• 0 Posts
  • 20 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: September 14th, 2023
  • ralakus@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.world•Despite tech-savvy reputation, Gen Z falls behind in keyboard typing skillsEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    Gonna defend gen z a bit here. Unlike older generations, gen z was raised in a large part only on locked down, touch screen interface devices like smartphones and tablets. These devices are designed to not be tampered with, designed and streamlined to “just work” for certain tasks without any hassle.

    If you only have a smartphone or tablet, how are you supposed to learn how to use a desktop os? How are you supposed to learn how to use a file system? How are you supposed to learn how to install programs outside of a central app store? How are you supposed to learn to type on a physical keyboard if you do not own one?

    I worked as a public school technician for a while and we used Chromebooks at my school system. Chromebooks are just as locked down if not more locked down than a smartphone due to school restrictions imposed via Google’s management interface. Sure they have a physical keyboard and “files” but many interfaces nowadays are point and click rather than typing. The filesystem (at least on the ones I worked with) were locked down to just the Downloads, Documents, Pictures, etc. directories with everything else locked down and inaccessible.

    Schools (at least the ones I went to and worked at) don’t teach typing classes anymore. They don’t teach cursive classes. They don’t teach any classes on how to use technology outside of a few Microsoft certification programs that students have to chose to be in (and are awfully dull and will put you to sleep).

    Gen Z does not have these technology skills because they largely do not have access to anything that they can use to learn these skills and they aren’t taught them by anyone. Gen Z is just expected to know these skills from being exposed to technology but that’s not how it works in the real world.

    These people aren’t dumb as rocks either like so many older people say they are. It’s a bell curve, you’ll have the people dumb as rocks, the average person, and the Albert Einsteins. Most people here on lemmy fall closer to the “Albert Einstein” end of the tech savvy curve so there’s a lot of bias here. But I’ve had so many cases where I’ve met Boomers, Gen X, and Millennial who just can’t grasp technology at all.

    Also, before someone says “they can just look it up on the internet”, they have no reason to. What’s the point of looking up these skills if they cannot practice them anywhere? Sure, you’ll have a few that are curious and interested in it but a vast majority of people have interests that lie outside of tech skills.

    Tl;dr Gen Z is just expected to know technology and thus aren’t taught how to use it or even have access to non-locked down devices.

  • ralakus@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.ml•I studied political science and jazz...
    2·
    9 months ago

    I think the main issue is too much fragmentation within Linux. There’s the whole choosing the distro, choosing a desktop environment (or window manager), figuring out how to use the packages for your distro, etc. Then you have issues like some software being too outdated for your distro or not packaged at all so you look into Flatpak but it’s a whole other system on your computer to have to keep track of and maintain or the software you need is not there either so you have to compile from source. There also comes the issue of getting help when something breaks. There’s hundreds of different little bits in every single distro that makes it a pain in the ass to fix sometimes unless you’re using one of the few large distros where the guides actually work.

    I really don’t think Linux will become truly mainstream for the every day user until there is a proper “default” experience like what Windows and MacOS provide. Sure some people will say use this distro and this desktop environment and it’d just work but that forces the common person to trust the other person online and that common person has to make a choice. If their first experience on Linux is bad, they’ll just throw it off altogether and go back to Windows or MacOS. Everyone has a different first experience with Linux.

    I’m not saying strip Linux of all configurability. I’m saying there needs to be a focus on a standard Linux distro with a standardized desktop environment and standardized overall user experience. If the user wants to change any of it, they’re free to do so like anyone can with Linux right now. Also, the user should be able to manage the system entirely through a simple GUI. If the user has to for any reason go into a terminal, Linux has failed at being usable by the common person.

    I say this as a person who uses Arch (btw) on my laptops and desktop and Debian 12 and Proxmox 8 for my servers and RHEL 8 at work. I really love Linux but I just can’t in good faith recommend it to a person who wants to just use their damn computer unless they’re willing to put up with the massive fragmentation and lack of support in the community.

    Tl;dr Linux doesn’t have a “default” experience like Windows or MacOS so a common user will struggle to even get started or look for help/advice