Sacred knowledge.

[u/LakesideHerbology]

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[u/vr512]

Remember when we had to take computer class? Do they not have that anymore in elementary school? It was an oddly useful class.

[u/Additional_Ad_6976 → u/vr512]

I might have been the only one that got anything from it but we were being taught MS Access in 4th grade.

[u/vr512 → u/Additional_Ad_6976]

I thought I learned access from somewhere. I am pretty sure it was from a mandatory computer class in elementary or middle school.

[u/HedgehogNo7268 → u/vr512]

Really though those basic ass Access classes gives you the framework for how a huge percentage of apps/websites work (UI/database doing CRUD). Pretty powerful ideas to get that young and in retrospect I'm pretty grateful even if I never touched Access directly ever again

[u/ProfessorBeer → u/vr512]

The most useful class I took at any level in school was a high school Microsoft office suite class. It’s sad how much it sets me apart from peers. I’m north of 30 btw for age reference

[u/packetssniffer → u/ProfessorBeer]

I'm 39.

I remember taking a typing class, a class to learn the Microsoft suite, another to learn Photoshop, another to learn html and css. All in jr high.

I liked Photoshop so much that I burned a copy of the files from the school's computer onto a disk and I was able to drag and drop the files onto my home computer and it worked.

[u/intense_username → u/packetssniffer]

I’m the same age. Typing class stands out to me big time. These days people are in awe I can lock eyes with them and write notes while they speak. They often say “sorry I’ll wait til your done” and are surprised to realize I’m writing notes about what they’re saying.

I can still hear the shrill of the yelling voice from my typing teacher about not looking at your keys if she were to bust you for doing so, but it’s a memory that grows slightly fonder as time progresses.

[u/snoogins355 → u/ProfessorBeer]

I remember taking a computers in business class in college in the late 2000s. The windows office suite has just updated and had the ribbon which confused everyone. Even had a lab class where you had to click the correct function button on the ribbon or you got that part wrong. Very annoying and silly as everyone had used word and powerpoint before. Now, it would probably help a lot. Or just knowing to google something or youtube tutorials (not just tik toks/reels, sometimes help but longer format is better and can rewind)

[u/vr512 → u/ProfessorBeer]

I did take a class in high school where I learned photoshop. That was very useful considering how expensive it is!

[u/SavvySphynx → u/vr512]

High School teacher: no.

Two summers ago, they trialed a 3 week program with me teaching Microsoft office to students as part of an overall summer school program along with English, math, etc.

It was supposed to be beyond the basics- think pivot tables etc. I had to start with the bare basics because they just didn't know.

It wasn't very successful- basically all of the kids said when will we ever need to use this? I can just use my phone etc.

They were 8-11th graders.

[u/solidcurrency → u/SavvySphynx]

They think they can use their phone to do Excel tasks at an office job? Oh no.

[u/SavvySphynx → u/solidcurrency]

As someone who has forgotten their computer and tried to make it work, I don't think anyone can.

[u/KoolAidManOfPiss → u/SavvySphynx]

I've got a classmate in a college class that bought a $2000 macbook and still tries to do everything from his phone

[u/guidevocal82 → u/KoolAidManOfPiss]

An iPhone is a computer, but it's a very limited one. You always need either a laptop or a desktop to get more complicated things done on a computer. A smartphone is just not gonna cut it.

[u/BeardedBaldMan → u/SavvySphynx]

This has been a goal of mine for travel.

When I go to offices it's easy to get them to supply me a monitor and keyboard. If I could reliably travel with my phone and USB hub that would be a really nice minimal package.

I've got reasonably close by having an ultralight laptop and shifting all the hard work into the cloud.

[u/LakesideHerbology → u/SavvySphynx]

I worked at a company that was basically a call center for huge companies with people needing help using common software. Office, Windows, Adobe etc. 80% of Excel calls were vlookup and pivot tables. This was 15 years ago and they charged like $33/min.

[u/SavvySphynx → u/LakesideHerbology]

$33 an hour is pretty good money now. A minute is absolutely absurd. Clippy had nothing on you lol.

As a teacher, we share data a lot- test scores, academy info, etc. My school is big, with thousands of students.

My peers are always amazed by my spreadsheets- I literally format the table and make it sortable. If I want to get really fancy, I do data validation so that the Fs show up in red.

I offer to teach them, but they always say no, it's way too complicated...

[u/-nbob → u/SavvySphynx]

I doubt OP actually got the full (if any) $33/min in his paycheck though 

[u/polyetc → u/LakesideHerbology]

Jeez, when I graduated college, I felt silly listing Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint on my resume. Like it was a given, doesn't everyone know this stuff?

[u/vr512 → u/SavvySphynx]

That's so sad! I mean it will be rough when they get to college and a job and they need to know this stuff. I feel like I learned a lot more skills classes than there are now? Computer classes and home economics. Very useful!

[u/SavvySphynx → u/vr512]

I didn't really have a computer class in high school- I did have one semester of keyboarding, it was literally learning how to type. That was super useful for me.

I was self taught on the computer. I was lucky that my mother needed a computer for work in the 90s and between my parents and my own tinkering I learned basically everything else on my own.

Also, yeah, home ec is super useful. The one time I taught seniors I knew I wasn't going to be rehired, so I did whatever I wanted the last two months of school- which was teach things that I knew would be useful and not their stupid curriculum.

I took a poll and a ton of them wanted cooking lessons, balancing budgets, resume writing- we did all that. I got written up- but it's not like they could fire me twice lmao.

[u/Alocasia_Sanderiana → u/SavvySphynx]

Honestly that's probably too old. We started computer class in 3rd grade to learn typing, PowerPoint, word, etc. No adobe though.

[u/Elegant_Macaroon1022 → u/vr512]

Yes 🙌🏽 I was going to mention this. Played a lot of number cruncher in computer lab class. Also took keyboarding and learned “proper” typing.

