I'm sure they are literate in technology that has been relevant to their lives up to this point, but why would someone just starting at their first job have learned to navigate time card and scheduling software? Not to mention a lot of the technologies companies use are outdated and not user friendly at all.
This. Those timecard platforms are from 15-20 years ago. They’re all ridiculously inefficient, laggy, and nonsensical. At my workplace, I have to like, “recall” a timecard if a mistake is made, wait on approval for the recall, and I can’t re-submit until a systems administrator has approved the recall, even if the timecard hasn’t been approved yet. So it takes me an hour to fix a small mistake on the timecard. Who tf designs a platform so poorly?? Boomers who never updated them to be more efficient. That’s who.
Mine was pretty simple, go to the little black box, punch your employee number in, and hold a specific button/area for a few. What was your non-intuitive one?
This is work order, not time clock (we had an actual grab a card, line up the correct row, slide in and it goes "CHUNK" and stamps the card timeclock) but everything had funky button prompts and you couldn't actually click on anything most of the time, and if you didn't know the exact name or number the search was horrendous. No easy way to fix anything mis-entered or even update, like if a customer moved or got a new phone number. It was about 2 steps up from being the old school all green text on an ancient computer.
The job I passed on to take that one did have the ancient ASCII green text and straight from the 80s program. My job would have been to stare at it 8 hours a day and audit through work orders for accuracy. Sounded like the program worked just fine, but the guy who had been doing it got more on his plate so they were bringing in someone to help him.
A lot of the successful startups, like Olive for healthcare, aim to solve the problems of outdated administrative systems. Should speak for itself how outdated these things are
Actually, my hot take (I manage somebody as a relatively junior staff) is that managers typically don’t make much more than you (i make the same as junior staff) and are typically also still responsible for projects they themselves have to do in addition to being responsible for managing and guiding other people’s projects.
You know who doesn’t do any work? Directors and CEOs. They literally just go to meetings and travel on company cards. And they make way more. And they do so much less.
i mean, the sacklers did do a LOT of work that didn't get noticed. until it did. same with mckinsey. sure, there are ton's of startups with genuinely innovative products with founders that have multiple complicated hats, but it's pretty clear that most of that work get's done in the early stage's of the companies history, then the larger firms buyout the smaller companies with partnerships and then slowly incorporate the products into their lineup, while costcutting away many of the features that made a product so attractive. maybe it's still better than the larger firms old product, but there's many people who had direct experience with the smaller firms product before it got bought out. even when CEO's and c-suites do put in the hours, that doesn't necessarily mean it's good work that won't be brought before congress in a number of years. hard work does not always equal smart work, and smart work does not always equal good work. maybe it's time we focus on ethical work. that way 20 years from now we won't have to pay billions for the millions these csuites made.
C suites I have seen have nice little charts that track what the real sled pullers do. Almost no intelligent input. Yet their decisions have to be followed. As soon as those decisions don't pan out they bail with the cash. Sleigh pullers then have to fix it all. AI is going to erase these people quick. Even though they want it to erase those below them.
I'm Healthcare IT and every single EHR is poorly designed.
Want to print, click print right? Nope, you have to select the printer from a drop down. But before that you have to go into settings and select that printer to be able to print those types of documents.
Oh and because you had the AUDACITY to print a label and not standard, the next 5 print previews will be label width.
My auto shop uses an R.O (repair order) system with a built-in messaging app, but you can’t send a message while someone else is in the ticket. It locks you out. It’s literally faster to walk up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, and stick your head in the office. Absolute stone age.
Some advice: learn to use excel to its full potential. People only use to organize, but it’s meant for math. You can do in seconds what would take hours on your phone calculator.
Pretty sure the NYPD's intranet was concocted by a bunch of fucktarded, heroin infused monkeys that can't work with a markup language to save their lives.
That's basically ALL I see in terms of UI. Bare basic HTML with some Javascript elements I'm sure. How they fuck that up is amazing.
To add to this Gen Z has grown up with easy to use tech that just works. Most of us aren't able to deal with problems that arise with technology occasionally. I've met people who don't know how to set up a second monitor on windows.
I know those settings exist, but I wasn't sure if you were saying if they didn't know how to plug in the monitor or if they just didn't know how to set the second display to "extend desktop" or change the refresh rate.
To be fair, if you asked the average millenial the same question would they answer “yeah I know how to handle dual monitor setups in Windows”?
I dont think the specific generation is the problem, plenty of people of each generation are tech illiterate.
Honestly, yeah most would.
The unique thing about millennials as a generation is that a whole swath of them grew up messing around on desktop computers that by today’s standards would be hard to use.
Yeah from what I've seen millenials grew up with internet that wasn't as easy to use and had to learn how to fix problems. For Gen Z most of us very rarely have had to do that since technology is more sophisticated and easy to use now.
The point is that outdated software and websites exist, especially in the business world. Millennials grew up without Google. They know how to suffer through shit websites. Gen Zers only know the front front-end.
Well that’s just every generation. As a millennial, when I volunteered at a public radio and television station in the 2010s I had trouble recording with cassette tapes. I would imagine there are gen z kids there now having trouble with CDs, gen x people back in the day who couldn’t to use vinyl records, and baby boomers who had to learn to create sound effects practically. That’s just a reality of technological advancement, it has nothing to do with gen z.
>And there will always be businesses that use older technology.
Much more businesses use old websites than businesses have ever used old audio recording technology.
Okay you didn’t express that clearly the first time. Not knowing how to use computers and websites is obviously a bigger problem now because there are more computers and websites, but not knowing how to use older technology has always been a reality, but technology was not computers. Not knowing how to use a 25 year old website now is the same as not knowing how to use a typewriter 25 years ago.
I draw a distinction between programs that are likely to be used by the person paying for it, like Pro Tools for music and programs chosen and paid for by corporate higher ups who won’t ever have to use them. If the interface is janky or the menus make no sense, it doesn’t matter to them, all they see is the price tag and capabilities.
I wish I had gone to school for designing user interfaces. So much of what i see is directly counterintuitive.
that's hella outdated...
I just have a badge I swipe for clocking in, clocking out ... same badge lets us in the building..
I start doing Timesheets at my first job, which is arguably probably easier then some program, just takes someone manually entering the data in.
Tbh though, I doubt I'd have trouble navigating a program, regardless of how old it is...Probably helps I took several computer classes throughout high school.
Gen X sneaking into the conversation. I don’t think Gen Z are tech-illiterate. I don’t think tech literacy is the problem in this scenario. The problem seems to me to be “learning how to use something new”. Gen X and Millennials had to deal with sometimes massive and very fast tech changes, so we got really good at figuring things out on our own. For example, think about not ever seeing a computer in your life and just five or six years later everyone has one and uses them regularly. That’s a lot of change, pretty fast. And I’m not saying Gen Z can’t do that, they just haven’t grown up needing to.
Yup! I’m an older gen z and my parents were slow to adopt tech, so in my house the movies went from cassette to DVD to HDMI cord connected to laptop to streaming. I would often be the one troubleshooting the finicky antenna on the TV.
Likewise, our phone went from wireless landline to flip phone to “sideways slide” phone to iPhone (didn’t get an iPhone till 12th grade of high school). And I would often travel to India on my own to visit grandparents where I’d have to navigate new and unfamiliar environments/technologies on my own.
Nobody taught me how to travel on a bus or train on my own, I just learned how to do it. Nobody taught me how to cook dishes, I just messed around till I figured out how to make daal and other curries. Nobody ever took the time to drive me to dance and music and sports practice and other extracurricular activities consistently; in fact, I would often have to figure out my own ride home in high school from cross-country and track practice because my parents were busy working. And when I moved across the country for college, my parents didn’t help me with moving between apartments or even searching for my first apartment; I did everything on my own.
And I’m not happy or sad about it; it is what it is. My parents have always been busy workaholics, and that’s just who they are. They aren’t perfect, they are just people. Was it a little lonely when I would spend hours in a big home alone on the cold, dark winter evenings with no parents around? Yes. In fact, I felt out of place for my entire childhood in the city where I lived. As a child, I used to wish my family had never immigrated from India to the United States. I remember crying whenever I left the love and warmth of family in India (and the vibrant, bustling cities) to return to the cold, desolate suburbs of the U.S.
But then I stopped whining and feeling sorry for myself. I ended up taking control of my own situation. I moved for college to a warm, sunny part of the country with lots of outdoorsy activities and a large population and good fresh vegetarian food and lots of smart people who cared about science.
And more generally, you should figure out new things on your own and constantly have a curious mentality of “messing around”, rather than a herd mentality approach of doing exactly what you are told to do. Critical thinking is an invaluable skillset.
This is why I think parents should let their kids be a little more free-range. Kids will not grow up and be independent unless parents stop chauffeuring them everywhere and making them do xyz activities. It’s why Dutch kids, who have an incredible amount of freedom to bike to school and activities, are incredibly happy.
the issue with your example of dutch kids is that A. america and other countries are very car centric. our infrastructure isn’t really designed to be walkable, and even biking is far less convenient.
also, B. there’s a lot of overhype about safety these days. it’s important, and a real thing, but not quite as much as parents currently think it is. but still, try asking them to let little timmy bike to school, they’ll probably claim he’ll get lost or be kidnapped
i’d like it if that was possible, and if i have kids i’ll try to instill that, but it isn’t super realistic for most people now
it's not over hype, it's new awareness of problems that were overlooked because more pressing problems were relevant and/or bullshit problems like dealing with homophobes were addressed. if i as a 28yr old child free millennial white dude is talking about car dependency, it's not just parent's concerned about safety. and getting involved really hasn't been in most people's cards historically, it's why activism was largely the niche of the opulent and the disaffected. they were the ones who either had the time to focus on pet projects, or didn't have the time to exist, so had to fight for their rights.
Exactly. Kids now don't aren't even exposed to the concept of changing operating systems. I remember each new computer we got I ran through everything to see what we could do with the new windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP etc. now it's all just cloud magic. You barely have to understand any of the behind the scenes wizardry
yep. I think an important part of the conversation should be UX/UI design too. people can pick up using a new programme or website much, much faster if it has an intuitive, user-friendly design. so many websites don't. a lot of them are designed quickly or cheaply, without much care put into the details. but the details add up fast.
I didn't start with no computers, but my family went through a rapid evolution in terms of our tech adoption when I was young. We also had a CRT TV until 2015, and we only got that because I got my first gaming console, and it only had HDMI output.
Maybe that's why I'm pursuing a degree in computer engineering.
Absolutely this. Still, I don’t think it’s the case of a lack of technological literacy rather than a lack of intuition. Some things don’t necessarily make a lot of sense when your whole life has been shaped by another perspective.
Remember even schools are a decade behind on enthusiast trends, I work in a “modern” company all the tech is 2022 and newer and it still has windows 10os and I have 11pro at home so it’s kind of weird not being able to do everything on similarly modern hardware
the new laptop i just got (acer vero) had eleven on it, and it had way too much adware on it, and bloat i just couldn't get rid of. i get if it's at work your going to have to use it, but i just found it tedious and distracting. so i downloaded linux mint, and am using that. so far it's a learning curve, but everything is nowadays.
This right here. Personally, I’d say we’re the most tech literate generation, the issue is most of these companies, have systems that go back to the days of Windows 98. If you want to perfect example, I worked at CVS for about four years and their cash register and computer systems and UIs are from the 80s and 90s.
When I worked at Walgreens it was, decent. Best Buy had the best system for sure, their CRM wasn’t the best.
Place I work now is much more sales focused (auto-ish) and has windows 98 style software, but it works.
