We are the bridge generation.
We know and saw a world without the internet and we experienced it when it first came to be.
We saw the first mass produced computers and computer devices which broke often, didn’t work the way we wanted them to, they weren’t fast and they didn’t have much memory in any way. We were the first generation to see all this. Our parents were too old and busy to figure it out but we were young enough to be curious about it all. We also kept wanting to have the newest fastest hardware and software so we had no choice but to either buy, beg or steal these things to get them. We learned to swap parts, add parts, remove parts, install an OS, uninstall the OS, run backups, store data and learn it all on our own because there was no easy internet social media community to help you. Software was constantly changing and we had to keep up by either buying expensive titles or we learned about Linux and open source software or we became digital pirates or both.
Now the digital landscape has changed. Younger generations prefer handheld devices so to them everything is solid state … they never can imagine changing the RAM, HDD, SSD, CPU, GPU or the PSU or even bothering to learn what those things are. Because everything is built in and no one (or very few) people bother with fixing or tinkering with anything. There are fewer people who learn about software and about how or where to find it, install it, configure it and run it. To new generations who only know the digital world through locked devices, there was less incentive to learn or even have access to know how these things worked.
We are the bridge generation. We got to see the world without the internet and the world with one. No one before us got to see what we saw, no one after us will experience what we went through. Our civilization dramatically changed during our lifetime and we got a front row seat.
The PSU is the only thing you can change easily. I love that everything is USB-C and that I can plug in everything, everywhere.
But I’m kind of happy everyone uses handhelds, I got really tired fixing everything for my entire family and friends.
“My printer seems to be defectiv…”
Entschuldige, ich kann kein Englisch. Muss weg, keine Zeit. Bye!
The PSU might be easy in practice but all those cords are daunting to the novice. Much easier to swap the RAM or even to take out and put in a new GPU.
I love that everything is USB-C
Well, maybe things are easier now. My 12 year old PC build has a modular PSU with a bunch of different cords.
It’s like all the old geezers who cum into carbeurators but like, shouldn’t they be happy that fuel-injection is a million times better and more reliable? I work on my own car and I can handle that shit in my driveway easy but these people seem to want more work to do. Yes, Fred, carbs make more sense for dirtbikes but oh my god otherwise shut up.
As for printers yea what the fuck. They all work differently even within the same company when all they need to do is take the exact same control module, maybe two versions of it, and slap it onto different bodies. But, instead, it’s just a giant fucking mess.
I’m sure they got to us because they were too evil for hell and the devil itself got tired of them.
My buddy worked tech support for a fairly large facility. They got tired of getting calls for a busted printer, only to walk all the way across the facility to discover it was out of paper. It got to the point that if someone called about a printer, they would wait an hour before responding. If nobody else called within that hour, they assumed the issue was resolved on its own.
I’m not sure what the generation breakdown is. I’m in my 50’s and fix PCs. My brother in law is in his 70’s and fixes PCs. One of his 3 daughters (40) fixes her own PC.
It seems like it’s everyone between 40-80.
GenX is what the comment is about. Millennials were born to home computers but the early ones had to contend with much the same mess we did.
Early millennials are definitely thrown in there and remember “before the internet and cell phones” where a thing. I was flipping dip switches on my motherboard to make my swapped out components work. My first pc I got a hold of ran on dos and 5 1/4 floppies. Teens of the 90"s are probably the most pc tech literate ones.
Yeah, early millennial and OPs comment fits to a “T” for me, though I think some of my experiences had a bit more socialization in context, like ICQ, Aol chat, and MSN messenger. The rise of cell phones, text messages, T9, etc. My kids are amazed when I pull out the VHS tapes at my parents, or my dad pulls out some cassettes or vinyls (though those have been more popular of late).
I think your family are tinkerers, and they are a rare breed. A group of people who just love taking things apart, bringing them back together and doing all sorts of other things with them. My family is a bit like that but we never had the technical expertise. I’m indigenous from northern Ontario and a lot of my cousins and relations have a grade school education but there is a whole lot of excellent small engine mechanics. I have one cousin who barely spoke any English but her regularly swapped while engines from trucks to keep old vehicles running.