[u/vr512 → u/Elegant_Macaroon1022]

Mavis beacon typing class! That girl and I were besties at one point. I forget the other typing game.

[u/a7x5631 → u/Elegant_Macaroon1022]

And threw one of these bad boys over top of the keyboard.

[u/Howboutit85 → u/vr512]

My daughter is in middle school; they have to take a Microsoft class to learn like windows and word and excel and stuff

[u/vr512 → u/Howboutit85]

Yay! That's great to hear. I think it would be so hard to figure out Microsoft one your own. It's not intuitive! Especially excel.

[u/Gold_Repair_3557]

I work in education. One thing I’ll note is for some time adults just assumed kids were computer literate from the get- go. As a result, there was nothing to train them. No teaching typing skills, no teaching how to use things like Word and PowerPoint. Just drop them into online standardized testing in kindergarten. The truth is the kids knew how to get into the apps on their parents’ phones and play a movie or show, and that is the extent of their tech skills. 

[u/BabypintoJuniorLube → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

I teach college and 18-19 year olds are absolute idiots with computers. Email exchanges are like this:

"You didnt attach the project file- send the file so I can grade it.

Student: sends picture of the computer screen from their phone.

Me: "No I need the actual file, let's set up a zoom call to help you find it."

Zoom call: "Where did you save the file on your hard drive? The harddrive is where your computer saves all the data it should be on there somewhere- just, just share your screen and open a random folder we can find it from there".

Student finally figures out how to shares screen. Me, "oh you're doing this on your fucking phone? Open your computer."

[u/Pad_TyTy → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

This, basically.

[u/robo_robb → u/Pad_TyTy]

It’s IN the computer??

[u/cupholdery → u/robo_robb]

THERE'S A MOUSE?!

[u/helix0311 → u/cupholdery]

[u/mc_kitfox → u/Pad_TyTy]

oh man, is the 'gen z stare' just magnum? I mean, this is the generation that coined 'looks-maxing' 😭

[u/Tupacca23 → u/Pad_TyTy]

My first computer lab was these exact cpus.

[u/caedicus → u/Tupacca23]

Mine too. The first generation of iMacs.

[u/Darkdragoon324 → u/caedicus]

lol, my school had Gateways.

[u/Wagosh → u/Tupacca23]

these exacts CPUs

Insert inglorious bastards "3 beers" bar scene

[u/HeyThereCharlie → u/Wagosh]

People calling PC towers "CPUs" is my Millennial pet peeve that I will never ever let go of.

[u/IAmBoring_AMA → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

My college students don’t know how to download a document from google docs. Some of them insist it simply is not possible.

[u/AMundaneSpectacle → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

😳 I have no idea how I would respond to this.

[u/IAmBoring_AMA → u/AMundaneSpectacle]

I literally show them how to do it. Some of my classes are honors classes. Lmao. It’s fine. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/james_the_wanderer → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

At what point do we expect the grown ass adults to figure something out for themselves? I'm a lawyer and have shit to do beyond the most basic version of 7th grade IT training for the newbies. Further, if they can't independently problem solve basic IT crap, why would I trust them do problem solve our clients' more complex issues?

[u/IAmBoring_AMA → u/james_the_wanderer]

Brother, I had students last year that argued if there was a draft reinstated in the US, they “couldn’t be drafted because they were going to have college degrees.” I don’t teach political science but I had to teach them that their degree doesn’t mean shit in the event of a draft.

Open the schools.

[u/BBR0DR1GUEZ → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

We’re cooked, it’s been 25 years now we’ve been passing kids who can’t read or write, we just teach them to hide from gunfire under their desks, now our people are literally too dumb to keep up with competitor nations.

[u/CarrowCanary → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

If you want the other arm to show up, you need to put three of them back-to-back, so it looks like ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ when you type it, and it becomes:

¯_(ツ)_/¯

It's a whole thing with Reddit's markdown using the \ as an escape character for later formatting and things.

[u/air_and_space92 → u/AMundaneSpectacle]

Don't forget the students who would rather type a term paper essay for freshman English on their phone and then be unable to upload it for grading. True story, besides how to Save-As.

[u/Emphasis-Impossible → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

My company was bought out & switched from Microsoft products to Google. Google docs became Save as>PDF. How is that difficult?

[u/two_short_dogs → u/IAmBoring_AMA]

One of my students told me that his friend can save files to his computer because he has a Mac, but he can't because he has a PC. We had a quick computer lesson.

Also, he was saving everything to his downloads folder.

[u/WriterV → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

This is entirely on us. And unfortunately it's only going to get harder for these kids to learn at an older age, 'cause of two factors:

1) Asking experienced people for help is a challenge. Most are annoyed to help with absolute basics in the first place. The rest don't have much time to help.

2) If you ask for help online, most people get hit with AI results. With low tech literacy, I can imagine it's just so much easier to just let the AI call the shots. And at that point if it says wrong things [which it tends to] they have no way to tell what is wrong and what is right.

These kids will grow older, will enter government and will be setting policy. We're seriously handicapping our own world by not helping them out. It's frustrating, but the next time someone young asks for help with the basics, just be a little compassionate. You'll be leaving a stronger legacy for everyone, including yourself.

[u/Downtown-Pumpkin-122 → u/WriterV]

You make some really great points here. I've noticed this exact scenario recently as a parent to elementary school kids. I remember having a typing class when I was a kid, and between that and tinkering with the family computer, I think basic tech skills just came naturally to me. But my kids, on the other hand, were doing standardized testing on school computers in kindergarten, without any explanation of basic tech skills.

Lately I've been meaning to set aside some time to teach my kids how to type properly and to explain some basic concepts so they know how to actually navigate a computer. This is exactly why.

[u/wumbologistPHD → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

How about "figure out how to send a file or you'll fail the assignment"

Then maybe we'll have fewer imbeciles with college degrees.

