I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
Smartphones have made the generation after me spoiled and stupid. Literally had to teach Gen Z hires how to use basic shit on a desktop computer, and watch as they chicken peck the keyboard.
I was born im 1990, grew up on desktop computers, and did the hunt and peck thing until I actively began using my keyboard for research papers, essays, etc. It is a skill that I picked up on with use, not from instruction.
I’m barely older than you and received typing classes in elementary school. Moving forward from about 8th grade and up most of my schoolwork was performed via computer. The only things I wrote out by hand in high school were math/science worksheets.
It’s fascinating which practical skills schools fail to teach, differing by district.
Part of it depends on where you grew up. born 1998 in a rural English village, We had computer labs or a crate of laptops but they weren’t a focus for actual lessons and more of a treat between real classes.
Wasn’t until I got to college that lessons actually started requiring you to use a computer.
We did formal typing classes in school starting from primary school up to middle school but that was not what made me a proficient typist. I got comfortable with a keyboard and more proper typing by actually doing it.
Some of that is on me for being a little shit in school, some of it is because the classes were shit. My point was that typing is a skill and there is more than one way to learn it and that a generation shouldn’t be judged from a snapshot at a relatively young age.
That said, a relatively large number of the younger engineers I work with ARE missing critical basic tech/mechanical/problem solving skills so I do recognize that there seems to be a generational difference in some areas. I didn’t get to work with a young engineer from a previous generation when they were a young engineer though so I can’t say that for sure.
Same as the other commenter, I was born in 1990. I type fast, and more accurately than one would think looking at my technique, but that just happened through sheer time and exposure. I basically had to relearn how to type when I switched to ergonomic split keyboards. And having gravitated around tech related circles, and having been the defacto tech guy around me since the early/mid noughties, I’d say most people are pretty inept with computers and only know how to do the basics of what they need to know, for the most part. Most don’t know how to type properly or how to efficiently search on Google. I don’t think it’s a new phenomenon.