I tinker myself which is why I learned about computers and computer technology on my own but never to a really high level.
So every generation has their outliers and your family were probably the same group of people that made things or fixed things in earlier generations.
The comp for an older generation is cars. Cars saw similar growth and adoption in the 50s-80s. And they had similar growing pains, reliability and maintenance issues were common place. So being able to perform maintenance and having an understanding of how they work was far more wide spread than just hobbyist and professionals.
As cars advanced the need to perform field maintenance and ad hoc repairs became less required so future generations (on average) became less knowledgeable and skilled at various car repair (and modification) activities, because cars just work now so there’s really no need to worry about learning how to fix minor issues, because they’re just not a common problem.
The difference is that you don’t need to be car savvy not to get into an accident. But you do need to be tech savvy not to be at risk of cyberthreats.
Drivers truly don’t need to know how a car works, software is not like that.
Also, you can get by without a car, whereas most people need at least an email address.
Edit: I don’t understand the downvotes. Do people think that you need to know about how engines work to drive a car. Or do people don’t think you need to understand file structure to manage excel files?
You also can’t wrench on a car anymore in the way you used to. It’s all computerized and you need special software to access and configure parts.
I can’t replace my airbags without special pairing software that cost tens of thousands of dollars. It’s unlikely that I’ll learn by performing the repair because the tools are no longer available.
Eh…that’s still pretty doable. Many things actually got easier for auto work. A $12 bluetooth obdII dongle and a $4 piece of software on your phone will give you most all the trouble codes you need to diagnose problems, and that’s it it doesn’t outright tell you the issue. Almost no car parts are parts paired and thanks to the internet there’s guides that are way better than a Haines manual to show you how to fix things, as well as a dozen different places to order parts from.
In the past 15 years the only time I’ve used a mechanic was to replace a clutch.
Here I am at 41 and know how to screw with everything. I stayed inquisitive and stayed a tight ass. I think I’ve paid for a professional to do something twice in the past 20 years. I didn’t want to take on the task of replacing a clutch on a front wheel drive suv on the ground in my driveway.
Case in point: I drive an EV and I don’t think there’s a damn thing I personally can do to fix it other than maybe change a tire. It doesn’t even have a spare and I wouldn’t even know how anyway.
My god, I’m the iPad kid of cars.
There’s a lot you can still do. All the suspension, battery cooler pump, brakes, wheel bearings, a ton of things to do with the electrical system and lights, fuses and relays, window and lock motors, blinker arms and switches, fluid changes, hvac and ac components, the traction motors themselves…generally the only thing hard for a shade tree mechanic is the battery itself. They’re really heavy and hard to remove.
Now some components are going to be hard to get a hold of because there isn’t any third party companies making replacements, but eventually as need arises, they’ll get made. Until then there’s places like pick n pull where you can go take used parts off used vehicles or buy used and tested components from ebay if the manufacturer won’t sell you something. I bought a new oem hybrid battery just a couple years ago from a Toyota dealership and installed it myself.
We got to live in the most interesting times in history, so far. Most of us are depressed for it.
It’s not easy growing up in houses, watching our parents complain about tiny things while cashing huge paychecks… And now they tell us it’s our fault we can’t afford that lifestyle.
Boomers are real pieces of shit, as a whole. Not all of them, of course… But man, there’s a very real trend.
Boomers are real pieces of shit
I have some weird news for you: Generations don’t exist. Boomers? Not real. Silent Generation? Nope. Gen X? No! Millennial? Non-existent! ALL OF THEM.
It’s not like your bridge generation is the only one that know how to use a computer. To me it seems that there are a few ‘experts’ in each generation and the others don’t bother learning it. This is pretty normal and called specialization, the thing that civilization allows us to do.
I grew up with computers, there was no strict need to change OSes or even hardware (of you got prebuilts). Even so, it’s amazing what unrestricted Internet access and an interest in videogames can lead to. And I know a lot of others who either have at least the basic skills, or are studying Computer science together with me.
Perhaps there are trends in each generation, but acting like it’s just one generation that can do computer things is just wrong.