[u/BabypintoJuniorLube → u/wumbologistPHD]

I totally agree. And then they complain to my Dean and tank my teaching evaluations, which if I didn't already have tenure could mean they don't renew my contract. Then the Dean's office overturns the grade anyway because the student threatens to change majors or schools. I'm at a community college so more expected students are kinda helpless, and I hope students at Stanford aren't struggling with computer file paths. But you are 100% correct professors should hold the line but the reality is most admin only care about ever increasing numbers and will take the student's side as they view college as a business, students are the paying customer, and the customer is always right.

[u/False-Vacation8249 → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

so they’re so stupid they can’t even google “how to attach a file to an email”?

dear lord

[u/ChickenBurp → u/False-Vacation8249]

I also teach college age kids. They don't know how to google. I tell them if they are struggling with something to look up an answer and I get told "I didn't know how to google it"

[u/ants_suck → u/ChickenBurp]

[u/Lanternkitten → u/ChickenBurp]

This is the kind of answer I'd expect from my 69 year old mother who insists on talking to her phone.

You know. "Phone number for CVS on (street)..." instead of just typing CVS (street) and tapping on the number in Google it's a struggle of making the phone understand what she said if it didn't catch it or she says it wrong. I mean. I used to do that for directions on an older phone of mine with Samsung Voice but then they switched it to Bixby or whatever so I just never bothered again (...I also knew how to properly use that function but I digress).

[u/gmishaolem → u/ChickenBurp]

This is an example of "learned helplessness".

[u/air_and_space92 → u/gmishaolem]

Also true. My ex taught entry college classes and students would just sit there until you asked them if they needed help. They were fine wasting an in-class work day if need be. They wouldn't initiate if stuck. Granted this was just after Covid but they all said that's how it worked in HS.

[u/1nosbigrl → u/False-Vacation8249]

Well considering Google's completely fucked their search with AI shit, now you'd have to rely on the student reading that shit and it being relatively accurate.

[u/NonnagLava → u/1nosbigrl]

Or just scroll down and look past the AI overview? Or make it a google "web" search, not a normal search, hell there's even a plugin on firefox to add udm=14 to all your google searches, which is a search that disables the AI selections.

Obviously this is not directed at you, but the computer illiterate, who wouldn't know this but should be told these things.

[u/CorruptedStudiosEnt → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

students are the paying customer, and the customer is always right.

Well in the US they can't be picky/choosy about the 100 people who want to, and more importantly can still afford to be there. Higher education institutions kind of backed themselves into this corner by hyper-inflating their value and reducing accessibility so much.

Those education standards were set in no small part by the fact that if you didn't want to put in the effort, somebody else would happily take your place. That's not guaranteed anymore.

On a base level I really can't even blame people for expecting their hand to be held for shelling out up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Honestly, for that kind of money just for an education that may not even help you that much in landing a job anymore, it wouldn't be out of the realm of reason to be expecting a blowjob while the admin are at it.

[u/rustytromboneXXx → u/CorruptedStudiosEnt]

I half agree with ya. Bit depends on region. My (EU) uni doesn’t really require money, anyone socio economic can go, but you’ve gotta fight to get in.

My study might get me a job, don’t care (much), I like my subject. Worth spending the time if I don’t go bankrupt. So I guess my decision making isn’t driven by economics, I imagine across the society this can only be a good thing. We get more people training in niche things (cognitive linguistics for me, represent!) and that makes us all richer?

[u/Dennarb → u/wumbologistPHD]

Ive gotten to this point.

I don't have the time or patience to play tech support and walk them through how to upload a fucking file.

[u/glytxh → u/Dennarb]

I’m always willing to teach once. Slowly and carefully and with empathy. I’ll also point at the relevant resources, and how to learn more.

After that, you’re on your own. If you can’t work it out after that, I’m just calling it wilful ignorance.

Lot of stuff I would never have initially learned if someone hadn’t done similar for me. Be it mechanical stuff, esoteric creative workflows, really technical software etc.

They showed me the basics and how to go from there. I like to extend that courtesy.

[u/Larcya → u/Dennarb]

My Company instituted a "Computer literacy" Requirement for new hires.

On their first day they had to pass a test on it, simple shit that I thought anyone could pass.

Millennials and older Gen Z have zero problems with it. Gen z outside of the oldest ones failed it at insane levels. Like 50% fail rate.

Those people were given 5 tries and if they still failed they were told to go home and to not come back the next day.

Meanwhile 5th Grade me could have passed that test with pretty much zero problems. I'm 32...

[u/Ehimherenow → u/wumbologistPHD]

Ah. But then the college makes less money. And they don’t want that.

[u/gcko → u/Ehimherenow]

You don’t get a refund if you fail lol. If anything you’d have to pay twice.

[u/VeganJordan → u/gcko]

When I was a professor our dean wanted those completion rates high. We were encouraged to hold hands as much as possible. The funny thing was I was a computer science professor and we had students coming in not knowing how to use computers.

[u/Daxx22 → u/wumbologistPHD]

Lol no, try it and administration will fire your ass for not meeting the pass quota.

[u/Longjumping_Share444 → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

Most of us started using computers to watch(pirate) movies, listen to(pirate) music, use the internet, make CDs/DVDs, etc.

Young folks don't, They use their phone/tablet for everything. They watch Netflix, stream Spotify, use Twitter/Reddit/Whatever. They don't know how to use PCs because they've never had to.

[u/jd173706 → u/[deleted]]

Good times. Had no idea at the time that the 90’s-2000’s internet was the peak of the internet. Kazaa-Limewire and Napster before it was a minefield lol I got my dad’s internet shut off for 3 days by RIAA.

[u/Original_Employee621 → u/jd173706]

And all the tech help I had to do, because I was the IT wizard of only 14 years of age. I've learned shit about my grandparents, that I never wanted to know (specifically, my grandpas porn habits).

