I’m part of Gen Z, and no, we as a generation AREN’T tech savvy. just because we grew up with smart phones does not make us tech savvy. in fact, i actually think it made us dumber with tech. i’m the only one in my school who knows how to use a command line and code (i also use linux as my daily driver). meanwhile everyone else doesn’t even know what a freaking file manager is
Despite tech-savvy reputation, Gen Z falls behind in keyboard typing skills
Submitted 2 months ago by neme@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.techspot.com/news/104623-think-gen-z-good-typing-think-again.html
Comments
yoshisaur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Millennial here: I think what Gen X and Boomer authors mean when they say ‘GenZ is more tech savvy’ is basically just that they use social media apps on phones and play video games, and that more of their culture derives from such things.
Maybe tech-immersed would be a better term.
As far as actual tech competency goes?
Yeah I agree with you. Phones and apps are generally reliable enough now that there’s far less need to figure out anything under the hood, unlike in my day where you kind of had to learn more about a system to do what is now common, and you had to type on a keyboard.
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Another Millennial here, so take that how you will, but I agree. I think that Gen Z is very tech literate, but only in specific areas that may not translate to other areas of competency that are what we think of when we say “tech savvy” - especially when you start talking about job skills.
I think Boomers especially see anybody who can work a smartphone as some sort of computer wizard, while the truth is that Gen Z grew up with it and were immersed in the tech, so of course they’re good with it. What they didn’t grow up with was having to type on a physical keyboard and monkey around with the finer points of how a computer works just to get it to do the thing, so of course they’re not as skilled at it.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Hi, I’m a programmer. Most of my classmates didn’t know how to use Linux.
Now, I’ve realized that newer products are being developed via Visual Studio so……
Linux and command line knowledge aren’t the same as being tech savvy
yoshisaur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
linux can be used through mostly GUI now so i partly agree with you, but installing linux can be quite a hard task for those who aren’t tech savvy. i’m pretty sure being able to do the following can be considered tech savvy:
- change boot settings
- flash an ISO to a USB drive
- shrink windows partition into a new one for linux
- boot from USB
- actually install linux
- get used to linux
someguy3@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Um is there anything special to use Linux? Click the GUI.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The boomers had cars and flexed being able to drive stick or know what a carburetor is, unlike those feeble Millennials. They had that greaser subculture. Hmm. I guess that makes the movie Grease the equivalent of War Games or Hackers.
So what is the zoomer thing? What eye-rolling help do they give to doddering old gen-Xers? What will they flex in their old age?
0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
The darned neural implant generation doesn’t even know how to doomscroll with their fingers. Kids these days smh no cap.
bebabalula@feddit.dk 2 months ago
There’s a common misconception among boomers and gen x that “digital natives” like gen z have a god-given tech proficiency. However, there’s nothing about being born with a smartphone in your hand that teaches you anything about tech.
It’s not like people are getting better at changing oil as car ownership becomes more common, right?
ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 2 months ago
with a smartphone in your hand
They are probably better at touch^[as in touchscreen :P] typing.
RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
That’s like 80% autocorrect anyway (I didn’t write a single word correctly in this sentence).
Branquinho@lemmy.eco.br 2 months ago
I think “digital naive” is a better phrase than “digital native”. They are born with computers all around them. But most adults forget to / are not able to educate them about technology and their implications.
Disaster@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I believe it’s a little more sinister than that. There is less education around these issues because many services have adopted a highly polished, “Walled-Garden” approach to their presentation. This keeps people who’ve grown up with the concepts in their walled garden loyal to that specific service, and makes it difficult for people to dig under the hood and work out how things really function without the sugar coating. They get irritated quickly because they’re used to everything “Just working” and don’t have experience on more open systems.
Therefore, they would like there to be no need for tech education unless you plan on a professional career as a tech.
As long as ownserhip don’t get carried away with enshittification chasing next quarter’s finance call and drive users away by annoying them into putting the extra effort in to learning about alternatives, they could keep it that way forever.
eleitl@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I call them digital savages. You wouldn’t ask a jungle tribe about the Krebs cycle either.