Poverty is also a driving force. I’ve never had a lot of money so I had to be creative in order to do a lot of things. I know how to fix repair and even build my own house. I know how to fix and maintain most things with all my vehicles. I know how to build fix and maintain my own computer systems because I could never afford expensive devices or to pay anyone to fix things for me.
Because I couldn’t afford much, I’ve instead had to spend most of my time doing things myself.
My 13 y o niece had no idea how to uninstall a program on a PC. I was a little stunned.
lol at everyone here just assuming everyone else is the same age as them.
I think it’s pretty clear that the post is referring to people who are old enough to grow up with computers and now have children who are old enough to be fixing computers on their own.
It feels pretty squarely aimed at millennials.
your kids will be fixing your 3D holographic projection glasses or some shit like that dont worry
A) Nuh uh because I’m not buying that bullshit in the first place
B) Not without forcing the right to repair.
Our parents didn’t think it was important. Our kids don’t think it is necessary.
Imagine how horse farmers felt about engine maintenance on the first automobiles. Early adopters probably knew everything about how to fix tractors and cars. But today, how many people know how to change their own brakes or flush the coolant?
Life evolves, and transitions come faster with every generation. It’s good that nobody knows how to use a sextant or a fax machine.
I’m still mad we print so much stuff at work, it’s 2024 just update a spread sheet. I don’t need an email much less a physical copy of something I saw the update for an hour ago
I think the modern car climate is a better comparison than the change from horse and buggy to Model T. Many people work on their own cars, but it’s mostly for fun and the increasing levels of computers and sensors in cars makes it more difficult to do all the work yourself. And then you add in the nuts and bolts car companies make that can only be unscrewed using special tools that the companies also make to force you to bring the car to one of their dealerships.
Tech literacy rates are falling like the skill to use a car with a manual transmission. Since everything kids do is on their phone, and phones are like that one car company that welded the hoods of their cars shut, they never need to pick up the skills with computer software that the work world expects them to have (but who really wants to know how to use Word and Excel anyways), nor the skills with working on your own hardware.
Sidenote: Fax machines are, unfortunately, still very much a thing. At least, if you ever have to deal with the federal government or the medical industry, they are.
It’s certainly partially that, but that’s not the whole picture. Before, every old thing “everyone” knew how to do was replaced with a new thing “everyone” knew how to do. But at the moment, is there a new thing? I can’t think of one. All but the most niche products are built to be as easy to use as possible, and if it breaks or slows down, replacement is more preferred than tinkering. I don’t see the same need anywhere to get our hands dirty that leads to widespread proficiency like the image is talking about.
Farmers right now are fighting a legal battle for the ability to repair their own tractors.
It’s not good for farm equipment to be locked down and sealed off just like it’s not good for operating systems to be locked down and sealed off.
I agree with you on that. I’d also like to be able to replace the battery on my phone or control my social media. But that wasn’t really my point. Disposable goods are bad for consumers and bad for the environment, along with fast fashion, factory farming, corporate conglomeration, and the vertical integration of news media.
And I think that’s the new frontier, which is really just reclaiming the old frontier from the profit-takers. People are learning to sew and knit, how to cook, how to farm, how to repair their stuff, and how to evaluate propaganda. That’s the shit our kids will say we never bothered to learn, and if they do it right, maybe their kids won’t have to learn.
My dad thought computers were important. He got me a VIC-20 soon as they came out, and that was $1,800 in today’s money, not an amount he spent lightly.
Kids don’t even understand file structures because modern OSs obfuscate that stuff.
Kids? Try being a manager trying to hire for entry level data work.
I got maybe one out of five people who even knew how to do basic things like opening windows explorer and navigating through folders. And from that slim margin, finding someone who actually knows how to use software like excel or outlook or word, it makes me want to reword the listing to say that we need people with 5 five years experience. For entry level.