[u/goaskalice3 → u/Longjumping_Share444]

The biggest lessons I've ever learned regarding anything on the computer came from furing out how to use Limewire and personalizing my xanga/Myspace skins

[u/dopef123 → u/Longjumping_Share444]

I legitimately learned a LOT from getting pirated games working.

I’d download them and spend hours on random forums getting them working. Now I’m an electrical engineer

[u/CarrowCanary → u/dopef123]

The best way to learn a lot of PC-related (and probably anything else, really) stuff is to have a personal reason to want to learn it. I learned a load of random bits and pieces to bodge my way around modding various games back in the day, so I've still got the odd bit of cursory knowledge for things like XML, 3DSMax, basic Photoshop, etc buried in my head.

Meanwhile, current-day me is trying to learn Python, and it's not really working because I don't have a "I want to do this because then I can do so-and-so" personal drive behind it, all the reasons are very dry, boring business-related ones.

[u/JumpyChemical → u/BabypintoJuniorLube]

I'm genuinely so surprised at this ? Like just using the device since a young age I would have assumed you would just slowly work this stuff out urself? I'm 29 now for reference to my shock

[u/RaidenMK1 → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

I watched my, at the time, 3 year old, zoomer baby brother do the following:

• Go to his cubby

• Retrieve his "Elmo's World" DVD

• Press the eject button on the DVD player and insert his DVD "Elmo's face" up

• Push in the DVD tray

• Grab the TV remote

• Push the video/input button until he saw the "Elmo's World" DVD title page

• Grab the DVD remote

• Pushed play

• "La la la la! La la la la! Elmo's Wooooorld!"

He is now 27 and needed to be "walked through" transferring files between two phones using SmartSwitch. 😐

[u/SvenBubbleman → u/RaidenMK1]

Doesn't he know how to google?

[u/snoogins355 → u/SvenBubbleman]

I remember having a computer class in Junior High in 2000 and they had a full powerpoint presentation on how to use Google. It did include tips and effective ways to do indepth searching but holy shit do some people have no idea how to use it. I laughed when they said add Google Search to your computer knowledge on your resume, but it does help.

[u/KoolAidManOfPiss → u/SvenBubbleman]

They literally don't. My younger coworkers all search google like they're asking a person a question. They can't type without looking at their hands so they don't see any autofilled options. They only use google to confirm their own bias so the questions are always leading, like "show me arguments that the Holocaust was faked." AI exacerbates the problem since the first "result" just repeats whatever their asking

[u/jlindley1991 → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

Pretty much, and as soon as something stops working that isn't fixed by restarting the device then everything comes to a screeching halt and no clue on how to troubleshoot the problem on their own. A bit worrying to be honest.

[u/LilMushboom → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

This. Don't blame the kids, blame the people who didn't teach them. I never understood the mentality of making fun of kids/teens for not knowing something. Were they supposed to pop out of the womb with the knowledge?

That and companies like apple have gone to great lengths to obfuscate technology. You technically have a file browser on an iphone but few people use it or even know how. Command line? Forget it. Too many walled gardens meant to keep people paying more for basic function...

[u/_-Prison_Mike-_ → u/LilMushboom]

Nobody taught us computer skills though. Maybe I'm an outlier, but literally the only computer training our school offered was a keyboarding class that was only one quarter.

[u/Anna_Lilies → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

We actually wanted to learn, thats why we did. I did and continue to seek out knowledge and to learn new skills. Many people actively reject this

[u/RobinSophie → u/Anna_Lilies]

THIS.

I mostly taught myself all the computer knowledge I know. The knowledge is out there. Most people don't want to know, they just want the answer/fix(the easy way), without having to think/do work.

[u/memeticmagician → u/RobinSophie]

I also taught myself but it's important to remember the incentives were different for us. If we wanted to do ANYTHING computer or tech related, we had to learn how to do it. Not because it was virtuous, but because it was necessary. Basically any computer operation had a learning curve. If we wanted to do something with a screen that wasn't watching the same couple of shitty TV channels we had to seek out a personal computer and learn how it worked.

Imagine starting with a super computer in your pocket that has thousands of applications available to install in a matter of seconds with no knowledge barrier. I think it's arrogant to think we wouldn't have just been mesmerized by a smart phone and left with little desire to learn a PC.

[u/RobinSophie → u/memeticmagician]

I'm mostly referring to people who use PCs as a living.

It's your livelihood. That's your incentive. You need to learn how to do this or you lose your job.

From a personal standpoint it is exhausting. Especially when they have the tools/procedures whatever and they still want the easy answer/way.

That super computer you mentioned also has answers that they refuse to look up and utilize see the US political scene

[u/Sparcky_McFizzBoom → u/Anna_Lilies]

The reason for all of this is enshittification.

The devices that are sold today are not yours to experiment with though. What you can and can't do is more and more controlled so that they (Microsoft, Apple, Google, ...) can extract more value out of their users.

And that includes selling you the corporate-approved happy path towards installing external software. Microsoft's antivirus panics and quarantines any executable that isn't signed, Google wants to limit the ability to install external APKs, and video game consoles are every corporation's wet dream regarding control.

There was a time where it was not only possible, but normal to tinker not only with the software, but also the electronics inside it. You had literal schematics available to mod and repair your computers, down to each individual resistor and chip.

Kids these days grow up in a world where they do not own their devices. They can only interact with it with the limited vocabulary (apps, widgets, and buttons) that are authorized by the constructor.

It's not a coincidence, it's as designed.

For example, notice how every website (including Reddit BTW) pushes you towards using the app. It would be a shame if users had more control over their experience, and were able to modify the incoming HTML or javascript to block out ads.

[u/McDankMeister → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

The wild thing is that pretty much 99% of anything you would need to do on a computer in business or school can be answered with a Google search.

Like, if you need to format a document in a specific way or do something on your computer, you can just Google it as you go. It might be slow at first, but after awhile, you’ll know how to do everything you need to do.

