I actually teach teenagers programming and 3D modelling. The past 5 years has been the first decline in tech literacy I’ve ever experienced between generations. My personal theory is that only the gamers actually have computers at home now. Everyone else only use their smartphones, and that only gives a negligible increase in tech literacy compared to using a computer.
Yes, computers in their various forms are now so user friendly (and often locked down, because fuck you) that you don’t learn much using them. The golden age for learning tech on the fly seems to have been 1990-2010 or so, because computers were both accessible and still had exposed inner logic.
Yeah but this also has to deal with how many pc gamers there are per generation. So what you’re saying is gen z and alpha has less pc gsmers.
In my experience it has more to do with how much less frequently issues happen and/or how often you need to go manually move files/folders around. Just not nearly as much need imo.
Similar situation with mobile devices, I remember rooting/roming/jailbreaking being much more common in the past.
We’ve drastically simplified and made tech accessible to everyone with a smartphone, you no longer need computer skills to get on the internet to shop or participate in social activities. Kids use apps’ platforms for the things we had to build and host ourselves 20y ago.
I wish I was alive back then where you guys had to build everything yourself. Go on irc and stuff. Sounds cool
I’ve recently switched to Linux (I use arch btw) and it feels like I’m living the early days of the ever expanding internet again.
Probably helps that I had to join IRC again for support, instead of Discord.
As a angry, nihilistic teenager: very fucking true. I am literally the only techy guy in my posh bullshit private international school (in Europe so affordable). The only other dude who uses Linux (I’m using that as a bare minimum for “techy”) isn’t into programming or reverse engineering shit even remotely. I’m all alone (apart from all my non-technical friends). I suppose that’s where the nihilism comes from…