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Gen X and older witnessed a young generation born into kind of working, but kind of janky technology. They saw kids figure out obscure VCR programming interfaces that let the kids record something they wanted, but only by navigating very obtuse interface rendered exclusively with 7 segment displays with a few extra static indicators. A teenager playing that new DOS game, but first they had to struggle with getting the conventional memory, upper memory, EMS/XMS and just the right set of TSRs running, involving mucking about with menu driven config.sys/autoexec.bat tailored for their use cases. Consumer electronics and computers of the time demanded a steep learning curve, but they could still do magic, leading to the trope in the 80s and 90s media of tech wonder kids doing awesome stuff way better than the adults. Even if you have a super advanced submarine and very smart people, you needed your teenager computer kid to outclass everyone.
By now, we’ve made high res touch screens that can be embedded in everything for cheap, and embedded systems that would be the envy of a pretty high end desktop from the year 2000, which was capable of running more friendly operating environments. The rather open ended internet has largely baked in how the participants get to play. The most common devices lock down what the user can do, because the user can’t be trusted not to break themselves with malware.
The end result is that we may have the same proportion of people with the deep technical skills, but a lot of people are now unimpressed. In the mid 90s, less than 1 percent of the population had direct internet experience, and by 2008, 25% had that experience. So even if you still have 1% of really tech savvy people, there’s over 24x as many non savvy people that don’t need to marvel at those savvy people because they are getting about what they want out of it.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, fair point. My first computer was a Tandy TRS80, followed by a ZX81. You pretty much had to learn BASIC to get them to do anything at all.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Oh, I remember my childhood and how everybody (and sadly myself) considered us so knowledgeable because we sit chatting via ICQ, writing stupid shit in forum text RPGs, playing WarCraft III, Perfect World, IL2, KotOR and X-Wing Alliance all day.
hark@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The tech-savvy reputation comes from the “digital native” narrative i.e. because they grew up with computers they must know computers, which is a silly fallacy because how one interacts with technology makes all the difference. It’s the same reason why everyone who grew up with electricity isn’t necessarily an electrician.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The tech savvy reputation comes from millenials. We ARE tech savvy.
RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Only the early ones. By definition millenials are birth years 1981 to 1996, so the last ones were 11 when the first iPhone released.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
As an older Gen Z, yeah you guys probably have a better grasp on modern tech. Weirdly enough I actually have found that a weirdly high amount of folks my age know old analogue tech better, like vacuum tubes and old cars.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But then came smartphones, and instead they grew up with that…
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In the days of Apple II and similar machines a person who operated a computer knew it, because computers were simpler and because there was no other way and because you’d generally buy a cheaper toy if you didn’t want to learn it.
Also techno-optimism of the 70s viewed the future as something where computers make the average person more powerful in general - through knowing how to use a computer in general, that is, knowing how to write programs (or at least “create” something, like in HyperCard).
That was the narrative consistent with the rest of technology and society of that time, where any complex device would come with schematics and maintenance instructions.
Then something happened - most humans couldn’t keep up with the growing complexity. Something like that happened with me when I went to uni with undiagnosed AuDHD. There was a general path in the future before me - going there and learning there - but I didn’t know how I’m going to do that, and I just tried to persuade myself that I must, it should happen somehow if I do same things others do with more effort. Despite pretense and self-persuasion, I failed then.
It’s similar to our reality. The majority stopped understanding what happens around them, but kept pretending and persuading itself that it’s just them, that the new generation is fine with it all, that they don’t need those things they fail to understand, etc. Like when in class you don’t understand something, but pretend to. All the older generation does that. The younger generation does another thing - they try to ignore parts of the world they don’t understand, like hiding their heads in the sand. Or like a bullied kid just tries not to think about bullies. Or like a person living in a traditionally oppressive state just avoids talking about politics and society.
That narrative has outlived its reality not only with computers.
People are eager to believe in magic. Do you need to know how to cook if you have dinner and breakfast trees (thank you, LF Baum)? So they think we have such trees. It’s an illusion, of course. Very convenient, isn’t it, to make so many industries inaccessible to amateurs.
It’s very simple. There’s such a thing as “too complex”. The tower of Babel is one fitting metaphor.