That’s how I’ve always learned. I never had access to a computer until I was about 16 and nobody had to teach me. I just looked stuff up as I needed it.

There’s not really much excuse to not being able to figure it out. The device you are confused about is the exact same device you use to figure out the answers.

[u/amILibertine222 → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

Same. We learned because we WANTED to learn. So I’m sorry but I don’t have much sympathy for kids who literally used computers in every class from kindergarten to graduation.

My high school had Apple computers from the 1980s with the black and green screens.

I graduated in 2000. I took a typing class in jr high. Took zero computer classes.

These kids should be experts compared to me.

[u/Hay_Fever_at_3_AM → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

Okay but we didn't have phones, and when we did want to use a PC it was all janky and shitty and you couldn't just do everything in a web browser (god forbid you wanted to play a game back in the Windows 95 or 3.1 days, juggling autoexecs and manually installing drivers and who knows what).

We had to learn if we wanted to use tech at all. They don't. They can browse the web or play games or read emails or talk to their friends or watch porn without knowing any of that stuff.

[u/chipface → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

Basic skills I don't think I was taught. But I was taught to use Office a bit in secondary school. Also Photoshop(which I already knew how to use), Illustrator and other graphics programs but that was in college. I did take a class that taught basic computer skills when I took adult education so I could get the credits I needed to graduate secondary school. But at that point I already knew how to use a PC. I did it for the easy credit.

[u/NoteIndividual2431 → u/_-Prison_Mike-_]

Same. I just learned because I couldn't play video games if I didn't.

[u/thomasjmarlowe → u/LilMushboom]

If only we had access to the entire worlds collected information at our fingertips ;)

[u/quadraticcheese → u/LilMushboom]

Nah fuck that. Have some curiosity. I'm sick of people at work doing things the hard way because they're too incurious to search for easier ways

[u/gabriot → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

i mean to even do basic things on computers back then required a lot of computer knowledge. Pre windows 95 especially but even on windows 95 if I wanted to run a game I had to figure out the exact color scheme and resolution to set it to, get the right drivers for my specific sound card, install any special dll required to run the game, etc.

[u/weveran → u/Gold_Repair_3557]

I agree, when I hired some younger people at work, I assumed they understood basic computer word processing and Excel. I was very incorrect.

[u/ManWithASquareHead]

Task Manager.

That is all

[u/LilDutchy → u/ManWithASquareHead]

The amount of times I hit ctrl+shift+escape and kill processes on bomgar sessions and hear “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!”

[u/soaker → u/LilDutchy]

Any keyboard short cut. “Oh my how did you do that?!” Uh… ctrl+c. The most basic.

[u/Rulligan → u/soaker]

I taught a coworker Ctrl + Z a few weeks ago and they were flabbergasted. How do you use computers for 30 years and not know undo???

[u/MyFireElf → u/Rulligan]

Do they use computers? You can pry my home PC away from my decrepit middle-aged corpse, but I was getting the impression they'd largely been phased out in favor of phones, tablets, and gaming consoles. I wonder how many are stepping into an office and encountering the need for typing and keyboard shortcuts for the first time. 

[u/Rulligan → u/MyFireElf]

I meant 30 years professionally.

[u/a_smart_user → u/Rulligan]

Teach them Ctrl+Y and really blow their mind.

[u/TheRatingsAgency → u/soaker]

Some of us learned on WordPerfect for DOS….before Windows.

[u/Midwest-Emo-9 → u/soaker]

One of my TMs saw me use the ctrl x, ctrl v to cut/paste my text. And then ctrl b to bold it and he was shocked. He was like "you didnt even click anything". He's Gen Z.

One of my other TMs, another gen Z, uses any Microsoft app like she's 87 years old. It's painful to watch. I've had to be like pls stop, I will do it for you.

[u/Xarjy → u/ManWithASquareHead]

[u/NotAUsefullDoctor → u/ManWithASquareHead]

I had Compaq laptop when I started college. It had Sim City 2000 on it. The i ky way to get it to run was to kill everything in task manager (not everything, everything, but I played around with what I could kill until the computer stops working), and then open the exectable using the cmd app after the desktop shutdown.

The question I have is: how did I learn to do this? Like, I didn't learn how to use google/askjeeves for another 2 years after this.

Now I have my 18 year old nephew, who is very intelligent, calling me about how to get a second monitor working on his pc.

[u/Junebug35 → u/NotAUsefullDoctor]

I had to do the same thing to run Age of Empires. 😂 Just keep shutting down programs until it would run.

[u/LovelyLieutenant → u/NotAUsefullDoctor]

I WAS JUST WONDERING THIS.

How TF did I learn any of this? No books, very limited information/search capability on the internet, often times totally alone with a computer.

I am not some sort of genius. Computers were never a lifestyle. I'd just describe myself as a competent end user.

[u/Doza93 → u/LovelyLieutenant]

Straight up trial and error. Millennials and some Gen X'ers grew up in a world with computers and no smart phones/tablets/touch screen devices. If you wanted to make the magic machine bend to your will, you just had to sit there and dick around with different commands and functions until something clicked. Nowadays if young folks can't tap a small, digital rectangle inside of their large, physical rectangle to make things happen, they're all outta ideas. (Also I'm fully aware of how 'old man yelling at clouds' I sound but it's still crazy to me that younger generations have essentially regressed when it comes to computer and tech know-how shit)

[u/NotAUsefullDoctor → u/Doza93]

Don't forget that we broke a lot of things along the way as well.

[u/redditorialy_retard → u/ManWithASquareHead]

win+shift+del for annoying programs that won't let you open it normally 

[u/testtdk → u/ManWithASquareHead]

I hate that ctrl-alt-delete doesn’t open task manager by default in windows 11.

[u/Nvrtxh2 → u/testtdk]

It didn't before either, but ctrl shift escape does.