I have become that which we hate. I am demanding experience for entry level work, simply because the entry-level work pool has zero knowledge how things work. You have spent all your time browsing and none of your time challenging yourselves to install software yourself, to copy and move files, or tried even opening your “settings” panel to adjust things. When I started working a lifetime ago, I took some free lessons in learning how to navigate excel and other popular programs. Using that TINY bit of training, I went on to make formulas and automated several of the systems at my first job. I went from counting screws in the warehouse to an eventual VP position.
You can get much, much further ahead of the curve if you actually try to learn a little more about the things you use every day, and you will grow your opportunities more than you can imagine.
“Get off my lawn kids. And god forbid we train people.”
The common man won’t go out of their way to learn a software they don’t even know they will use. Why is it somehow worst for young people?
The personal computer as we grew up with is long gone, but somehow, companies and hiring managers expect everyone to be like it is still the case.
And let’s be real, the vast majority of people don’t know how to use excel even if they work with it every day. For them, it’s a database with a UI and a chart module.
So yeah, ask for 5 years experience for an entry level data entry position, that’ll fix it for you.
I’ve met software developers who didn’t know how to use Excel properly (in the sense of not even knowing they could use formulas).
I think that’s very much for the reason you state: they “won’t go out of their way to learn a software they don’t even know they will use”.
It’s not just a “common man” thing, it’s an everybody thing - there’s just too much stuff and not enough time to learn it all, so even software developers might never find themselves in a situation were they have to understand Excel enough to know such simple things as how to use functions in the cells, how to use references to other cells or how to make some references be relative to a cell’s position and other absolute.
Mind you, they’ll probably learn it way faster than “common” people simply because so much of its advanced usage follows “programmer logic”, but that still requires them to be forced to actually use it long enough and often enough that they put the effort into learning it.
As someone in the generation mentioned in the OP meme I can confirm, most people in my generation don’t know how to use Excel either, didn’t know it when we were younger and that is mostly because it is largely used in professional settings for a narrow range of jobs for its actual purpose and everyone else in a slightly wider range of jobs would be better off using a web app with an actual database.
I am demanding experience for entry level work, simply because the entry-level work pool has zero knowledge how things work.
And they don’t need to, that’s not what entry level means.
If a skill isn’t needed in day to day life anymore and is needed for the job you’re putting out, it’s no longer a common knowledge skill.
When the talent pool changes, so should expectations.
Well I’m your man! Been using Windows since I stopped using DOS. I meet every requirement you’ve listed here for the job you’ve described and then some. And not one of your peers will give me a call back. Not one.
If nothing else, gimme some pointers about how to make it thru your ATS. If i can get human eyes I can get hired. Problem is getting that far.
Android is atrocious with this. Windows can be pretty annoying as well, saving things but you have no idea where it is.
Other than dumping files into documents and apps, windows is very open.
Android isn’t a PC OS.
Honestly, I find the most frustrating part about file management on android is how terrible the AOSP file manager and most other files managers are. They simply do not make sense. For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to make the big button called “pictures” show you images regardless of where they are located instead of being a shortcut to the “pictures” directory.
Kids aren’t well organized and file structures take time and practice to understand. No idea why anyone would assume a 10 year old who has been using a computer for maybe two or three years would be as experienced as a 30 year old who’d been doing the work for over 20.
Also, no shortage of Millennials who don’t know how computers work. I deal with them every day.
That’s my biggest gripe to be honest with modern OSs. My files in my folders are organized like I organize my house. I live in and around that. I hate the idea of a “Downloads” and other stuff with “automatically in the cloud backup for this app”. Give me a file to save you stupid app.
A colleague was trying to share a 365 file with me last week. I didn’t have permission to open it. I was begging them to just save a “physical” copy to disk and email it to me. I hate the cloud.
Genuinely, Microsoft onedrive/365 share sucks ass. It just does. I got 365 Family since my family doesn’t know how to use anything else besides office apps so I just got the subscription that also gives you onedrive. So, I’ve been using that cloud storage if it’s available and god dammit, why is it so hard to share, find and search files in there.
Android has taken away a lot of the manual usage shit when it comes to doing what you want of it on behalf of security protections. Well fuck you, if I want a program to have certain access to things I should be allowed to do it, whether you like it or not. My N20U still can’t have a full and proper root.