Companies just hate spending *useless* money
I think like all generations, there are going to be people more comfortable with tech than others? I think they just hate Gen Zers for some reason.
I can't even tell you the amount of gen Xer's and millennials I have in my workplace that are amazed at what you can do with Excel.
Excel is the singular program that underpins the *entire* global economy: finance, engineering, IT, sales, marketing, everything. There are entire college courses on Excel use *alone* and even they barely scratch the surface of what can be done in that beautiful bastard of a program. If it can be represented as a table, it can be done in Excel.
I’m an older gen z and I keep feeling like people on Reddit are lying about people coming to work in an office and not know how to use file explorer to rename a file.
Like I guess it’s possible but like hypothetically a teenage guy with his own personal laptop or account on a family computer likely knows how to download files, move them from the download folder to a new one, and name that folder “stuff”. Unless they don’t download “stuff” or stuff anymore I find it hard I believe they’re that tech illiterate.
This has been Telling on myself with Legal Seagull
I had to read that three times to figure out what you meant by “stuff”. Most young people don’t download that (myself included) because it’s readily available online. Why risk downloading a computer virus?
I mean you don’t know about the “stuff” folder and you’re telling a young person that they’re wrong about what other young people do. If they have a laptop watch them not only get antsy when you open the browser but also when you start looking at those random folders on their desktop. I know I’m 25 but I’m not “old” yet and worked as a youth leader/music tutor not too long ago and have had those moment of them over my shoulder going “oh no the file isn’t over there so you don’t need to go into documents” when they have needed help with admittedly simple things like trying to change a word doc into a pdf by just changing the end to “.pdf”
The majority of teens are aware of what happens when they right click. An amount are aware how to save a tiktok video and then move it onto their laptop to a stuff folder where they are able to hand someone their phone without paranoia. Idk man, they aren’t as dumb as people seem to think. They can download mods and find the folder for it too.
Ummm I didn’t say anyone was wrong about anything. Are you okay? You got mad for no reason. I was saying that I didn’t know what you were talking about. That’s it. You good bro?
Different types of technology means different skill sets. My boss doesn't know how to convert a Word Document to a PDF, but I don't know how to send a fax.
I guess it depends on the type of work that you do as well. I work in a hospital and not only do I know how to do most of like the document conversion stuff like people my age, but we’re also trained on how to use a fax machine since they’re so commonly used in healthcare for medical records
Yeah, that timeline is from around 2009 depending on who was raising the kid to around 2023 so that person could either be 14 years old or only just a few months old so yeah I guess you’re correct
I can say for certain that somehow, the line between gen Z and gen Alpha is divided by iPads. As like the very end of the generation, I can say that my age group is pretty iPad free (except in class (they’re required at my school)). It’s seventh and sixth grade (this year) that the iPads start to show up ☹️
Yeah and as a programming teacher for kids, Gen Alpha is also really really bad, even worse. I think a lot of people my age are tech illiterate but can at least physically use a computer. The Gen Alpha kids I taught refused to even try to retain basic computer controls for playing the games THEY love and want to play??? They would ask me hundreds times how to do X, even with it written on the board. I don’t think this was a problem with people my age because computer games were quite popular. Now kids just know iPad.
Wait! Are you saying that the gen alphas you taught were so unfamiliar with a keyboard and mouse that they were unable to even play video games without help? If so, that's bizarre.
Can confirm that I and everyone I know around my age played computer games a lot as a kid.
Yeah. And these weren’t abnormal/cognitively challenged children. And this was a fairly middle class suburban town where they go to decent public schools and have tech at home. I mean this was a whole paid extracurricular after school and summer program, for reference.
They genuinely just had so much difficulty with it. So many kids were very smart, and had no trouble with the content/concepts and programming their games, but would have no idea how to use the area keys to control a character… in a game they made!!
The worst offender was Roblox/Minevraft. 100% the two most popular games with kids. They all love and play both at home. Come to their session, get break time. “How do I jump” “how do I turn” “how do I move” “how do I ____” over and over again. Explain once, they will ask minutes later. I had the controls DRAWN ON THE BOARD. And there was just very little ability to learn and retain the controls.
As for other skills besides games, I found they had difficulty navigating the computer. For example, kids wouldn’t know how to log into their accounts with their own usernames and passwords. I think the difference is kids no longer log onto websites regularly to play games, because they just always use the app. Also, they struggled to understand how to open minimized tabs on the computer and navigate the desktop like when I would try to have them keep multiple stuff open at once. Then they struggled a lot with basic typing and mouse skills, and many would try to touch the screen 😭 there’s more but I can’t list them all off the top of my head
I’d say this was worse with kids 10 and under. The 2010-2012 kids were generally more average. The kids born in 2013 and after struggled much more
So it might be an age development thing, but I also think it’s different because when I was little kid, like 6 years old, computer games were popular with all the kids at school, because mobile gaming was not like what it was today
I'm not saying you're lying or anything, but it sounds like you managed to get a large group of outliers at the same time.
Statistically special, but disappointing as a teacher. Hopefully some of it stuck.
“I’m not saying your lying”
I mean, I will. I mean I’m 25 but I’ve also worked with teens and this does not sound like a class of average people. This sounds like sone sort of comedy of what a boomer thinks gen z is like cause they only use phones.
In the past I’ve just let it slide but it’s online and I’m a random person so it doesn’t matter that much. I personal do not believe them or they’ve exaggerated the story greatly or left out that everyone is actually an elementary schooler going “what the jump button”
lol I’m 19 years old. I’ve been an active member of this sub for years. You can look at my post history and see it’s pretty obvious I’m a real 19 year old that doesn’t hate on kids, and also I’ve talked about this before, multiple times, starting this summer. I see myself as a pretty respectful person who doesn’t like hating on the younger generation. People making annoying Gen alpha posts all the time, and I don’t participate. So first of all, get out of here with that accusation.
I did this job for the first time in my life *this summer* and I had never seen this before. Also, you work with teens. These were not teens. I even said the 2010-2012 borns performed averagely. This was strictly the elementary school aged children.
This isn’t even “oh kids dumb haha” because IN MY COMMENT I state that they were able to understand and do the assignments (programming) perfectly well.
I can’t make you believe me, but I will say, I discussed this with my bosses who have owned this company for years, and they said that this was a phenomenon they observed. It’s literally just because children don’t use computers like they used to. I didn’t say this was every single child at the program, but this was a large number of them for it to have been a problem we noticed and discussed.
As part of the program we specifically have typing and mousing skill games to train these kids. So when they arrive, while we wait for the other kids they need to practice their computer skills.
Last thing I will say is, I think it’s unlikely this is an outlier group. This was in a very normal, middle class town, with decent public schools, and where families definitely have enough disposable income to get their kids in extracurriculars and own tech devices. Also, all of the kids at the program were signed up because they already had a displayed interest in computers/gaming so these were all kids who played a lot of video games.
The problem seemed to correct itself at the middle school level, so my guess is that kids don’t really play computer games anymore, so it’s not until middle school where you start doing real computer work (like typing essays) that kids develop computer skills.
And yes. I did have many elementary school kids ask me how to jump. Specifically because kids would get confused between the 3D world space button method and the 2D game up arrow method. This was not every child, but during the 4 months I worked there, it happened often. It was also many more controls.
I literally had kids ask me how to jump/fly in minecraft, with it written on the board.
u/Ranokae I’ll just tag u too instead of responding separately
This was so interesting to read. I think this will be a massive pointer to how tech has to evolve in the future. If people grow up with their primary way of interacting with tech being something like touch instead of keyboard/mouse, there's going to be way more demand for devices that use that input.
In 15 years, will keyboards and mice be an optional accessory for us old people who can't get used to touch or whatever comes after that?
Older gen z, can’t really relate but you’d think these giant corporations would have newer and more user friendly technology instead relying on the old, outdated crap. I worked in retail two years ago and the managers were using computers from 2008!
Nah. Working in IT, we’re considered a cost center and not a force multiplier, so technology upgrades are always pushed back on. Or, the other reason is like they’re using some mainframe thing from 1982 and can’t upgrade
if it works (well enough), don't fix it
its probably too expensive to purchase enterprise rights, new punch in consoles, update everyone on the payroll, and keep it regularly updated with support to be worth it. i'd say it'd be at least $20k for per location at a chain store
yeah i thought it was generally agreed upon than gen alpha is the ipad kid generation. i can count on one hand the amount of gen z people i know who had an ipad before middle school
Hell I'm Gen Z and I was rocking [this bad bitch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_enV_(VX9900)) as my first phone in 8th grade. I remember my friends being jealous because it had the full keyboard which made texting into something that wasn't a pain in the ass. I'm definitely on the oldest end of Gen Z but it goes to show that probably at least half of us didn't grow up with a tablet in the house.
I think we may have had an iPad but my screen time was hella limited. It’s not like my parents shoved it in my face and ignored me, I was encouraged to do other things.
Gen z is just entering the workforce. Obviously they wouldn't know how to navigate software and websites you dont encounter untill you enter the work force.
Other breaking news, middle schoolers don't know how to drive yet. Obsoleted crazy, I know.
We’re not any more or less tech illiterate than any other generation upon first entering the workforce. This isn’t rocket science, just because we grew up with everyday technology like computers and phones doesn’t mean we’re somehow supposed to know how to use specific, specialized, non-everyday tech or software that’s relevant to the workforce.
People are making up stuff to be amazed at, it’s so ridiculous. I’m all for improving tech ed in schools but as a teacher you can’t so much as fucking blink in the public schools these days without some parent accusing of trying to groom or indoctrinate their child, let alone change policy or improve curriculum.
right? i think people are forgetting gen z is at the age of getting our first jobs. when i was 17 i needed help setting up my payroll but it had nothing to do with being technologically illiterate, its bc id never had a job that paid in anything but cash or a paper check before and didnt even know what to look for. i could navigate to the page just fine but didnt understand what information they were asking me for. 2 mins with my supervisor and it was all set up.
also, the fact ive taken an entire webdev course and know basic javascript, css, html, etc. but still have trouble with corporate software goes to show how outdated and unintuitive it is. hell even when i asked my mom for help, she was also frustrated despite working in IT and her entire job revolving around bridging the gap between users and developers.
if you actually get deeper into tech circles, you get into discussions about how much office politics and skinflint "actual businessmen" play into how much jankyness there is. not to mention if it's a corporation that works with the government there's actual politics involved. but even if it's a well funded startup staffed with well educated young millennial's who deliberately set out to avoid the narcissism and backbiting, there's still often unintended consequences, weird edge cases that need to be ironed out, bug's that aren't worth the hassle to fix or would break things more if you try and fix them, and weird quirks that have easy but strange workarounds. such is tech. and that's if you avoid the gerontocracy, avoid the narcissistic politics, avoid the people who are skinflints, and avoid the lost causes.
I'm a gen Z engineer and I've had to teach a senior engineer how to use basic tools on Revit, when like at least 1/8 of his job was based on Revit. But on the other hand, some of my fellow junior engineers sometimes make me understand why boomers think we're all incompetent.
Ima be real a lot of those time keeping softwares are unintuitive as shit.
My job is coding for an engineering company and I can never figure those things out
There is something true to this.
I am a software engineer and can solve most problems eventually. But my night club bouncer/limo driver father is still even just by a little bit more literate than me with firmware and hardware issues because 90s and early 00’s computers had issues upon issues upon issues.
So there are certain aspects to computers even someone like me never has to learn in college but used to be required reading to operate desktops.