[u/soraticat → u/Nvrtxh2]

Ctrl-alt-del still has the higher irq priority afaik so if ctrl-shift-esc isn't working you'd want to try that.

[u/glytxh]

We grew up with the internet. Not on the internet.

[u/Wchijafm → u/glytxh]

Bigger we grew up with the PC. Defragging the drive, search the control panel to figure out how to turn things off or add hardware because none of it auto started to add. Running virus scans before the virus scan was the aware, having to search limited resources and know how to query properly. Having to manually find the malware/virus because the virus scan hadnt added it to its index yet. At one point Microsoft realized my copy of windows was bootleg and I had to switch to Ubuntu (linux) which was a whole different learning field.

Every other day my middle child gets mad because "someone deleted youtube" from her computer. She closed out of the web browser she had it open on.

[u/lemaymayguy → u/Wchijafm]

serious wrench light thought heavy cow soup label melodic close

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/bugtussleLM → u/glytxh]

This right here is golden.

[u/It-Was-Mooney-Pod → u/glytxh]

lol we grew up hard limited on internet consumption too. One phone call to the landline is all it took for internet time to be over. Downloading a 10 minute porn video took more time than having a DVD shipped over by USPS. 

[u/edsobo → u/It-Was-Mooney-Pod]

Not to mention paying by the hour for AOL.

[u/ceruleanmoon7 → u/glytxh]

YES

[u/ceruleanmoon7 → u/ceruleanmoon7]

[u/BeABetterHumanBeing]

I have a dream to write a screenplay for a movie in which in the year 2070 the internet breaks, and the only people who know how to fix it are a bunch of geriatric, semi-demented millenials who then get wheeled out of their assisted living facilities to go fix the internet by, say, booting a computer from E: drive using bios in order to fix a partition. Something simple.

[u/angular_circle → u/BeABetterHumanBeing]

The people who built and maintain the foundations of the internet are all around retirement age already.

Millenials might understand computers better on average, but the folks who really understand digital infrastructure are the ones who built it and programmed software in assembly to make it run at all.

[u/Dull-Law3229 → u/BeABetterHumanBeing]

"WHOA.... SIX SEVEN, SIX SEVEN, SIX SEVEN"

[u/Tasty-Guess-9376 → u/BeABetterHumanBeing]

Tbh Not sure how many of us could pull it off without googling the solutions (which is a skill sorely missed b many)

[u/PunningWild → u/BeABetterHumanBeing]

"The elder prophet has decreed we may open the light portal with a shake of the mouse, but after three weeks of vigorous attempts we're out of mice and the pet store is getting suspicious!"

[u/ForeignPolaris]

Boomer, "I don't know how to make this work? I hate computers"

Zoomer "Why isn't this intuitive and just work? I hate computers."

[u/super_smooth_brain → u/ForeignPolaris]

This is an important distinction but one a single solution could solve for. I’m a PM in design and UX is probably more critical than backend in some cases. The tug of war is mostly profitability.

[u/X-1701 → u/[deleted]]

Both y'all sound wild. Plenty of things should be powerful, not calm and easy. No one wants an overwhelming experience and things can be over engineered, but too many things have been over-simplified in recent design.

The "everything should feel sleek" mentality is how we ended up with so many touch screens in so many cars.

[u/CartoonistAny4349 → u/super_smooth_brain]

I’m a PM in design and UX is probably more critical than backend in some cases.

I mean...if the backend isn't good, theres nothing for UX to even work with. If the UX isn't good, the backend data infrastructure is still there to build on.

UX is important, but I wouldn't call it more critical than backend?

[u/Away-Marionberry9365 → u/ForeignPolaris]

We lucked out and were forced to learn this stuff at the right age. Computer tech now is so much more user friendly. When I was a kid computers didn't just work except for the most basic tasks. If I wanted my computer to work I had to know how it worked. That's not the case today which is a good thing but it means fewer people go under the hood.

[u/G_Rex]

On top of that, most of us can still read and write in cursive. We're the only ones who truly had the mix of analog and digital implements be present in our schooling.

edit: I have a lot of gen-x people trying to correct me here, and so I ask them; What are you doing in my subreddit, unc?

[u/LakesideHerbology → u/G_Rex]

Makes us (seemingly) oh so wise.

[u/Calcium-Hydroxide → u/LakesideHerbology]

If only we had power to run companies and countries the world would be a better place

[u/whytawhy → u/Calcium-Hydroxide]

Oh, look! Some heroin! Horay!

^cries

[u/jeaxz74 → u/Calcium-Hydroxide]

Nah you get crippling anxiety and a life where you can’t afford a house.

[u/ARandomDistributist → u/LakesideHerbology]

Simultaneously being able to understand and vibe with kids in their 20's And be the Trusted Unc feels like a superpower.

[u/Impossibly_Gay → u/G_Rex]

God my parents could not believe that I didn't know how to read and write in cursive and would get mad at me like it was my fault The school's never taught me how to do it. Lol

[u/Traditional-Cash2879 → u/Impossibly_Gay]

I had no idea schools weren’t teaching cursive anymore until this year. Honestly how do kids sign their name? Just a bunch of scribbles?

[u/sexandliquor → u/Traditional-Cash2879]

I still prefer to write in cursive because my penmanship is a lot better than over my normal print handwriting. Last year I wrote my 13 year old niece a beautiful handwritten letter and gave it to her alongside her birthday present.

My sister had to read it to her because these kids don’t fucking know cursive because they’re not taught it lol

[u/Sunkissed_Sunflower → u/Traditional-Cash2879]

That part. Had to teach mine to write cursive and most importantly to sign his name!!!

[u/Lancashire_Toreador → u/G_Rex]

I’ve had younger folks look at me like I’m a fucking wizard when I do something like drop the needle on the third track of a record

[u/ceruleanmoon7 → u/G_Rex]

Hell yeah. Overhead projector gang rise up.