You don’t need this complexity in an AK rifle. Just like that, you don’t need it in an analog TV. And in a digital TV you need much less complexity too. We don’t have it in our boots - generally. We don’t have it in our shirts. Why would we have it in things with main functionality closer to them in complexity than to SW combat droids?
I think Stanislaw Lem called this a “combinatoric explosion” when predicting it in one of his essays.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Being a tool user doesn’t make one a tool maker, though having grown up in the days you had to assemble and maintain your own tools does naturally facilitate growing into the latter from the former.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Right? I grew up with pen and paper, but I’m better with keyboards.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
They use apps.
On phones.
They aren’t tech savvy.
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 2 months ago
I’d also argue that your WPM typed on a keyboard doesn’t make you tech-savvy either. 1950s secretaries could type fast on a typewriter and that didn’t make them tech savvy either.
BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There are a wide range of computer skills. Being able to interact with a word processor extremely efficiently is a highly valuable tech skill. Someone who knows about processor architecture but can’t touch type is arguably more tech-savvy but also less useful in most office jobs. So I’d say that the secretaries were indeed tech-savvy in a way that was useful for their positions.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I don’t even know how fast I can type on a phone.
Even with word completion I find myself hesitating between the choice of word or typing it out.
I know it’s not near as fast as on a physical keyboard where is used to be around 90-120 wpm if I remember correctly. (Been a while since I had to do that at an employment agency)
Anyway, it’d be fun to see a thumbs only tiktok/Snapchat typer vs a mechanical typewriter type off.
And, tbf, most people are far from tech savvy.
Most are consumers. Some are really good consumers. Some are power users. Some know how to do things.
Very few actually understand it.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It’s a pretty good indicator. If you spend all day working with computers chances are you’ll be able to type quickly
hightrix@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Gen Z is app savvy, not tech savvy. Very very different.
Randelung@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The problem is non-savvy people classifying connecting a Bluetooth or wifi as complicated.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Connecting Bluetooth is complicated. Mostly because it doesn’t work.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
There’s a science fiction book series which name I cannot remember for the life of me but in there is a generation ship traveling from Earth to some other star system and it’s been going for centuries.
No one really understands anymore how to operate any of the systems on the ship. They just know which buttons to press, but they have no real understanding of what it’s actually doing.
A lot of app users seem to be like that. They can get the app to do what they want but they don’t really understand why that’s working or what other things the app could do.
hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Not Foundation, but sounds a bit like it. Galactic empire collapses because no one knows how the technology that powers it works anymore.
VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Dang kids don’t know how to tune a TV or do the tappets in their car!
They’ll be screwed if they find themselves in 1980!
prosp3kt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
What tech savvy reputation? They doesn’t even know what a system file structure is. Neither the article writer, social media =/= tech-savvy.
Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was the electronics guy at walmart and just…holy shit the kids buying laptops. A lot didn’t even know how to work the keyboard. They would touch a non touchscreen laptop then ask me ‘if it isn’t touch screen then how do you work it’. Thats just one of a million amazing questions I got.
I know a bit of it is…iono…location bias? Most kids who know computers are probably shopping online or microcenter or something but still.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
They doesn’t even know what a system file structure is.
I had to talk to somebody about a file that they needed me to look at and they kept saying It’s the one in the P drive, and they just could not understand that they needed to give me the absolute file path. This was someone who’s extensively in engineer working in a power station. Yep they don’t understand about drive mappings
sailingbythelee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I had a girl drop out of my University class because she couldn’t figure out what a “file” was or how to “email” it to me. She just kept trying to share her Apple storage with me. Really sad. It’s hard to help someone who gets to university without even grasping the basic nature of a file system.
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
but gen z is not tech savvy. They can use a browser. and watch youtube. They never advance past that stage
foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I think for the most part they are just “good” at using mainstream social medias nothing really more
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You would think they know how to use a browser but in reality they only use apps. TikTok being their preferred search engine speaks volumes.
flashgnash@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Man look at millennials turning into boomers at record pace
“back in my day we did things properly, now all these damn kids… etc etc”
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
it’s not becoming boomers. It’s about rarely meeting one who knows that, for example, wifi is not the internet. I’m not asking for detailed tech knowledge. But getting a blank face if asked something as simple as “where did you save the file?” or replying with “in the gallery/google photos” means you are not tech savvy. these are the absolute basics.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 months ago
😔
yamanii@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Their parents don’t even give them PCs, how would they even learn?