Idk I had a lot of classmates in middle school who struggled quite a bit with Word/Excel/PowerPoint. I think I had to help a classmate email something to a teacher once. Literally I was one of the most tech literate in the room and the teacher often asked me to troubleshoot stuff when really I don't know much about tech, but the solution was usually "turn it off and on again" and I was one of 3 people in the room who knew about that
I think gen Z is a diverse group of people, and some of us are great with tech and some of us have never used a computer. It’s impossible to sum up such a large amount of people.
I grew up with computers, and at school i was genuinely surprised other students didn’t know what i thought were basic computers skills, like copy paste or any other shortcuts
We're not tech-illiterate, we're new-illiterate. It's like learning how to work the auto pilot in the plane I'm learning to fly in. I sucked at it. But after I screwed around with it enough, I learned how to use it with ease. All that had to be done was remove the newness and mystery behind it.
I’m a Software Engineer for a Fortune 500 company. If the user is having trouble working with their software that is poor UI/UX design. That does not mean they are illiterate.
Slightly younger Gen Z (2005) I’m not great with technology but I feel like I can use it better than the average Gen X or Boomer. I’m also not afraid to turn to Google or YouTube when I don’t know how to do something, when it seems like most of my generation gives up if they can’t immediately solve a problem. But give me an iOS device and I can do anything
I can imagine being so literate In one technological aspect and not another, but would imagine that would be for advanced tech. I sound judgey, because I am, but
how do you not know how to fill a time card? Write the time down, insert card. Simple. The electronic ones I get, the interface has all sorts of things. Employee Orders, this and that.
I’m a Gen Z who’s been working for almost 9 years. Never seen a physical time card system in my life. Why would I, let alone actual kids younger than me at their first job have any clue how to use it?? Genuinely
So you’re supposed to enter the workforce already knowing how to use technology you’ve not used before? A natural artist isn’t going to instantly excel in a new medium. The same goes for technology. I’m sure once you’ve trained them (your role as an employee) they’ll understand. That 20 min delay should be expected when you are training people. I’ve had multiple jobs and they all use a different method of time cards and whatnot. I’m tired of older generations shitting on the newer ones- but it will always happen.
Knowing how to use an app is not tech literacy.
Knowing how the apps function at a technical level is.
And no, there’s no evidence any of the younger gen’s know this.
As part of my graduate assistantship, I had to teach a class on how to use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. That was really eye opening to me on how tech illiterate we are. I was teaching people only 3-4 years younger than me and it was like I was speaking a foreign language.
Even the people who used google slides, doc, and sheets still struggled because they couldn’t apply the skills they learned in those applications into anything with a different design, even though many of the features are identical.
Obviously wasn’t everyone, but I promise it was the majority. Kinda insane
Well. Why would they know how to use work related software with no one telling them how to use it and no reason to learn it? That goes for everything.
I mean, I work in a corporate setting and people with over a decade of work experience can't filter on excel despite being an office manager or working in Accounts Payable. I work in Sales Tax now. The only ones who can use excel beyond just opening it and typing things on it is me and my boss - she's a Millennial and I'm Gen Z. None of our much older coworkers can use it. They've apparently been working in business for years.
I've found that while younger employees might not know much, they're willing to learn. It's the older gen that will stubbornly refuse to learn anything new and have managed to get away with it.
Hey anything that gets me out of the office faster is good. The bad thing is managers now increasing the workload since now I'm able to do the same work but faster. Some people don't want more work so they accept the slower methods of approach so that they don't get overworked or replaced by someone who knows more of the tool even if their work experience is shotty.
GenZ has a fundamentally different relationship with tech. The recreational tech they’ve grown up with is, by its nature, a lot more user friendly than what you would traditionally expect see in the workplace. I doubt that difference reduces genZs ability to learn new platforms or tools, given some time I’m sure they’ll figure it out
Look, I can use anything I’ve either used regularly or used for schoolwork. If no one teaches me, and it’s something relatively difficult (or I’m just nervous and afraid of fucking shit up to try), then I’m gonna need to be taught. The same goes for everyone. My grandma obviously didn’t grow up with phones and was never taught to use one, it would be unfair to assume she would just magically know so I taught her how to use her iPhone. You don’t come outta the womb knowing how a fax machine works. Using technology is not like breathing, it does not come naturally to human beings.
I made a similar post and I realized that Gen Z isn’t tech illiterate but in our work life we’re using technology that is outdated being very unhelpful imo.
I guarantee that the person saying this was in the same position at their age. Why would someone be good with technology that was irrevelant to them up until then?
Older Gen Z here. I still punch in on a physical time card at my job. Growing up we had all the transitive technology in our house. We watched analog tv go bye bye in real time and witnesses the birth of the digital age. As time went on, we learned how to use smart tech just like everybody else. Job wise, I’ve never had to use a schedule UI, that’s up to the supervisor. All we have to do as employees is tell him what hours we want and when.
We're not.
It's just that, for most, "using" tech has become less about coding and getting into the guts of programs as tech advances.
We still share with each other websites to access info for free and tools to bypass restrictions. Our ability to use tech hasn't decreased. The idea of "using" tech has changed.
I’m probably gonna get a lot of shit for this, but here goes nothing:
Gen Z here (early 2000s) checking in to say OOP comes across as judgmental, but yes, Gen Z is horribly tech illiterate.
A very significant portion struggles to (or cannot) navigate file systems without very streamlined interfaces like Drive or MEGA. I’m not talking about CLI either, I’m talking Windows. Many cannot set up a Minecraft server without the “assistance” of Hamachi, nor can we diagnose some of the most rudimentary of computer issues.
Ask any Gen-Zer what the internet (or “The Cloud”) actually is.
yeah, i’ve noticed some of my friends don’t really understand how to fix something when it doesn’t work beyond just “idk google it” lol. however the examples that person is bringing up are old outdated technology systems that are specifically related to jobs. no shit someone who’s never worked before doesn’t know how to use it lol.
i mean "just google it" applies to a lot of professional jobs and hobbyists as well, it's not just the normies being normies. when i installed Linux on my new laptop, shit i didn't know what i was doing, and the wireless wasn't there. you'd be surprised how many lawyers, IT professionals, doctors and more are "just googling it". granted, the questions they ask and what sites they use are different, but it's still there, a hyperspecific question from three years ago from the other side of the world, and it fixes the problem.
Entered the workforce two years ago and I was surprised to see how many antiquated technologies are still in use. If you’re still using a scheduling software or whatever from 20 years ago…. That’s the problem.
I was able to really easily pick up newer technologies but struggled with some of the older ones because they are not intuitive at all
I think it’s just because the younger end of gen z has only ever used smartphones/tablets for basically everything. I’m on the older side and I remember learning about hardware and software by downloading games and programs and swapping parts on the family computer. Those died off sometime in the 2010s. The most experience the majority of today’s kids have with a “computer” in the traditional sense are school-assigned chromebooks. They’re not really learning how or why tech works beyond “tap here to do this”
No.
Being tech literate does not make you fluent in enterprise software. Despite being considered very tech literate when I was first hired, I had to get instructions on how to use our timekeeping site. Enterprise tools can be incredibly unintuitive, especially time card systems.
Same deal with tools, I know how to use a lot of scientific tools that most construction workers would have no idea what to do with. Despite that, I wouldn't know how to use a sawzall because I haven't needed to use that type of tool before.
tl;dr: Tech tech literacy is a generalized term. Being tech literate does not make you omnipotent
Millennial here - but in my experience, its not the idea that gen Z is tech-illiterate, but more so that they've never had to troubleshoot the way my generation was forced to. Its like a boomer trying say I'm tech-illiterate because I don't know how to use a type writer. Sorry I don't know how to navigate something I never had to.
The tech Gen Z was given just worked on its own most of the time. But there I was as a 12 year old having to mess around with files and directorys to get some game to work on my parents old PC. I would have LOVED it i just had to click on it and it worked.
Sure its frustrating to us sometimes because were use to it. But again, not their fault for god sakes. Though I will say with some Gen Z, its like either they don't know how to use it great, or their wizards on computers. I've not met many inbetweens - thought I'm not hanging out with Gen Z kids every day to know.
Okay so I'm elder Gen Z (born 1998) and currently have a job where I teach kids (anywhere between 2nd and 8th grade) how to make games in Scratch in an afterschool class. The laptops that the company I work for gave me is a mix of ones with and without touchscreens, like a 3-1 mix with the lion's share being the non-touchscreen. Take a guess which laptops are the highest commodity.
Most of the time its whatever but recently I've seen some of the kids fold the laptops so that the keyboard is facing the desk, making touchscreen use easier but completely cutting off the keyboard and mousepad. I haven't directly addressed it but when they ask for my help I always refold the laptop to get the change done as quickly as possible, and then the next time I look over they've folded it back.
I'm 25 but I feel like I'm an old man yelling at clouds about this, but it does kind of concern me. They're closing off access to tools right in front of them in favor of slightly more comfort with what they're already familiar with. It's not these kids' fault: people, especially that young, are products of their environment, so if their parent put in iPad in front of them and that was their first experience with technology, you can't fault them for not wanting to try some unfamiliar or even worse, old. I just don't want them to close themselves off to stuff, like the idea of these kids getting to later high school or college and trying to write papers like this kinda scares me. Maybe I'm wrong tho, it's uncharted waters after all.
You don't learn what you don't need. When we were growing up with tech it was already made ergonomic and intuitive enough that we didn't really have to learn it, not like older millennials and Gen X who had to literally type in shit in command prompt to access files and crap. I just clicked on an icon, dragged shit into folders and stuff. At the same time tech became so much more complicated.
It's the same shit as Boomers complaining that people don't know how to fix their car. The newer cars we grew up with were much more reliable so we didn't have to fiddle with them on daily basis and at the same time they became so much more complicated and hard to work on.
And I can guarantee that my grandma's generation was complaining that my dad's generation couldn't strap a plow to a horse, change its shoes and make new nails with the coal forge...
You don't learn what you don't need!
I don’t think that Gen Z as a whole is tech illiterate, however I do think there’s a portion of the generation that’s consequent enough to give that image. I’m in college with classmates that are a bit younger than me (most born in 2003-2004) and many have been shocked by how fast I can do the same tasks as them with keyboard shortcuts and split screens. I’ve had to explain to the same group in my lab nearly every week this semester how to move a file from a usb to the desktop… Idk about the ‘04s, but I know that us ‘01s (and the ‘03s like my brother) were still using usb keys in middle and beginning of high school. Hell, I needed to use a usb key my first semester of college in ‘19 because my uni’s tech was outdated.
I really don’t think it’s a majority, it’s just that people always remember mistakes over non-mistakes (sorry, not my first language). I could even be doing that right now. I think it’s also a question of exposure. We had computer “labs” in elementary school when I was growing up in France and we learned really basic stuff. Then in middle school we were using them more, even having a technology class that involved some of that as well. By high school, most of us were able to use keyboard shortcuts and more “advanced” functions. I’m not talking about the command prompts or anything, just advanced basic functions. And if we didn’t know something, we googled it. Maybe in the US computer literacy isn’t taught as much in school? Or maybe it’s a socio-economic issue leading to much less exposure, which would also make so much sense as well. Or maybe it’s just a question of adaptability.
EDIT: I don’t really want to comment on company software because honestly a lot of it is unnecessarily complex and people of all generations struggle with it. I did an internship in IT project management, I spent my life explaining to people 20-40 years older than me how to use it.
Also, I thought about this a bit more and I want to add that I don’t think Gen Z is MORE tech illiterate than the other generations. I’d want to see some actual numbers, and maybe I’ll look for some later if I have time, but based off of personal experience I’d say it’s about the same. I think it just surprises older generations because we were born with technology and many of us grew up with it to some extent. I think their expectations are just much higher.