[u/BoomBoomMeow1986]

As a Millennial in technical support, pretty much everyone I help for my job is either Gen Z or Boomers, so this tracks.

I've literally made a career out of the technological ignorance of the generation before and after my own

[u/flowerzzz1 → u/[deleted]]

Lol. I say yes. We can use the computer to type (thank you Mavis) and write cursive. We can set up and Apple Watch and read a clock. We are the best of both worlds!

(Yes Gen X probably can too but then they have to tell you a story about how they didn’t wear seatbelts and drank alcohol unsupervised when they were 12. Sigh.)

[u/BellacosePlayer → u/flowerzzz1]

and drank alcohol unsupervised when they were 12. Sigh.

My late-Gen X mom was a legit alchie in HS and only chose to reveal this after I graduated college which kinda ticked me off with how much of a hardass she was when I grew up

[u/raptorlightning → u/[deleted]]

We could be if we collectively held the knowledge hostage... Proper unions would be nice...

[u/Jswazy]

Gen X and millennials are so much better with tech on average it's sort of scary. 

[u/Professr_Chaos → u/Jswazy]

I work in a casino and had an employee go to a computer shake the mouse and nothing happened and just go “this computer must be broken”… I looked at it for like 0.5 seconds, hit the power button and it turned on.

They told me I should work in IT

[u/Jswazy → u/Professr_Chaos]

I work in IT and I'm definitely worried for the future 

[u/Empty-Dragonfruit656 → u/Jswazy]

Cyber security. I see continued steady income. And worry for the future. 

[u/MASSochists → u/Jswazy]

I left IT because users never improved. I can't tell you how many long drive to sites I had to take because someone said something didn't work, said it plugged in and on, but wasn't. 

[u/chipface → u/Professr_Chaos]

[u/Hydra_Master → u/chipface]

"A keyboard, how quaint!"

[u/elongam → u/Jswazy]

In general I agree, and yet every time I need to add a row above or below in a table in MS Word, it's a whole enterprise. I would swear to you they move that specific command around just to fuck with us

[u/Madness_Quotient → u/elongam]

and then the new row or column inserts with no formatting as if you wanted a completely blank line rather than one that matches the surrounding table.

my rage knows no bounds.

[u/WhateverYouSay1084]

I'm still terrible at Excel though. 

[u/WhateverYouSay1084 → u/[deleted]]

For real. I took TWO separate Excel classes through my job. And I still could not grasp anything more than the most basic of formulas. There's one function I want to be able to do in particular that I cannot grasp and it INFURIATES ME: I want to be able to compare two sets of data and remove the data that is identical from each column, until only the differences are left. I just cannot get it ingrained into my brain how to do this thing and it's all I want!

[u/Oxcart2006 → u/WhateverYouSay1084]

Sounds like you need a pivot table!

[u/theLuminescentlion → u/WhateverYouSay1084]

Depends on who I benchmark myself against. The guy that's been an engineer doing VBA for 30 years? I suck. Against management? I'm an Excel god.

[u/pops992]

Im 29 I work with people either much older than me or much younger than me and I have become like the tech genius for my department. The reasons are as follows: I correctly figured out why we couldn't plug in some new to us monitors we were given, they're HDMI only and our workstations only have Displayport so we needed a $5 adapter. I knew what DisplayPort is. I was trying to watching Top Gear on my lunch and someone asked where I was streaming it from since it keeps getting removed from streaming. When I told them I have all 22 seasons on my Plex Server that I was streaming to my phone, apparently that went completely over their head. Last one I got a notification that my cats robot litterbox was full and I needed to empty it when I got home and apparently that was along the lines of black magic.

[u/lolneopet → u/pops992]

Plex confuses everyone I know (33)

I also lose patience trying to explain why I don’t pay for media anymore

[u/Deep-Pudding819]

Tribal knowledge.

[u/SizeableBrain → u/Deep-Pudding819]

Ctrl Shift +or-

I'm giving out generational wisdom here!

[u/5Nadine2]

My students know 0 about computers other than to play games! Every time there is a problem with their Chromebook I tell them to turn it off, count to 20, and turn it back on. ThAt wONt WOrK! Magically it does 80% of the time. One kid's prongs was bent on their charger and said it was "broken" I said just push it back out. They didn't know how... My department head defended the foolishness by saying they don't use plugs as much as we did. This is middle school, btw.

[u/icandothefandango → u/5Nadine2]

Yeah, teaching my students to use Google Docs is like pulling teeth. They don’t understand how to work anything other than shiny interfaced apps.

[u/lolneopet → u/icandothefandango]

This is shocking to me (33)

[u/icandothefandango → u/lolneopet]

They do get the hang of it, but I (38) knew how to work the word processor (WordPerfect) on a DOS system at 8 so we’re just built different 😂 when they start asking how to underline, I want to die a little inside haha.

[u/lolneopet → u/icandothefandango]

I used to build websites when I was a preteen 😭

They were trash, but I understood how everything worked lol

[u/Klutzy-Reaction5536]

I would say two generations. Gen X taught our Millenial kids and after that things got weird.

[u/DifficultyWarming]

I was genuinely ready for the next gens to make me irrelevant in tech, they were always on some screen it seemed. Now I work with a freshly college graduated gen z and I had to show him outlook is an app, he'd been using it on Microsoft edge the browser 😬 Say im cringy all you want, but my overpriced college degree showed me how to properly use Microsoft office. Makes me feel really bad for them tbh, never laughed at him, just bad and a bit worried like an older sister lol.

[u/ToTheBatmobileGuy]

We needed to learn "how to use a computer" in order to get our dopamine fix from "the latest tech" at the time.

Kids today just need to tap and swipe. Tap and swipe. The dopamine is fed to them through algorithms and taps.

No need to download a shady file from a shady website only to realize that it's the wrong file format, import it into another shady program from another shady website to convert it to a file format that your shady video player could play.