Yeller_king@reddthat.com 2 months ago
I’ve literally never heard Gen Z described as tech savvy.
foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The boomers says that to them but that’s really not true, this day this generation is less and less “tech savvy”, they’re just good at using the basic way social media
Ibuthyr@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
People who know nothing more than how to operate a smartphone are not tech savvy. They can’t even do that properly. Never seen anyone from that generation use an ad blocker or revanced or anything else that combats enshittification.
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The highest usage of ad blockers happens within the age range of 18-24, which categorically includes Gen Z.
The second highest age range is 25-34, and the third highest is 12-17, which is also included in Gen Z.
That said, I would argue that, while knowing how to use a smartphone doesn’t make you tech savvy, knowing how to use an ad blocker doesn’t either. It’s as easy as installing an extension.
YaksDC@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Being able to use TikTok on your phone doesn’t make you tach savvy. They don’t know anything about how it all works. It’s a false dichotomy.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’m a programmer. I write hundreds of lines of code a day (of varying levels of quality ofc). I also fix technology (phones, laptops, desktops. tablets, etc). I’m probably one of the most “tech-savvy” people I know. I very rarely type faster than 70 wpm. it’s just not necessary for what most of us are doing.
ikidd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Gen X that think Gen Zs are tech savvy are probably the people that the actual Gen Z nerds shake their head at when we have to teach them how to put an URL in the address bar instead of searching for Gmail and clicking on the link every. goddamn. time.
kava@lemmy.world 2 months ago
People believe just because someone interests with some sort of digital device, it makes you an expert on computers. The thing is, it depends on the type of operating system you are interacting with.
For example when I was young, my father would buy those big old gray computers from yard sales. I would mix and match the pieces inside to build my own PC. I broke a lot of shit but learned a lot.
The operating system was one where you more or less had total control over the computer. By 12~13 I was using CD-Roms to load different Linux distros and play around with all sorts of different things.
This experience basically taught me how operating systems work at a fundamental level. How it needs a kernel, how it loads and maintains services, packages, etc. How file systems work and learning how terminals are useful. Scripting languages, and eventually coding applications.
Compare and contrast that to the young kids of today. What do they get? A phone and a tablet. You can’t open it up. You can’t tinker with it. The OS is closed off and is deliberately made as difficult as possible to modify.
You get what you get and you don’t get upset. That doesn’t leave nearly as much room for exploration and curiosity. It’s a symptom of our computers becoming more and more railroaded. More and more control by large companies.
It’s really sad, I think. Fairly soon I believe every device will be a “thin device” or essentially a chrome book. Very little local processing power and instead it’ll essentially stream from a server.
RandomGuy79@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Z is not savvy. They’re basically boomers when it comes to tech. It always worked so it should work. None of our z staff can fix a printer and in fact none are allowed to
samus12345@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It seems like a kind of horseshoe thing where boomers are computer illiterate because they weren’t around when they were growing up, while Zoomers are computer illiterate because they grew up interfacing with technology via the simplified, corporate-approved mobile phone platforms.
AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The natural result of getting rid of computer literacy classes.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
By the time the generation after them get to working age, somebody will have invented the Swype keyboard for office use.
It will always be in uppercase unless you press the “no cap” button.
tunetardis@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
As a Gen X, I think my typing speed peaked around late high school/early university? I tried to teach myself touch typing and got moderately proficient. Then I got into programming where you need to reach all of those punctuation marks. So my right hand has drifted further to the right over the years, which is better for code but suboptimal for regular text.
One thing that’s really tanked for me though is writing in cursive. I used to be able to take notes in class as fast as the prof could speak. Now I can scarcely sign my own name.
ochi_chernye@startrek.website 2 months ago
Every single article about “gen x” this or “gen z” that is 100% bullshit. Stop reposting this garbage.
jaschen@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Gen X here. Honestly, I was a shit typer until I got a keyboard for my sega dreamcast and bought “Typing of the dead”.