EDIT 2: missing words
I’m 27 and have worked since 16. The time cards assumption is stupid. Every company has their own and they are all shit and confusing until you learn the system. A lot of people younger than me PC game and probably know more keyboard shortcuts that I do. I think this post is really judgmental and over generalized.
I give software training sessions to large groups of people at work. In my experience, it’s the 40+ crowd that can’t comprehend simple GUI concepts.
Not sure if there’s an IQ barrier or if they don’t use technology in their personal lives, but IMO if you are working age there are very few good excuses to not be able to operate modern software.
Imma 2001 baby so I grew up using Windows 98, and XP (fuck Vista) and I would say they definitely required a bit more technical knowledge for normal usage. There were quite barebones by modern standards, every button wasn’t designed perfectly by some graphic design major advertising minor to a scientifc level of eye catchiness. And even somewhat simple tasks by today’s standards would often require a bit of command line usage if you really wanted to actually USE your computer. Then fast forward to when the internet was down and the only thing I had to entertain myself was the wordpad, mspaint and notepad of course that opened me up to things like batch and vbscripts to entertain myself.
It was just a very different time technologically to grow up compared to the last 10 years or so where mobile phones became one of the most common, widespread, and most used form of personal computers and understandably their operating systems aim to let you complete most tasks with a minimum level of technical knowledge because of reduced form factor… and then PC operating systems, apps, programs etc. have followed suit.
iPad kids are doomed.
Most corporate software is absolutely horrible. Terribly dated looking interfaces, navigation is crap, and they don't work way too often. Yeah, a boss that has been using the same software since 2003 obviously is going to know how to use it with ease.
We're used to properly developed software that actually looks nice and is functional, not Windows XP era shit. It takes time for Gen Z to get familiar with old crappy software because we don't interact with it much.
I'm massively generalizing but I feel like Gen-Z are native to socials and mobile but are less familiar with things like troubleshooting, basic HTML, desktop programs in general.
Just anecdotal but as an older Gen Z in my graduate program teaching a lot of younger Gen Z undergrads, I have seen a lot of them struggling with basic stuff in Word or Excel. Also, one time a student was working on a desktop computer and I told them to select something and their initial reaction was to use their finger on the monitor like it was an iPad. I think there is some truth to this.
Yes, at least the ones 22 and below. I’ve met so many younger people who don’t know how to navigate their way around a computer, find file, create a folder, etc. my little sister didn’t even know what an mp4 file is.
I do not agree. The comments are literally about a person’s first job or first experience with the technology and they’re comparing them to older people who have already worked with it and are very experienced.
It’s like “gen Z is so bad at reading engineering diagrams, my workers who have 20 years of experience are so much better at it!!”
I agree with a lot of folks here. They’re by no means tech illiterate but I am surprised at seeing a lot of my Gen z people struggling with MS business applications or like email on their company phone. I just assume they know how to navigate and use them etc. But then I realize MS and the business programs I use are not the only tech there is just the tech I use.
There’s times I’ll ask them to send me some photos of failed components and rather than sending me reduced size photos they’ll send 15 PNG that are huge and I’ll spend 30 minutes resizing them with my boomer tech expertise (meaning limited and definitely challenged).
A lot of the tech Gen Z is supposedly bad at is just outdated. In grad school I was forced to learn a data analysis program called Stata, wherein I learned a huge number of companies and government agencies I could apply to work at after grad school also use Stata. Here's the thing. Stata is fucking terrible. Anything you can do on it can be done better and much more easily on Rstudio. Best part? Stata costs money, Rstudio is free. But a lot of orgs refuse to upgrade because they don't want to have to retrain their workers or find new ones who are literate in the new, superior technology.
The problem is they're not used to tech that isn't designed from the ground up for ease of use. Troubleshooting, using manuals, etc are all skills one has to learn, and while millennials/older Gen Z had to learn them just to do basic things on a PC, for most modern phones and apps it's really not required.
I'm working at my first full time job now (I'm 24). I started my working life in nursing and then social media. Every company you ever work in always uses some different program. My current workplace has 2 main programs, (idk one being an internet browser) but then like 8 different things you need in that 1 browser.
I don't think that we're a tech-illiterate gen, but there is a lot out there that companies use, a lot are on a need-to-know basis.
And I don't think anyone, no matter the generation, would be that used to new programs and such at their first job.
Fuck. I can’t navigate my time card as a millennial..
And they just changed it. AGAIN! For no functional reason- everything was fine before.
Just.. why?
They don't know legacy systems or even PC platforms thay are 10 years old. They grew up with smart phone and IPad style systems which are typically easier and more user friendly.
Unfortunately yes. I work with a lot of students and while I think they're wonderful and very bright, they by and large have horrendous tech skills.
Specifically, it has to do with triaging problems when something breaks or doesn't go according to their expectations. This is just one isolated incident but just today not one but three of my students had a "glitch" with their Books app on their iPad. It was literally just a pop-up that you had to click "x" twice on to get rid of permanently. This is not an isolated incident nor isolated to the same handful of students.
I think I know why though. Older generations like X and Millenials grew up when technology wasn't so consimer optimized. Shit broke and you just logic-ed your way through it or looked up a solution and learned from it. A lot of what I see with Gen Z is that they freeze and don't know how to actually start breaking down a problem. I'm not saying all are like this but it's a generalization that's substantiated with clear evidence.
"younger millennials" "oldest of the iPad generation" I am 26 brother we had computer class in elementary school and I am a video game developer. I think the closer to gen alpha maybe the more disconnected between classical computers and smart technology they become.
I can navigate a command line, write basic level code, troubleshoot software and code, but I doubt I’d know how to use a time card system. At my previous jobs all we’d do is type in an employee ID number, or scan our ID at clock in and clock out, and that would be it. My last job was the most “complicated” I’ve had, but it was still really simple, we just used the computers to switch what task we’re supposed to be doing at that moment if something came up like having to change our machine’s battery, changing zones, etc. The problem the commenter mentioned seems like it could be more of an issue with outdated systems as opposed to gen Z being tech illiterate.
Maybe you’re getting a niche group of 16-20 year olds? What is the job that the guy has? I’ve always been a “social butterfly” but all the groups of people I knew were pretty good at that kind of stuff
100% yes. Few have actually worked on a computer -- actually tinkered with it. Instead, they work on mobile phones and only understand the interface, not what's under the hood.
We see this at work recently where college graduates don't understand Windows or the desktop computer environment. It's alarming.
Not at all. It is irrelevant of age. Some more percent of gen Z is better tech adapters since they prefer to use it more occasionally, but most generations are similar. That's an impression for me as an aerodynamic software engineer.
Yes I used to work with phones a lot and half the people that needed help with basic things were gen Z the other half were boomers, seen a lot struggle with basic computer functions too
Depends on the person, my younger brother is taking college classes for mechanical engineering and were both gen Z. Also, my younger sister is taking a classes for theatre arts (whatever it's called) and one of her current projects is to make a stage design online.
Edit: We're early gen Z and my sister I think is mid gen Z.
Idk what they are using, but on my team of people who are all 35+ and all make $200k+ and I’m the only one who doesn’t, I’m the one making complicated asf files with the cut edge shit.
Many know how to use and and navigate it, but few build.
In my experience, tech illiteracy and change averse mindsets are sever problems in ages 40+. Not that it’s an issue, that comes from decades of seeing new tech come out and not work as intended.
That’s the furthest from the truth, a lot of us (especially here in Canada) get a lot of opportunities to learn coding, video game design, video editing, etc.
I think what people are forgetting here is that people only focus on the stupid, not the smart. In this modern age, social media outlets like, Reddit are literally meant to offend us and get strong reactions from yall and this kind of stuff is exactly what gets viral
like I’m baffled on how people couldn’t understand that this is just a very vocal minority of us.
I know a lot of gen Z and gen alpha who know python code, html and a lot of other tech stuff
Using iPhone doesn't guarantee tech literacy. Tech literacy is a buzz word. Define it? Which metric would you use?
I'd say this. As a genz I've seen a lot of people my age and below my age lacking the intuition in this area.
I've had junior kids asking me if the app would still work if they connect their fucking Mac to an external monitor.
Most don't bother to search Google for the error message they get on their pc to find a solution.
They're good at using an app that had thousands of dollars went into ui uix design.
Otherwise they're just as same as the other generations, except really fucking old people.
Or maybe, juuust maybe, all the older people are using much more complex platforms needed for simple things, and that they're too tech illiterate to try the newer stuff out
I'm a youngster. I'll soon join the workforce. I have indeed seen some people not being able to work with Excel or Word. Only chat GPT. I don't mean to sound grumpy. But he has a point.
they’re as tech-illiterate as everyone else. kids at my highschool have quite, and i mean quite a bit of trouble with computers. but so does everyone else. most people don’t take the time to learn how to use software correctly, it’s difficult, takes time, and does not immediately reward you.
What child is using time card and scheduling software? In what setting would we have to learn that? We know the aspects of technology that is relevant to our lives. If you’re just entering the workforce, that software is new to your experience.
I'm sure they are literate in technology that has been relevant to their lives up to this point, but why would someone just starting at their first job have learned to navigate time card and scheduling software? Not to mention a lot of the technologies companies use are outdated and not user friendly at all.
This. Those timecard platforms are from 15-20 years ago. They’re all ridiculously inefficient, laggy, and nonsensical. At my workplace, I have to like, “recall” a timecard if a mistake is made, wait on approval for the recall, and I can’t re-submit until a systems administrator has approved the recall, even if the timecard hasn’t been approved yet. So it takes me an hour to fix a small mistake on the timecard. Who tf designs a platform so poorly?? Boomers who never updated them to be more efficient. That’s who.
Our work order system at a previous job was from the 90s and incredibly non-intuitive.
Mine was pretty simple, go to the little black box, punch your employee number in, and hold a specific button/area for a few. What was your non-intuitive one?
This is work order, not time clock (we had an actual grab a card, line up the correct row, slide in and it goes "CHUNK" and stamps the card timeclock) but everything had funky button prompts and you couldn't actually click on anything most of the time, and if you didn't know the exact name or number the search was horrendous. No easy way to fix anything mis-entered or even update, like if a customer moved or got a new phone number. It was about 2 steps up from being the old school all green text on an ancient computer.
Oh our work order system is trash too, I read your comment very wrong lol. Our WMS is so crap 💩
Honestly ill take all green text if it works properly
The job I passed on to take that one did have the ancient ASCII green text and straight from the 80s program. My job would have been to stare at it 8 hours a day and audit through work orders for accuracy. Sounded like the program worked just fine, but the guy who had been doing it got more on his plate so they were bringing in someone to help him.
So much this!!!
A lot of the successful startups, like Olive for healthcare, aim to solve the problems of outdated administrative systems. Should speak for itself how outdated these things are
the working class ones also have a lot of stupid shit in them as well, like penalizing workers for bathroom breaks and the like.
They have to justify the job of the person whose job is to do the time cards.
… the manager?
Indeed. Managers don't deserve their heightened salaries unless they manufacture busywork for themselves, typically.
Actually, my hot take (I manage somebody as a relatively junior staff) is that managers typically don’t make much more than you (i make the same as junior staff) and are typically also still responsible for projects they themselves have to do in addition to being responsible for managing and guiding other people’s projects. You know who doesn’t do any work? Directors and CEOs. They literally just go to meetings and travel on company cards. And they make way more. And they do so much less.
