I was right in the edge of Gen Z and Millennial and grew up being the family’s tech kid. It still astounds me now that my younger sisters don’t know how to even look for solutions. They just get me. Having moved out I get texts and calls sometimes. I’ve had to explain that using a computer is a skill that is learnable. I didn’t learn by going to someone else. I had to learn how to learn. That’s the skill we should be teaching kids. Not how to solve the problems, but how to FIND the solution to problems.
As someone also near the border between Gen Z and Millennial, I relate a lot to this comment. I was also the family tech kid, and since like middle school I’ve always told people “I’m not good with computers, I just know how to use a search engine”
My “computer literacy” is literally just basic research skills; knowing how to formulate a web search and how to identify bad sources.
Right! This is why I say it has more to do with being stubborn than being smart. If you’re determined to find a solution and you’re half decent at research and following instructions, you can figure a lot out, but people treat it like you invented the thing with some magical knowledge that they could never possess.
You’ve just articulated a feeling I’ve had most of my life, but couldn’t have described better.
Solving trivial problems for people they could easily do themselves if they just muddled through the work of it. Then act like I’m a genius, when it’s really just ‘stubbornness’ and refusing to admit i can’t figure it out.
Yep. I was born 1998. To Millennials, I’m a tiny baby Gen Z, to Gen Zs, I may as well be a boomer. It’s odd.
Growing up poor confuses things even more, because I have more in common with people born late 80s/early 90s than with people born only a few years after me. My first game console was a SNES and we had a VCR until we got a PS2, and kept using it well after.
Hah, are we the same person? My family was poor too. I’m a bit younger (born 2000) but I grew up using a VCR, and my first console was a GBA where I played a lot of SNES ports. The internet has existed my entire life, but I still remember before smartphones were a thing. It’s a really weird place to be socially. I don’t connect with Gen Z culture in almost any way, but I’m also distinctly not a millennial.
Interestingly my older sister (1998) who has zero interest in anything tech is actually pretty tech savvy for how little she cares about it. I think she crossed that threshold of learning how to learn, where even when she comes across something she doesn’t understand she knows how to approach the problem.
I’m also between gen Z and millennial and was the family’s tech kid and still get calls. Are you me? :D
Just yesterday I got a call asking how to select all images in a directory… And then another call about how to get those images to Google Drive, which is literally just drag and drop… And one of the people involved was my gen Z younger sister.
I was right in the edge of Gen Z and Millennial and grew up being the family’s tech kid. It still astounds me now that my younger sisters don’t know how to even look for solutions. They just get me. Having moved out I get texts and calls sometimes. I’ve had to explain that using a computer is a skill that is learnable. I didn’t learn by going to someone else. I had to learn how to learn. That’s the skill we should be teaching kids. Not how to solve the problems, but how to FIND the solution to problems.
As someone also near the border between Gen Z and Millennial, I relate a lot to this comment. I was also the family tech kid, and since like middle school I’ve always told people “I’m not good with computers, I just know how to use a search engine”
My “computer literacy” is literally just basic research skills; knowing how to formulate a web search and how to identify bad sources.
Right! This is why I say it has more to do with being stubborn than being smart. If you’re determined to find a solution and you’re half decent at research and following instructions, you can figure a lot out, but people treat it like you invented the thing with some magical knowledge that they could never possess.
You’ve just articulated a feeling I’ve had most of my life, but couldn’t have described better.
Solving trivial problems for people they could easily do themselves if they just muddled through the work of it. Then act like I’m a genius, when it’s really just ‘stubbornness’ and refusing to admit i can’t figure it out.
Thanks for that.
On this subject, my personal definition for millennial is someone in the age bracket where they had to teach themselves how to use windows as a kid
Teach a child to fish, basically.
If we keep making it easy for them… Ask and I’ll give you all the answers… They’ll never learn.
My first response these days is, “What have you tried so far?” And, “What are you searching for in ‘Google’?”
The late 90s Gen Z/Millennial DMZ is a painful place to exist. Constant and mandatory tech support.
The ones that is blamed for the ills of society by both the baby boomers and younger gen zs
Yep. I was born 1998. To Millennials, I’m a tiny baby Gen Z, to Gen Zs, I may as well be a boomer. It’s odd.
Growing up poor confuses things even more, because I have more in common with people born late 80s/early 90s than with people born only a few years after me. My first game console was a SNES and we had a VCR until we got a PS2, and kept using it well after.
Yeah this is why generations aren’t actually a good metric. I might as well be from another planet lol
Hah, are we the same person? My family was poor too. I’m a bit younger (born 2000) but I grew up using a VCR, and my first console was a GBA where I played a lot of SNES ports. The internet has existed my entire life, but I still remember before smartphones were a thing. It’s a really weird place to be socially. I don’t connect with Gen Z culture in almost any way, but I’m also distinctly not a millennial.
Interestingly my older sister (1998) who has zero interest in anything tech is actually pretty tech savvy for how little she cares about it. I think she crossed that threshold of learning how to learn, where even when she comes across something she doesn’t understand she knows how to approach the problem.
I’m also between gen Z and millennial and was the family’s tech kid and still get calls. Are you me? :D
Just yesterday I got a call asking how to select all images in a directory… And then another call about how to get those images to Google Drive, which is literally just drag and drop… And one of the people involved was my gen Z younger sister.