I went from hunt and peck to well over 100wpm.
ProjectPatatoe@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The number of people i’m seeing use caps lock instead of shift to do capital letters have been increasing. “Oh you can do that?”
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
I built my Gen Z nephew a PC with a GTX 950 a few years back. When I went by to gift him a new video card I found out that he hooked up his video output from the motherboard the whole time. Don’t know how that reflects on all kids from his generation but it was kinda funny.
octoturt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
once again the divide between being tech-savvy and tech-native rears it’s ugly head. no, gen z is not exceptionally tech-savvy compared to previous generations, i can confirm most of my peers are tech morons. they’ve just been raised with smartphones and therefore know that specific UX language better than previous generations
nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I think that true “tech-savvyness” isn’t really a generational thing.
Some people are just really curious about how stuff works. When they see something they aren’t satisfied with, “Just do it.” or “Shit just works.” They want to know how and why it works. When you hand those people a computer, machine or flower they’ll poke at it and try to understand it better.
It’s not clear that typing skills are actually needed for that.
I max out at around 80-100 WPM but I only sustain that when I’m transcribing something. When I need to learn about technology, it’s much more about reading than typing. When I actually need to do some coding, I spend much more time staring at the screen and looking up stuff on Stackoverlow than I do actually typing.
Most of Z is not sazzy at all, just like with every generation. And just like with every generation, some of them will push the envelope of technology. I doubt that lack of typing will slow those folks down.
Fox@pawb.social 2 months ago
Mavis Beacon would cry if she were around to see this
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Does Gen Z actually have a tech savvy reputation? I was under the impression that the last few generations aren’t that great with computers as they more grew up with mature technology. It is the Gen X and Millennials that are more digital native while having used computers where advanced skills were required.
eager_eagle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
so… people who take typing lessons and actively try to improve it have better typing skills than the ones who don’t. Shocking.
ruckblack@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I mean, as a millennial, I mostly taught myself to type. I’m fast enough, but have bad technique and could be faster. I was only ever actually trained to type in grade school, and barely. Once in a while in computer class we would play an educational typing game.
My mom is much better at typing than I am, because she was trained to type in college. That’s not really a thing anymore.
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Duh. They use phones mostly. A lot of the gen z people I know are just as bad as boomers with tech. Millineals and gen x had that sweet spot of “actually having to learn how shit works not just iphone go brrr.”
jballs@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Yeah I don’t know why the article mentions Gen Z’s “tech-savvy reputation”. Being able to operate a cell phone doesn’t make you tech savvy.
Gen X and Millennials grew up using command line and troubleshooting computer problems before the Internet. Their tech skills are way higher than Gen Z.
cRazi_man@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I never needed to use command line, but I did hone NY typing skills on MIRC and ICQ.
piccolo@ani.social 2 months ago
Thats largely because 90s software was jank, and the internet exposed all kinds of more jank and viruses… but now, most things just work. Also, most people arent really using desktops, their using phones or tablets or game consoles, where the OS is very much locked down.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 months ago
This is why I feel disconnected from most of my gen z people
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 months ago
it does, to a boomer
BombOmOm@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yep. And phone typing is the ‘hunt and peck’ method of keyboard typing. Which is unfortunate because it’s ingraining the slowest way to type onto a whole generation.
halfapage@lemmy.world 2 months ago
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Yeah, I’m a swiper myself and I can’t imagine anyone being able to swipe without knowing the keyboard layout like one would for typing.
tabular@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There’s a mode where you swipe your finger over each letter in order and it auto completes the word. Not sure how often younger people use it (though I wasn’t aware you could do that until I saw someone younger doing it).
mwguy@infosec.pub 2 months ago
They also stopped teaching typing in schools. My younger family members never had an computer class or a typing class.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Anything beyond ~2002 became worse than the predecessor in IT related tasks.
atmur@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Ilandar@aussie.zone 2 months ago
One difference is that the touch-screen typists rely heavily on autocorrect. I don’t think they’re actually as accurate as you think - their spelling and typo errors are being covered up more than yours on the desktop computer.