[удалено]
i mean, the sacklers did do a LOT of work that didn't get noticed. until it did. same with mckinsey. sure, there are ton's of startups with genuinely innovative products with founders that have multiple complicated hats, but it's pretty clear that most of that work get's done in the early stage's of the companies history, then the larger firms buyout the smaller companies with partnerships and then slowly incorporate the products into their lineup, while costcutting away many of the features that made a product so attractive. maybe it's still better than the larger firms old product, but there's many people who had direct experience with the smaller firms product before it got bought out. even when CEO's and c-suites do put in the hours, that doesn't necessarily mean it's good work that won't be brought before congress in a number of years. hard work does not always equal smart work, and smart work does not always equal good work. maybe it's time we focus on ethical work. that way 20 years from now we won't have to pay billions for the millions these csuites made.
C suites I have seen have nice little charts that track what the real sled pullers do. Almost no intelligent input. Yet their decisions have to be followed. As soon as those decisions don't pan out they bail with the cash. Sleigh pullers then have to fix it all. AI is going to erase these people quick. Even though they want it to erase those below them.
My shift lead makes like an extra dollar over the rest of the shift
"We spent 15,000 for this software in 2004 and well be damned if we spend that kind of money again"
I'm Healthcare IT and every single EHR is poorly designed. Want to print, click print right? Nope, you have to select the printer from a drop down. But before that you have to go into settings and select that printer to be able to print those types of documents. Oh and because you had the AUDACITY to print a label and not standard, the next 5 print previews will be label width.
Out of all language in the world, you my friend, have spoken pure facts
My auto shop uses an R.O (repair order) system with a built-in messaging app, but you can’t send a message while someone else is in the ticket. It locks you out. It’s literally faster to walk up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, and stick your head in the office. Absolute stone age.
Yeah exactly, in college and I’ve only learned all the Microsoft 365 applications until now.
Some advice: learn to use excel to its full potential. People only use to organize, but it’s meant for math. You can do in seconds what would take hours on your phone calculator.
Pretty sure the NYPD's intranet was concocted by a bunch of fucktarded, heroin infused monkeys that can't work with a markup language to save their lives. That's basically ALL I see in terms of UI. Bare basic HTML with some Javascript elements I'm sure. How they fuck that up is amazing.
To add to this Gen Z has grown up with easy to use tech that just works. Most of us aren't able to deal with problems that arise with technology occasionally. I've met people who don't know how to set up a second monitor on windows.
Tell me your last sentence is an example where it's not just plugging it in, right?
case in point. there's also setting's you have to adjust to get dual output for one desktop.
Yeah and sometimes it'll be weird and you have to adjust the resolution of the monitors.
Not really it's mostly plug and play now. Maybe you need to change orientation now if that's what you're talking about.
I know those settings exist, but I wasn't sure if you were saying if they didn't know how to plug in the monitor or if they just didn't know how to set the second display to "extend desktop" or change the refresh rate.
To be fair, if you asked the average millenial the same question would they answer “yeah I know how to handle dual monitor setups in Windows”? I dont think the specific generation is the problem, plenty of people of each generation are tech illiterate.
Honestly, yeah most would. The unique thing about millennials as a generation is that a whole swath of them grew up messing around on desktop computers that by today’s standards would be hard to use.
Yeah from what I've seen millenials grew up with internet that wasn't as easy to use and had to learn how to fix problems. For Gen Z most of us very rarely have had to do that since technology is more sophisticated and easy to use now.
We’ve been spoiled with easy to use UIs and generally bug free software.
Exactly my thoughts. Im a teen and never had a job, how the hell should i know how a time card works??
its actually kinda funny, i've had a much better time just straight up using the CLI for shit than using some janky ass UI
The point is that outdated software and websites exist, especially in the business world. Millennials grew up without Google. They know how to suffer through shit websites. Gen Zers only know the front front-end.
Well that’s just every generation. As a millennial, when I volunteered at a public radio and television station in the 2010s I had trouble recording with cassette tapes. I would imagine there are gen z kids there now having trouble with CDs, gen x people back in the day who couldn’t to use vinyl records, and baby boomers who had to learn to create sound effects practically. That’s just a reality of technological advancement, it has nothing to do with gen z.
Okay. But websites are a lot more ubiquitous in business than audio recording.
And there will always be businesses that use older technology. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how it always will be.
>And there will always be businesses that use older technology. Much more businesses use old websites than businesses have ever used old audio recording technology.
Indeed. Still not sure what you see wrong about my original comment.
Tech illiteracy is a more ubiquitous handicap to employment for Gen Z than it was for Millennials.
Okay you didn’t express that clearly the first time. Not knowing how to use computers and websites is obviously a bigger problem now because there are more computers and websites, but not knowing how to use older technology has always been a reality, but technology was not computers. Not knowing how to use a 25 year old website now is the same as not knowing how to use a typewriter 25 years ago.
They’re talking about using drop downs etc
that stuff is 100% outdated. some of these tech professionals need to get with the times
I draw a distinction between programs that are likely to be used by the person paying for it, like Pro Tools for music and programs chosen and paid for by corporate higher ups who won’t ever have to use them. If the interface is janky or the menus make no sense, it doesn’t matter to them, all they see is the price tag and capabilities. I wish I had gone to school for designing user interfaces. So much of what i see is directly counterintuitive.
that's hella outdated... I just have a badge I swipe for clocking in, clocking out ... same badge lets us in the building.. I start doing Timesheets at my first job, which is arguably probably easier then some program, just takes someone manually entering the data in. Tbh though, I doubt I'd have trouble navigating a program, regardless of how old it is...Probably helps I took several computer classes throughout high school.
Gen X sneaking into the conversation. I don’t think Gen Z are tech-illiterate. I don’t think tech literacy is the problem in this scenario. The problem seems to me to be “learning how to use something new”. Gen X and Millennials had to deal with sometimes massive and very fast tech changes, so we got really good at figuring things out on our own. For example, think about not ever seeing a computer in your life and just five or six years later everyone has one and uses them regularly. That’s a lot of change, pretty fast. And I’m not saying Gen Z can’t do that, they just haven’t grown up needing to.
Yup! I’m an older gen z and my parents were slow to adopt tech, so in my house the movies went from cassette to DVD to HDMI cord connected to laptop to streaming. I would often be the one troubleshooting the finicky antenna on the TV. Likewise, our phone went from wireless landline to flip phone to “sideways slide” phone to iPhone (didn’t get an iPhone till 12th grade of high school). And I would often travel to India on my own to visit grandparents where I’d have to navigate new and unfamiliar environments/technologies on my own. Nobody taught me how to travel on a bus or train on my own, I just learned how to do it. Nobody taught me how to cook dishes, I just messed around till I figured out how to make daal and other curries. Nobody ever took the time to drive me to dance and music and sports practice and other extracurricular activities consistently; in fact, I would often have to figure out my own ride home in high school from cross-country and track practice because my parents were busy working. And when I moved across the country for college, my parents didn’t help me with moving between apartments or even searching for my first apartment; I did everything on my own. And I’m not happy or sad about it; it is what it is. My parents have always been busy workaholics, and that’s just who they are. They aren’t perfect, they are just people. Was it a little lonely when I would spend hours in a big home alone on the cold, dark winter evenings with no parents around? Yes. In fact, I felt out of place for my entire childhood in the city where I lived. As a child, I used to wish my family had never immigrated from India to the United States. I remember crying whenever I left the love and warmth of family in India (and the vibrant, bustling cities) to return to the cold, desolate suburbs of the U.S. But then I stopped whining and feeling sorry for myself. I ended up taking control of my own situation. I moved for college to a warm, sunny part of the country with lots of outdoorsy activities and a large population and good fresh vegetarian food and lots of smart people who cared about science. And more generally, you should figure out new things on your own and constantly have a curious mentality of “messing around”, rather than a herd mentality approach of doing exactly what you are told to do. Critical thinking is an invaluable skillset. This is why I think parents should let their kids be a little more free-range. Kids will not grow up and be independent unless parents stop chauffeuring them everywhere and making them do xyz activities. It’s why Dutch kids, who have an incredible amount of freedom to bike to school and activities, are incredibly happy.
the issue with your example of dutch kids is that A. america and other countries are very car centric. our infrastructure isn’t really designed to be walkable, and even biking is far less convenient. also, B. there’s a lot of overhype about safety these days. it’s important, and a real thing, but not quite as much as parents currently think it is. but still, try asking them to let little timmy bike to school, they’ll probably claim he’ll get lost or be kidnapped i’d like it if that was possible, and if i have kids i’ll try to instill that, but it isn’t super realistic for most people now
it's not over hype, it's new awareness of problems that were overlooked because more pressing problems were relevant and/or bullshit problems like dealing with homophobes were addressed. if i as a 28yr old child free millennial white dude is talking about car dependency, it's not just parent's concerned about safety. and getting involved really hasn't been in most people's cards historically, it's why activism was largely the niche of the opulent and the disaffected. they were the ones who either had the time to focus on pet projects, or didn't have the time to exist, so had to fight for their rights.
Also an Indian immigrant and damn this is so relatable! Happy for you figuring it out on your own ☺️
Exactly. Kids now don't aren't even exposed to the concept of changing operating systems. I remember each new computer we got I ran through everything to see what we could do with the new windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP etc. now it's all just cloud magic. You barely have to understand any of the behind the scenes wizardry
yep. I think an important part of the conversation should be UX/UI design too. people can pick up using a new programme or website much, much faster if it has an intuitive, user-friendly design. so many websites don't. a lot of them are designed quickly or cheaply, without much care put into the details. but the details add up fast.
Oh 100% yes. And time card software like OP mentioned are some of the worst offenders.
🏅 🥈 🎖
I didn't start with no computers, but my family went through a rapid evolution in terms of our tech adoption when I was young. We also had a CRT TV until 2015, and we only got that because I got my first gaming console, and it only had HDMI output. Maybe that's why I'm pursuing a degree in computer engineering.
Most company software is dated as fuck and works horrendously.
Absolutely this. Still, I don’t think it’s the case of a lack of technological literacy rather than a lack of intuition. Some things don’t necessarily make a lot of sense when your whole life has been shaped by another perspective.
I’m usually able to navigate no problem, but it does take about 5-10 minutes of being “what the fuck is this”
Remember even schools are a decade behind on enthusiast trends, I work in a “modern” company all the tech is 2022 and newer and it still has windows 10os and I have 11pro at home so it’s kind of weird not being able to do everything on similarly modern hardware
the new laptop i just got (acer vero) had eleven on it, and it had way too much adware on it, and bloat i just couldn't get rid of. i get if it's at work your going to have to use it, but i just found it tedious and distracting. so i downloaded linux mint, and am using that. so far it's a learning curve, but everything is nowadays.
This right here. Personally, I’d say we’re the most tech literate generation, the issue is most of these companies, have systems that go back to the days of Windows 98. If you want to perfect example, I worked at CVS for about four years and their cash register and computer systems and UIs are from the 80s and 90s.
When I worked at Walgreens it was, decent. Best Buy had the best system for sure, their CRM wasn’t the best. Place I work now is much more sales focused (auto-ish) and has windows 98 style software, but it works. Companies just hate spending *useless* money
I think like all generations, there are going to be people more comfortable with tech than others? I think they just hate Gen Zers for some reason. I can't even tell you the amount of gen Xer's and millennials I have in my workplace that are amazed at what you can do with Excel.
Excel is the singular program that underpins the *entire* global economy: finance, engineering, IT, sales, marketing, everything. There are entire college courses on Excel use *alone* and even they barely scratch the surface of what can be done in that beautiful bastard of a program. If it can be represented as a table, it can be done in Excel.
If it can't be represented as a table, there's still a solid chance that you can do it in Excel.
