder structure and app folder usage?
She uses Linux but mostly out of dislike of Windows and not because she's tech enthusiasts. I'm her on-premises tech support for the system
Meanwhile, Gen X:
Hi I'm not a millennial, yet I do enjoy my beloved pdftk.
Though it may have to do with a suspected level of neurodivergence.
As a Gen-X, I taught my millennial son how to build a computer (and he knows much more than me now). I assure you I know how to find where on the menu to convert to PDF. I also know how to do it via something like Gimp, or other tools. I also know when to not convert it to PDF. :p
From my observation there is a rare subspecies of gen xers who are frighteningly good with computers and by that I mean they cause me the biggest headaches and then there is the ultra rare gen x pc god who will flex their powers at every chance.
Shoutout to that dad who helped us find and fix an error in our spf record 😅
Yanno I thought about ending my post with "of course there's exceptions for every generation", but I thought as much would be common sense and could be assumed.
My father, born in the 50's, is also very tech literate, but his existence doesn't mean there's not a trend with boomers to be technologically challenged.
You could also just admit you forgot about Gen-X, who grew up in the time when computers became houshold items.
That may be more Xennials, a limited cross-breed of the two that grew as computers started moving into public use. Older Gen-X grew up knowing both the world before computers and the one during their spread, so some of us had opportunity to learn as it evolved.
I'm always on the fence with the generation stuff. I think logically it's about as valid as astrology, and yet sometimes it seems that it fits people.
True about the astrology part. Also, I'm Dutch, and some of our sociologists have a different take on our generations. They usually have the boomers born between 40-55, gen-x between 55-70, the "pragmatic generation" or "fries generation" between 70-early eighties and then the millenials. The pragmatic generation would probably overlap with your Xennials.
It's a close match. It seems to get messier as the generations get younger. Xennials in the US were a very narrow window that mirrored the entry into the computer age. Of course the easier route many take is to just call someone older a Boomer and younger a millennial, ignoring the fact that millennials are reaching midlife now.
I didn't forget about them, I've just met many tech illiterate gen-x'ers which has informed my opinion here.
Fair enough, but I've also met plenty of millenials of whom I could say the same. Which actually isn't that much of a problem, I've also met plenty of people from all ages who would hurt themselves with a cordless drill. Somehow the world is still turning.
There is absolutely exceptions, and the whole generation thing is a bit ridiculous if carried too far. I didn't take your point that seriously, just saw an opportunity to provide my own example. I will also add that my father (a Boomer/silent gen) was a smart person, mechanically gifted, even a patent holder, yet he could not for the life of him figure out computers. It was a baffling disconnect. My son, who I mentioned as being far smarter in tech than I could be now, is not mechanically inclined and will admit to that. So yeah, everyone has their skills... if anything I think of myself as a jack of many trades that I'm decent in, but none that I excel high in.
That's honestly quite interesting because all around my presense I hear a lot of sw engineer guys my age or younger.
Like outside of my computer engineering uni, one of my dancing teacher is aspiring to learn coding, I hear guys talking about software dev stuffs on my bus occasionally and such. I'm 24 for reference, so that's just barely gen z tbf
I got my then 5-year-old a laptop and put Linux on it for exactly this reason. So far they've only used it to play Minecraft (fortunately they didn't like Roblox) but I figured this way it's here when they are ready to learn.
They've just started getting good at reading, so I'm really excited to hopefully share some basic stuff with them soon.
Good parenting! I hate to see most parents nowadays give their children unsupervised access to the mindless brainrot boxes that are smartphones or tablets. Personally, having grown up with computers (and an analogue screentime limit), figuring things out through one's own curiosity is the way to learn about how things work and how to solve problems on your own.
Your words are kind and, for the most part, accurate. I will say the kid still has a tablet (in fact I can hear them watching it now while playing sorting games with fabric boxes). Initially we got them a Kindle due to the price, but pretty quickly I switched them to Android because, while I'd prefer them not to be locked into any ecosystem, if I have to choose one Android seems like the best option (and the Amazon variant possibly the worst).
I've toyed with the idea of getting them a used iPad so they could practice with most of what they're likely to encounter, but I haven't been able to justify it in my head.
That said... Having a kid interested and well versed in Linux sounds like an amazing thing to me.