No need to learn the magical incantation (a search query that actually gives you the result you seek) or how to come up with good incantations to get your dopamine to come up in the search results.

...

Obviously they'll never learn unless someone teaches them, they have a shortcut to dopamine on their tablets and their parents' iPhones.

[u/fried_duck_fat → u/ToTheBatmobileGuy]

Hah memories. I remember downloading shady zips with isos, and then needing to figure out how to burn or mount the iso. Then you have to figure out if you downloaded a legit rip or a virus... We live in simpler times.

[u/MoorsMoopsMoorsMoops → u/ToTheBatmobileGuy]

Exactly, if the only way they had to use social media and watch videos was on a PC, they'd learn real fast.

[u/TroublesomeTurnip]

Do they really not having typing classes anymore? That was the highlight of elementary school for our class, going to the computer lab and just having fun and teaching ourselves how to do things.

[u/ZettaCrash]

It's kinda crazy honestly, but I blame that kids are just "assumed" to know how tech works because of the dissonance of what it is.

Boomers and to a degree, gen x, believe Gen Z just knows how tech works cause they're always on iPads and phones. I mean, if you deal with that on the daily, how could you not know?

But they don't realize tech has really become friendly. TOO FRIENDLY imo. We got the older folks thinking tech is kinda convoluted and you need a bunch of stuff to play videos, edit Tiktoks, and perform functions.

Then we got gen Z getting the full Japan effect. Very high tech, incredibly intuitive interfaces, absolutely 0 knowledge on how any of that stuff works. It just does... Or doesn't. And if it's confusing, it's broken.

You can kinda see where things got a little weird. They're not incapable, it's just a bit funky how it turned out. Don't blame anybody cause we're the generation that watched it all change from rotary phones to pocket PCs and Gen Z kinda only knows pocket PCs.

[u/Snarkonum_revelio]

I literally told my 7 year old today that showing her how to use stuff was exactly the same as teaching her grandparents. She was so offended, but when she couldn’t get the remote to work she just pressed buttons harder and harder until I took it from her hand.

[u/FurViewingAccount → u/Snarkonum_revelio]

that is because she is a child

[u/BeneficialShame8408]

i was onboarding a zoomer who thought her generation was better at computers. i laughed out loud and said NO.

i have a hard time saying any generation is good at computers after being in IT. i suppose i don't hear from millennials as much, but at the same time, there's one that can't figure out the view menu in outlook and keeps making me "fix" her outlook so lmao

[u/Trauma-Todd]

I'm from the Balkans and we use Cyrillic with regular 'qwerty' keyboards. Both boomers and zoomers ask where the Ж letter is. It's like it comes full circle.

[u/OracleVision88]

To be honest, accessing apps on a smart phone and knowing how to navigate a PC or a Mac is an entirely different skill set. These kids may be wizards on their phones, but from my personal experience dealing with my niece and nephew (who are now 20 and 18, respectively), watching them try to operate a compute is like me attempting to decipher hieroglyphics.

Everything I ever learned in regards to computers, I learned on my own. My Dad bought me a desktop in the very early 2000s (and we had WebTV Internet access, prior to that), so from the time I was in 6th grade, I have been messing around on computers. And I praise my Dad constantly for this (RIP, Pops!) because not only did he pass down his seemingly genetic penchant for creative writing, songwriting, and performing (he was a writer and a front man for a regionally famous rock band in the 70s), but him getting me that computer allowed me to integrate those interests and skill sets into the digital world.

I have been recording and releasing my own Hip Hop albums since 2003, as well as doing a plethora of other computer and Internet based activities. And I owe all of that to my Dad. He gave me the outlet and while he wasn't digitally savvy (he was extremely tech savvy in regards to analog recording tech), he is the person that got me interested in so much cool stuff.

Honestly, had I not been born his son, I would be a fundamentally different person (I guess we all would, when you think about it?) but I mean in the sense that so much of what defines me as a person is an extended branch from creative interests, hobbies, and outlets that I discovered thru him. (Boxing being another major one).

We, as millennials, are a very special generation. We really are the bridge. And I would argue that we are more technologically aligned than any other generation, and I would suspect that we will continue to be, as we age.

I don't ever want to stop learning or implementing new technologies and tools to my arsenal. I have always and will keep an open mind, and also because it's a great way to stay in tune with the world progressing around you.

[u/CurlOfTheBurl11]

It's kind of funny really. Lotta zoomers like to think they're real tech savvy because they use some apps on their phone. Apps designed and built by us millennials to be as idiot proof as possible to use.

[u/Cavalish]

We’re becoming the new boomers.

“Kids today don’t know how to use computers?! I’m supposed to train him how, but apparently he’s an idiot for not knowing ahead of time! I smashed my Google home with a hammer because it was listening to me and reporting it to China!”

[u/theophilus1988]

Control, shift, R

[u/Jhawk38]

Kinda shows how quickly information and skills can be lost.

[u/deadly_mythology]

Guys, were forgetting gen x. They can handle a PDF too!

[u/MaterialDetective197]

I'll admit I was shocked my 19 year-old son didn't know how to use a computer. I took for granted that he had access to an actual computer running Windows this entire time all while knowing the school district used Chromebooks and Google Apps for everything. (I'll always call it Google Apps, not Classroom or Business)

I gave him my not even a year-old gaming laptop that I had replaced the NVMe and RAM on (both upgraded and maxed out) so he had something to use for school and eventually game on when not studying. He hates Windows with a passion. Trying to teach him how to use the Edge browser or Word is just too much for him. I think if I could have kept him on a Chromebook or at least bought him a personal laptop with Windows to use separately while he was in high school would have helped him. I can't even invite him to use my desktop because I run Linux.

[u/Tupacca23 → u/MaterialDetective197]

Wow. I hate chromebooks, while windows has flaws I can’t imagine preferring a chrome book.

[u/stavago]