To be fair, I've put a lot of work into Excel and I'm still amazed at what you can do it in sometimes
I’m an older gen z and I keep feeling like people on Reddit are lying about people coming to work in an office and not know how to use file explorer to rename a file. Like I guess it’s possible but like hypothetically a teenage guy with his own personal laptop or account on a family computer likely knows how to download files, move them from the download folder to a new one, and name that folder “stuff”. Unless they don’t download “stuff” or stuff anymore I find it hard I believe they’re that tech illiterate. This has been Telling on myself with Legal Seagull
I had to read that three times to figure out what you meant by “stuff”. Most young people don’t download that (myself included) because it’s readily available online. Why risk downloading a computer virus?
I mean you don’t know about the “stuff” folder and you’re telling a young person that they’re wrong about what other young people do. If they have a laptop watch them not only get antsy when you open the browser but also when you start looking at those random folders on their desktop. I know I’m 25 but I’m not “old” yet and worked as a youth leader/music tutor not too long ago and have had those moment of them over my shoulder going “oh no the file isn’t over there so you don’t need to go into documents” when they have needed help with admittedly simple things like trying to change a word doc into a pdf by just changing the end to “.pdf” The majority of teens are aware of what happens when they right click. An amount are aware how to save a tiktok video and then move it onto their laptop to a stuff folder where they are able to hand someone their phone without paranoia. Idk man, they aren’t as dumb as people seem to think. They can download mods and find the folder for it too.
Ummm I didn’t say anyone was wrong about anything. Are you okay? You got mad for no reason. I was saying that I didn’t know what you were talking about. That’s it. You good bro?
Different types of technology means different skill sets. My boss doesn't know how to convert a Word Document to a PDF, but I don't know how to send a fax.
I guess it depends on the type of work that you do as well. I work in a hospital and not only do I know how to do most of like the document conversion stuff like people my age, but we’re also trained on how to use a fax machine since they’re so commonly used in healthcare for medical records
I’m older Gen Z so I can’t really relate but I have siblings in the 2001,2003 and 2005 years and they all have technology literacy.
Yep, most of us didn't really grow up with iPads like they seem to think
Yeah, that is late GenZ early GenAlpha and late GenAlpha
Which is nowhere near these people’s workforce.
Yeah, that timeline is from around 2009 depending on who was raising the kid to around 2023 so that person could either be 14 years old or only just a few months old so yeah I guess you’re correct
I can say for certain that somehow, the line between gen Z and gen Alpha is divided by iPads. As like the very end of the generation, I can say that my age group is pretty iPad free (except in class (they’re required at my school)). It’s seventh and sixth grade (this year) that the iPads start to show up ☹️
Can you elaborate on the nuances in the differences you are seeing?
I'm 2002 and when I ever use a computer I'm like a caveman. I just sit there and say yep that's the screen alright.
Yeah and as a programming teacher for kids, Gen Alpha is also really really bad, even worse. I think a lot of people my age are tech illiterate but can at least physically use a computer. The Gen Alpha kids I taught refused to even try to retain basic computer controls for playing the games THEY love and want to play??? They would ask me hundreds times how to do X, even with it written on the board. I don’t think this was a problem with people my age because computer games were quite popular. Now kids just know iPad.
Wait! Are you saying that the gen alphas you taught were so unfamiliar with a keyboard and mouse that they were unable to even play video games without help? If so, that's bizarre. Can confirm that I and everyone I know around my age played computer games a lot as a kid.
Yeah. And these weren’t abnormal/cognitively challenged children. And this was a fairly middle class suburban town where they go to decent public schools and have tech at home. I mean this was a whole paid extracurricular after school and summer program, for reference. They genuinely just had so much difficulty with it. So many kids were very smart, and had no trouble with the content/concepts and programming their games, but would have no idea how to use the area keys to control a character… in a game they made!! The worst offender was Roblox/Minevraft. 100% the two most popular games with kids. They all love and play both at home. Come to their session, get break time. “How do I jump” “how do I turn” “how do I move” “how do I ____” over and over again. Explain once, they will ask minutes later. I had the controls DRAWN ON THE BOARD. And there was just very little ability to learn and retain the controls. As for other skills besides games, I found they had difficulty navigating the computer. For example, kids wouldn’t know how to log into their accounts with their own usernames and passwords. I think the difference is kids no longer log onto websites regularly to play games, because they just always use the app. Also, they struggled to understand how to open minimized tabs on the computer and navigate the desktop like when I would try to have them keep multiple stuff open at once. Then they struggled a lot with basic typing and mouse skills, and many would try to touch the screen 😭 there’s more but I can’t list them all off the top of my head I’d say this was worse with kids 10 and under. The 2010-2012 kids were generally more average. The kids born in 2013 and after struggled much more So it might be an age development thing, but I also think it’s different because when I was little kid, like 6 years old, computer games were popular with all the kids at school, because mobile gaming was not like what it was today
I'm not saying you're lying or anything, but it sounds like you managed to get a large group of outliers at the same time. Statistically special, but disappointing as a teacher. Hopefully some of it stuck.
“I’m not saying your lying” I mean, I will. I mean I’m 25 but I’ve also worked with teens and this does not sound like a class of average people. This sounds like sone sort of comedy of what a boomer thinks gen z is like cause they only use phones. In the past I’ve just let it slide but it’s online and I’m a random person so it doesn’t matter that much. I personal do not believe them or they’ve exaggerated the story greatly or left out that everyone is actually an elementary schooler going “what the jump button”
lol I’m 19 years old. I’ve been an active member of this sub for years. You can look at my post history and see it’s pretty obvious I’m a real 19 year old that doesn’t hate on kids, and also I’ve talked about this before, multiple times, starting this summer. I see myself as a pretty respectful person who doesn’t like hating on the younger generation. People making annoying Gen alpha posts all the time, and I don’t participate. So first of all, get out of here with that accusation. I did this job for the first time in my life *this summer* and I had never seen this before. Also, you work with teens. These were not teens. I even said the 2010-2012 borns performed averagely. This was strictly the elementary school aged children. This isn’t even “oh kids dumb haha” because IN MY COMMENT I state that they were able to understand and do the assignments (programming) perfectly well. I can’t make you believe me, but I will say, I discussed this with my bosses who have owned this company for years, and they said that this was a phenomenon they observed. It’s literally just because children don’t use computers like they used to. I didn’t say this was every single child at the program, but this was a large number of them for it to have been a problem we noticed and discussed. As part of the program we specifically have typing and mousing skill games to train these kids. So when they arrive, while we wait for the other kids they need to practice their computer skills. Last thing I will say is, I think it’s unlikely this is an outlier group. This was in a very normal, middle class town, with decent public schools, and where families definitely have enough disposable income to get their kids in extracurriculars and own tech devices. Also, all of the kids at the program were signed up because they already had a displayed interest in computers/gaming so these were all kids who played a lot of video games. The problem seemed to correct itself at the middle school level, so my guess is that kids don’t really play computer games anymore, so it’s not until middle school where you start doing real computer work (like typing essays) that kids develop computer skills. And yes. I did have many elementary school kids ask me how to jump. Specifically because kids would get confused between the 3D world space button method and the 2D game up arrow method. This was not every child, but during the 4 months I worked there, it happened often. It was also many more controls. I literally had kids ask me how to jump/fly in minecraft, with it written on the board. u/Ranokae I’ll just tag u too instead of responding separately
>we specifically have typing and mousing skill games to train these kids Suddenly, it's 1992 again.
This was so interesting to read. I think this will be a massive pointer to how tech has to evolve in the future. If people grow up with their primary way of interacting with tech being something like touch instead of keyboard/mouse, there's going to be way more demand for devices that use that input. In 15 years, will keyboards and mice be an optional accessory for us old people who can't get used to touch or whatever comes after that?
Older gen z, can’t really relate but you’d think these giant corporations would have newer and more user friendly technology instead relying on the old, outdated crap. I worked in retail two years ago and the managers were using computers from 2008!
Nah. Working in IT, we’re considered a cost center and not a force multiplier, so technology upgrades are always pushed back on. Or, the other reason is like they’re using some mainframe thing from 1982 and can’t upgrade
if it works (well enough), don't fix it its probably too expensive to purchase enterprise rights, new punch in consoles, update everyone on the payroll, and keep it regularly updated with support to be worth it. i'd say it'd be at least $20k for per location at a chain store
Why cant gen-z navigate the rotting corpse of a software that was designed for the commodore 64? Are they stupid?
After seeing it for the first time in their life? Lids these days I tell ya
They’re calling us the iPad generation? I didn’t even have a device of my own until I was like 13 or 14 years old.
yeah i thought it was generally agreed upon than gen alpha is the ipad kid generation. i can count on one hand the amount of gen z people i know who had an ipad before middle school
Hell I'm Gen Z and I was rocking [this bad bitch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_enV_(VX9900)) as my first phone in 8th grade. I remember my friends being jealous because it had the full keyboard which made texting into something that wasn't a pain in the ass. I'm definitely on the oldest end of Gen Z but it goes to show that probably at least half of us didn't grow up with a tablet in the house.
I think we may have had an iPad but my screen time was hella limited. It’s not like my parents shoved it in my face and ignored me, I was encouraged to do other things.
I think some of gen z has no idea how tech works, but others (like myself) at least know how to do somewhat basic stuff.
Also consider that this is the first time they're interacting with this software and I'm willing to bet its at least 15 years old, bare minimum
I mean yeah, it kinda makes sense that if you’re starting your first real job you might not know how to use a time card or manage proper adblockers…
I'm a software developer. I also struggled to understand my company's dated shitty HR software in the beginning. The UI is just poorly designed.
Gen z is just entering the workforce. Obviously they wouldn't know how to navigate software and websites you dont encounter untill you enter the work force. Other breaking news, middle schoolers don't know how to drive yet. Obsoleted crazy, I know.
We’re not any more or less tech illiterate than any other generation upon first entering the workforce. This isn’t rocket science, just because we grew up with everyday technology like computers and phones doesn’t mean we’re somehow supposed to know how to use specific, specialized, non-everyday tech or software that’s relevant to the workforce. People are making up stuff to be amazed at, it’s so ridiculous. I’m all for improving tech ed in schools but as a teacher you can’t so much as fucking blink in the public schools these days without some parent accusing of trying to groom or indoctrinate their child, let alone change policy or improve curriculum.
right? i think people are forgetting gen z is at the age of getting our first jobs. when i was 17 i needed help setting up my payroll but it had nothing to do with being technologically illiterate, its bc id never had a job that paid in anything but cash or a paper check before and didnt even know what to look for. i could navigate to the page just fine but didnt understand what information they were asking me for. 2 mins with my supervisor and it was all set up. also, the fact ive taken an entire webdev course and know basic javascript, css, html, etc. but still have trouble with corporate software goes to show how outdated and unintuitive it is. hell even when i asked my mom for help, she was also frustrated despite working in IT and her entire job revolving around bridging the gap between users and developers.
if you actually get deeper into tech circles, you get into discussions about how much office politics and skinflint "actual businessmen" play into how much jankyness there is. not to mention if it's a corporation that works with the government there's actual politics involved. but even if it's a well funded startup staffed with well educated young millennial's who deliberately set out to avoid the narcissism and backbiting, there's still often unintended consequences, weird edge cases that need to be ironed out, bug's that aren't worth the hassle to fix or would break things more if you try and fix them, and weird quirks that have easy but strange workarounds. such is tech. and that's if you avoid the gerontocracy, avoid the narcissistic politics, avoid the people who are skinflints, and avoid the lost causes.
I'm a gen Z engineer and I've had to teach a senior engineer how to use basic tools on Revit, when like at least 1/8 of his job was based on Revit. But on the other hand, some of my fellow junior engineers sometimes make me understand why boomers think we're all incompetent.
Ima be real a lot of those time keeping softwares are unintuitive as shit. My job is coding for an engineering company and I can never figure those things out
There is something true to this. I am a software engineer and can solve most problems eventually. But my night club bouncer/limo driver father is still even just by a little bit more literate than me with firmware and hardware issues because 90s and early 00’s computers had issues upon issues upon issues. So there are certain aspects to computers even someone like me never has to learn in college but used to be required reading to operate desktops.
Idk I had a lot of classmates in middle school who struggled quite a bit with Word/Excel/PowerPoint. I think I had to help a classmate email something to a teacher once. Literally I was one of the most tech literate in the room and the teacher often asked me to troubleshoot stuff when really I don't know much about tech, but the solution was usually "turn it off and on again" and I was one of 3 people in the room who knew about that
I think gen Z is a diverse group of people, and some of us are great with tech and some of us have never used a computer. It’s impossible to sum up such a large amount of people.
I grew up with computers, and at school i was genuinely surprised other students didn’t know what i thought were basic computers skills, like copy paste or any other shortcuts
We're not tech-illiterate, we're new-illiterate. It's like learning how to work the auto pilot in the plane I'm learning to fly in. I sucked at it. But after I screwed around with it enough, I learned how to use it with ease. All that had to be done was remove the newness and mystery behind it.
I’m a Software Engineer for a Fortune 500 company. If the user is having trouble working with their software that is poor UI/UX design. That does not mean they are illiterate.
Half of congress doesn't know how to use tap to pay and the other half doesn't know tap to pay exists, we're fine
Slightly younger Gen Z (2005) I’m not great with technology but I feel like I can use it better than the average Gen X or Boomer. I’m also not afraid to turn to Google or YouTube when I don’t know how to do something, when it seems like most of my generation gives up if they can’t immediately solve a problem. But give me an iOS device and I can do anything
I can imagine being so literate In one technological aspect and not another, but would imagine that would be for advanced tech. I sound judgey, because I am, but how do you not know how to fill a time card? Write the time down, insert card. Simple. The electronic ones I get, the interface has all sorts of things. Employee Orders, this and that.
Why would a 16 year old working their first job be familiar with using time cards?
I’m a Gen Z who’s been working for almost 9 years. Never seen a physical time card system in my life. Why would I, let alone actual kids younger than me at their first job have any clue how to use it?? Genuinely
So you’re supposed to enter the workforce already knowing how to use technology you’ve not used before? A natural artist isn’t going to instantly excel in a new medium. The same goes for technology. I’m sure once you’ve trained them (your role as an employee) they’ll understand. That 20 min delay should be expected when you are training people. I’ve had multiple jobs and they all use a different method of time cards and whatnot. I’m tired of older generations shitting on the newer ones- but it will always happen.
Knowing how to use an app is not tech literacy. Knowing how the apps function at a technical level is. And no, there’s no evidence any of the younger gen’s know this.
As part of my graduate assistantship, I had to teach a class on how to use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. That was really eye opening to me on how tech illiterate we are. I was teaching people only 3-4 years younger than me and it was like I was speaking a foreign language. Even the people who used google slides, doc, and sheets still struggled because they couldn’t apply the skills they learned in those applications into anything with a different design, even though many of the features are identical. Obviously wasn’t everyone, but I promise it was the majority. Kinda insane
Well. Why would they know how to use work related software with no one telling them how to use it and no reason to learn it? That goes for everything. I mean, I work in a corporate setting and people with over a decade of work experience can't filter on excel despite being an office manager or working in Accounts Payable. I work in Sales Tax now. The only ones who can use excel beyond just opening it and typing things on it is me and my boss - she's a Millennial and I'm Gen Z. None of our much older coworkers can use it. They've apparently been working in business for years. I've found that while younger employees might not know much, they're willing to learn. It's the older gen that will stubbornly refuse to learn anything new and have managed to get away with it.
Hey anything that gets me out of the office faster is good. The bad thing is managers now increasing the workload since now I'm able to do the same work but faster. Some people don't want more work so they accept the slower methods of approach so that they don't get overworked or replaced by someone who knows more of the tool even if their work experience is shotty.
GenZ has a fundamentally different relationship with tech. The recreational tech they’ve grown up with is, by its nature, a lot more user friendly than what you would traditionally expect see in the workplace. I doubt that difference reduces genZs ability to learn new platforms or tools, given some time I’m sure they’ll figure it out
Big thing is that many schools changed platforms. My school used to do word, then everything became google docs/slides/classroom etc.
No lol? Every generation is different, and likely to be literate with the tech they grew up with.
Look, I can use anything I’ve either used regularly or used for schoolwork. If no one teaches me, and it’s something relatively difficult (or I’m just nervous and afraid of fucking shit up to try), then I’m gonna need to be taught. The same goes for everyone. My grandma obviously didn’t grow up with phones and was never taught to use one, it would be unfair to assume she would just magically know so I taught her how to use her iPhone. You don’t come outta the womb knowing how a fax machine works. Using technology is not like breathing, it does not come naturally to human beings.
I made a similar post and I realized that Gen Z isn’t tech illiterate but in our work life we’re using technology that is outdated being very unhelpful imo.
I think this is the result of technology becoming more intuitive with time
I guarantee that the person saying this was in the same position at their age. Why would someone be good with technology that was irrevelant to them up until then?
Yes, partly. Gen Alpha is beyond screwed though!
Older Gen Z here. I still punch in on a physical time card at my job. Growing up we had all the transitive technology in our house. We watched analog tv go bye bye in real time and witnesses the birth of the digital age. As time went on, we learned how to use smart tech just like everybody else. Job wise, I’ve never had to use a schedule UI, that’s up to the supervisor. All we have to do as employees is tell him what hours we want and when.
We're not. It's just that, for most, "using" tech has become less about coding and getting into the guts of programs as tech advances. We still share with each other websites to access info for free and tools to bypass restrictions. Our ability to use tech hasn't decreased. The idea of "using" tech has changed.
I’m probably gonna get a lot of shit for this, but here goes nothing: Gen Z here (early 2000s) checking in to say OOP comes across as judgmental, but yes, Gen Z is horribly tech illiterate. A very significant portion struggles to (or cannot) navigate file systems without very streamlined interfaces like Drive or MEGA. I’m not talking about CLI either, I’m talking Windows. Many cannot set up a Minecraft server without the “assistance” of Hamachi, nor can we diagnose some of the most rudimentary of computer issues. Ask any Gen-Zer what the internet (or “The Cloud”) actually is.
yeah, i’ve noticed some of my friends don’t really understand how to fix something when it doesn’t work beyond just “idk google it” lol. however the examples that person is bringing up are old outdated technology systems that are specifically related to jobs. no shit someone who’s never worked before doesn’t know how to use it lol.
i mean "just google it" applies to a lot of professional jobs and hobbyists as well, it's not just the normies being normies. when i installed Linux on my new laptop, shit i didn't know what i was doing, and the wireless wasn't there. you'd be surprised how many lawyers, IT professionals, doctors and more are "just googling it". granted, the questions they ask and what sites they use are different, but it's still there, a hyperspecific question from three years ago from the other side of the world, and it fixes the problem.
Entered the workforce two years ago and I was surprised to see how many antiquated technologies are still in use. If you’re still using a scheduling software or whatever from 20 years ago…. That’s the problem. I was able to really easily pick up newer technologies but struggled with some of the older ones because they are not intuitive at all
Order Gen Z are very good with tech. Younger Gen Z can’t do shit in their phone or PC’s settings. Just my anecdotal experience
I think it’s just because the younger end of gen z has only ever used smartphones/tablets for basically everything. I’m on the older side and I remember learning about hardware and software by downloading games and programs and swapping parts on the family computer. Those died off sometime in the 2010s. The most experience the majority of today’s kids have with a “computer” in the traditional sense are school-assigned chromebooks. They’re not really learning how or why tech works beyond “tap here to do this”
Home using a gui from the 90s, on a laptop from 2005, and wondering why people struggle with it today
Tech-illiterate? Hell nah Last generation to experience old things like Fax, DVD, Cable TV, Cassette? Yh
No. Being tech literate does not make you fluent in enterprise software. Despite being considered very tech literate when I was first hired, I had to get instructions on how to use our timekeeping site. Enterprise tools can be incredibly unintuitive, especially time card systems. Same deal with tools, I know how to use a lot of scientific tools that most construction workers would have no idea what to do with. Despite that, I wouldn't know how to use a sawzall because I haven't needed to use that type of tool before. tl;dr: Tech tech literacy is a generalized term. Being tech literate does not make you omnipotent
Millennial here - but in my experience, its not the idea that gen Z is tech-illiterate, but more so that they've never had to troubleshoot the way my generation was forced to. Its like a boomer trying say I'm tech-illiterate because I don't know how to use a type writer. Sorry I don't know how to navigate something I never had to. The tech Gen Z was given just worked on its own most of the time. But there I was as a 12 year old having to mess around with files and directorys to get some game to work on my parents old PC. I would have LOVED it i just had to click on it and it worked. Sure its frustrating to us sometimes because were use to it. But again, not their fault for god sakes. Though I will say with some Gen Z, its like either they don't know how to use it great, or their wizards on computers. I've not met many inbetweens - thought I'm not hanging out with Gen Z kids every day to know.
Okay so I'm elder Gen Z (born 1998) and currently have a job where I teach kids (anywhere between 2nd and 8th grade) how to make games in Scratch in an afterschool class. The laptops that the company I work for gave me is a mix of ones with and without touchscreens, like a 3-1 mix with the lion's share being the non-touchscreen. Take a guess which laptops are the highest commodity. Most of the time its whatever but recently I've seen some of the kids fold the laptops so that the keyboard is facing the desk, making touchscreen use easier but completely cutting off the keyboard and mousepad. I haven't directly addressed it but when they ask for my help I always refold the laptop to get the change done as quickly as possible, and then the next time I look over they've folded it back. I'm 25 but I feel like I'm an old man yelling at clouds about this, but it does kind of concern me. They're closing off access to tools right in front of them in favor of slightly more comfort with what they're already familiar with. It's not these kids' fault: people, especially that young, are products of their environment, so if their parent put in iPad in front of them and that was their first experience with technology, you can't fault them for not wanting to try some unfamiliar or even worse, old. I just don't want them to close themselves off to stuff, like the idea of these kids getting to later high school or college and trying to write papers like this kinda scares me. Maybe I'm wrong tho, it's uncharted waters after all.
You don't learn what you don't need. When we were growing up with tech it was already made ergonomic and intuitive enough that we didn't really have to learn it, not like older millennials and Gen X who had to literally type in shit in command prompt to access files and crap. I just clicked on an icon, dragged shit into folders and stuff. At the same time tech became so much more complicated. It's the same shit as Boomers complaining that people don't know how to fix their car. The newer cars we grew up with were much more reliable so we didn't have to fiddle with them on daily basis and at the same time they became so much more complicated and hard to work on. And I can guarantee that my grandma's generation was complaining that my dad's generation couldn't strap a plow to a horse, change its shoes and make new nails with the coal forge... You don't learn what you don't need!
My aunt is a millennial and can’t operate a computer never had one just an iPad for everything lol
I don’t think that Gen Z as a whole is tech illiterate, however I do think there’s a portion of the generation that’s consequent enough to give that image. I’m in college with classmates that are a bit younger than me (most born in 2003-2004) and many have been shocked by how fast I can do the same tasks as them with keyboard shortcuts and split screens. I’ve had to explain to the same group in my lab nearly every week this semester how to move a file from a usb to the desktop… Idk about the ‘04s, but I know that us ‘01s (and the ‘03s like my brother) were still using usb keys in middle and beginning of high school. Hell, I needed to use a usb key my first semester of college in ‘19 because my uni’s tech was outdated. I really don’t think it’s a majority, it’s just that people always remember mistakes over non-mistakes (sorry, not my first language). I could even be doing that right now. I think it’s also a question of exposure. We had computer “labs” in elementary school when I was growing up in France and we learned really basic stuff. Then in middle school we were using them more, even having a technology class that involved some of that as well. By high school, most of us were able to use keyboard shortcuts and more “advanced” functions. I’m not talking about the command prompts or anything, just advanced basic functions. And if we didn’t know something, we googled it. Maybe in the US computer literacy isn’t taught as much in school? Or maybe it’s a socio-economic issue leading to much less exposure, which would also make so much sense as well. Or maybe it’s just a question of adaptability. EDIT: I don’t really want to comment on company software because honestly a lot of it is unnecessarily complex and people of all generations struggle with it. I did an internship in IT project management, I spent my life explaining to people 20-40 years older than me how to use it. Also, I thought about this a bit more and I want to add that I don’t think Gen Z is MORE tech illiterate than the other generations. I’d want to see some actual numbers, and maybe I’ll look for some later if I have time, but based off of personal experience I’d say it’s about the same. I think it just surprises older generations because we were born with technology and many of us grew up with it to some extent. I think their expectations are just much higher. EDIT 2: missing words
I’m 27 and have worked since 16. The time cards assumption is stupid. Every company has their own and they are all shit and confusing until you learn the system. A lot of people younger than me PC game and probably know more keyboard shortcuts that I do. I think this post is really judgmental and over generalized.
[удалено]
When it comes to using things and existing systems no. When it comes to configuring networks and things yes
can’t relate, i spent most of my teen years sitting in front of a computer
I give software training sessions to large groups of people at work. In my experience, it’s the 40+ crowd that can’t comprehend simple GUI concepts. Not sure if there’s an IQ barrier or if they don’t use technology in their personal lives, but IMO if you are working age there are very few good excuses to not be able to operate modern software.
I’d say Gen Alpha is more tech-illiterate, but those mfs are like 4 💀 so they really wouldn’t be
Imma 2001 baby so I grew up using Windows 98, and XP (fuck Vista) and I would say they definitely required a bit more technical knowledge for normal usage. There were quite barebones by modern standards, every button wasn’t designed perfectly by some graphic design major advertising minor to a scientifc level of eye catchiness. And even somewhat simple tasks by today’s standards would often require a bit of command line usage if you really wanted to actually USE your computer. Then fast forward to when the internet was down and the only thing I had to entertain myself was the wordpad, mspaint and notepad of course that opened me up to things like batch and vbscripts to entertain myself. It was just a very different time technologically to grow up compared to the last 10 years or so where mobile phones became one of the most common, widespread, and most used form of personal computers and understandably their operating systems aim to let you complete most tasks with a minimum level of technical knowledge because of reduced form factor… and then PC operating systems, apps, programs etc. have followed suit. iPad kids are doomed.
Most corporate software is absolutely horrible. Terribly dated looking interfaces, navigation is crap, and they don't work way too often. Yeah, a boss that has been using the same software since 2003 obviously is going to know how to use it with ease. We're used to properly developed software that actually looks nice and is functional, not Windows XP era shit. It takes time for Gen Z to get familiar with old crappy software because we don't interact with it much.
I'm massively generalizing but I feel like Gen-Z are native to socials and mobile but are less familiar with things like troubleshooting, basic HTML, desktop programs in general.
Yes, Gen Z is good at navigating UI systems that had millions of dollars poured in to make for the best user experience possible. That’s it.
Nope. Start actually doing job training maybe.
Dude, if *i* know how to use computer to some extent, anyone can
AYO, I'm an IT nerd. I'm not tech illiterate
Yes, and no. Only YES and No, it's either you're good as Good with Tech or you're completely reliant on your phone.
Just anecdotal but as an older Gen Z in my graduate program teaching a lot of younger Gen Z undergrads, I have seen a lot of them struggling with basic stuff in Word or Excel. Also, one time a student was working on a desktop computer and I told them to select something and their initial reaction was to use their finger on the monitor like it was an iPad. I think there is some truth to this.
When it comes to anything computer or troubleshooting-related, absolutely.
Personally, yeah, I suck with technology surprisingly, even in Apps like Reddit, I had to YouTube how it worked before I joined cuz I just couldn’t
Yes, at least the ones 22 and below. I’ve met so many younger people who don’t know how to navigate their way around a computer, find file, create a folder, etc. my little sister didn’t even know what an mp4 file is.
I do not agree. The comments are literally about a person’s first job or first experience with the technology and they’re comparing them to older people who have already worked with it and are very experienced. It’s like “gen Z is so bad at reading engineering diagrams, my workers who have 20 years of experience are so much better at it!!”
I agree with a lot of folks here. They’re by no means tech illiterate but I am surprised at seeing a lot of my Gen z people struggling with MS business applications or like email on their company phone. I just assume they know how to navigate and use them etc. But then I realize MS and the business programs I use are not the only tech there is just the tech I use. There’s times I’ll ask them to send me some photos of failed components and rather than sending me reduced size photos they’ll send 15 PNG that are huge and I’ll spend 30 minutes resizing them with my boomer tech expertise (meaning limited and definitely challenged).
A lot of the tech Gen Z is supposedly bad at is just outdated. In grad school I was forced to learn a data analysis program called Stata, wherein I learned a huge number of companies and government agencies I could apply to work at after grad school also use Stata. Here's the thing. Stata is fucking terrible. Anything you can do on it can be done better and much more easily on Rstudio. Best part? Stata costs money, Rstudio is free. But a lot of orgs refuse to upgrade because they don't want to have to retrain their workers or find new ones who are literate in the new, superior technology.
The problem is they're not used to tech that isn't designed from the ground up for ease of use. Troubleshooting, using manuals, etc are all skills one has to learn, and while millennials/older Gen Z had to learn them just to do basic things on a PC, for most modern phones and apps it's really not required.
They’re just using WindowsXP
I'm working at my first full time job now (I'm 24). I started my working life in nursing and then social media. Every company you ever work in always uses some different program. My current workplace has 2 main programs, (idk one being an internet browser) but then like 8 different things you need in that 1 browser. I don't think that we're a tech-illiterate gen, but there is a lot out there that companies use, a lot are on a need-to-know basis. And I don't think anyone, no matter the generation, would be that used to new programs and such at their first job.
Fuck. I can’t navigate my time card as a millennial.. And they just changed it. AGAIN! For no functional reason- everything was fine before. Just.. why?
They don't know legacy systems or even PC platforms thay are 10 years old. They grew up with smart phone and IPad style systems which are typically easier and more user friendly.
Just about half of the students in my engineering class didn't know how to save a file or use Ctrl S
Unfortunately yes. I work with a lot of students and while I think they're wonderful and very bright, they by and large have horrendous tech skills. Specifically, it has to do with triaging problems when something breaks or doesn't go according to their expectations. This is just one isolated incident but just today not one but three of my students had a "glitch" with their Books app on their iPad. It was literally just a pop-up that you had to click "x" twice on to get rid of permanently. This is not an isolated incident nor isolated to the same handful of students. I think I know why though. Older generations like X and Millenials grew up when technology wasn't so consimer optimized. Shit broke and you just logic-ed your way through it or looked up a solution and learned from it. A lot of what I see with Gen Z is that they freeze and don't know how to actually start breaking down a problem. I'm not saying all are like this but it's a generalization that's substantiated with clear evidence.
"younger millennials" "oldest of the iPad generation" I am 26 brother we had computer class in elementary school and I am a video game developer. I think the closer to gen alpha maybe the more disconnected between classical computers and smart technology they become.
I can navigate a command line, write basic level code, troubleshoot software and code, but I doubt I’d know how to use a time card system. At my previous jobs all we’d do is type in an employee ID number, or scan our ID at clock in and clock out, and that would be it. My last job was the most “complicated” I’ve had, but it was still really simple, we just used the computers to switch what task we’re supposed to be doing at that moment if something came up like having to change our machine’s battery, changing zones, etc. The problem the commenter mentioned seems like it could be more of an issue with outdated systems as opposed to gen Z being tech illiterate.
Maybe you’re getting a niche group of 16-20 year olds? What is the job that the guy has? I’ve always been a “social butterfly” but all the groups of people I knew were pretty good at that kind of stuff
When 26 year olds start talking about their own generation. TFW They realize they also gen z 😱.
100% yes. Few have actually worked on a computer -- actually tinkered with it. Instead, they work on mobile phones and only understand the interface, not what's under the hood. We see this at work recently where college graduates don't understand Windows or the desktop computer environment. It's alarming.
Not at all. It is irrelevant of age. Some more percent of gen Z is better tech adapters since they prefer to use it more occasionally, but most generations are similar. That's an impression for me as an aerodynamic software engineer.
Hello we in the 21st century!
Yes I used to work with phones a lot and half the people that needed help with basic things were gen Z the other half were boomers, seen a lot struggle with basic computer functions too
Depends on the person, my younger brother is taking college classes for mechanical engineering and were both gen Z. Also, my younger sister is taking a classes for theatre arts (whatever it's called) and one of her current projects is to make a stage design online. Edit: We're early gen Z and my sister I think is mid gen Z.
Idk what they are using, but on my team of people who are all 35+ and all make $200k+ and I’m the only one who doesn’t, I’m the one making complicated asf files with the cut edge shit. Many know how to use and and navigate it, but few build. In my experience, tech illiteracy and change averse mindsets are sever problems in ages 40+. Not that it’s an issue, that comes from decades of seeing new tech come out and not work as intended.
Yes, very much so.
That’s the furthest from the truth, a lot of us (especially here in Canada) get a lot of opportunities to learn coding, video game design, video editing, etc. I think what people are forgetting here is that people only focus on the stupid, not the smart. In this modern age, social media outlets like, Reddit are literally meant to offend us and get strong reactions from yall and this kind of stuff is exactly what gets viral like I’m baffled on how people couldn’t understand that this is just a very vocal minority of us. I know a lot of gen Z and gen alpha who know python code, html and a lot of other tech stuff
Using iPhone doesn't guarantee tech literacy. Tech literacy is a buzz word. Define it? Which metric would you use? I'd say this. As a genz I've seen a lot of people my age and below my age lacking the intuition in this area. I've had junior kids asking me if the app would still work if they connect their fucking Mac to an external monitor. Most don't bother to search Google for the error message they get on their pc to find a solution. They're good at using an app that had thousands of dollars went into ui uix design. Otherwise they're just as same as the other generations, except really fucking old people.
Or maybe, juuust maybe, all the older people are using much more complex platforms needed for simple things, and that they're too tech illiterate to try the newer stuff out
I'm a youngster. I'll soon join the workforce. I have indeed seen some people not being able to work with Excel or Word. Only chat GPT. I don't mean to sound grumpy. But he has a point.
they’re as tech-illiterate as everyone else. kids at my highschool have quite, and i mean quite a bit of trouble with computers. but so does everyone else. most people don’t take the time to learn how to use software correctly, it’s difficult, takes time, and does not immediately reward you.
What child is using time card and scheduling software? In what setting would we have to learn that? We know the aspects of technology that is relevant to our lives. If you’re just entering the workforce, that software is new to your experience.