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Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

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Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#41

Post by p1necone »

rc-5 wrote: post #32

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am, in fact, a teen, and absolutely do not represent the majority of teenagers. This post is a generalization and a subjective rant that absolutely doesn't hold up in real life. >>>When you explain what happens under the hood, they will ignore you. When you tell them what a certain setting probably does, they will ignore you. In my experience, although there may be some teena…

Thanks for this, I take everything written about teenagers from the perspective of anyone >~20 with a huge grain of salt, because I'm not old enough to forget yet how completely and utterly out of touch adults were about my generation of teenagers when I was younger.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#42

Post by tmpz22 »

rc-5 wrote: post #32

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am, in fact, a teen, and absolutely do not represent the majority of teenagers. This post is a generalization and a subjective rant that absolutely doesn't hold up in real life. >>>When you explain what happens under the hood, they will ignore you. When you tell them what a certain setting probably does, they will ignore you. In my experience, although there may be some teena…

While I agree with your summary I think the OP brushes against another point I think is really important: a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost.

As software developers we pull our hair out trying to architect around this issue... and we usually fail hard.

I could guess an infinity of potential causes, but if anyone has a concise answer to how to avoid the phenomenon please comment.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#43

Post by rc-5 »

p1necone wrote: post #41
rc-5 wrote: post #32

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am, in fact, a teen, and absolutely do not represent the majority of teenagers. This post is a generalization and a subjective rant that absolutely doesn't hold up in real life. >>>When you explain what happens under the hood, they will ignore you. When you tell them what a certain setting probably does, they will ignore you. In my experience, although there may be some teena…

Thanks for this, I take everything written about teenagers from the perspective of anyone >~20 with a huge grain of salt, because I'm not old enough to forget yet how completely and utterly out of touch adults were about my generation of teenagers when I was younger.

Haha - it's a perennial issue.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#44

Post by ImprovedSilence »

I mean, I didn’t have a clue about IT and only ever used windows until AFTER college. In high school I didn’t have the slightest care for any computer type stuff besides AIM, Napster and cracked video games. I had two programming classes in college. (Neither Of which I cared for too much or really learned much about the underlying machine)and they were both done on Windows computers. I guess I’m lucky my degree (EE) overlapped with comp eng, I got into some decent jobs that let my work overlap gradually into software land. I now I work on Linux machines all day, and have a very healthy hunger to continue to learn and pick up new knowledge.

But bottom line, none of this developed until I got into a career. Kids back in the day were just as clueless. And there are a few outliers, sure.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#45

Post by lotsofpulp »

tmpz22 wrote: post #42
rc-5 wrote: post #32

Allow me to preface this by saying that I am, in fact, a teen, and absolutely do not represent the majority of teenagers. This post is a generalization and a subjective rant that absolutely doesn't hold up in real life. >>>When you explain what happens under the hood, they will ignore you. When you tell them what a certain setting probably does, they will ignore you. In my experience, although there may be some teena…

While I agree with your summary I think the OP brushes against another point I think is really important: a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost. As software developers we pull our hair out trying to architect around this issue... and we usually fail hard. I could guess an infinity of potential cause…

> a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost.

A large proportion of people don’t even optimize their bedroom, and probably a huge proportion for teens and young adults. It’s lack of caring about long term benefits and focusing on short term benefits. Or laziness. Or procrastination. Or whatever you want to call it.

You can spend some time now to make the future easier, or you can enjoy the time now and deal with the future later.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#46

Post by outime »

When I had my first computer as a kid (~8yo) and no one to teach me about the inner workings, I still felt that I wanted to dig deep into it. As the years passed by and saw the evolution from dial-up to all-day-long available & fast connections, tons of material to learn online, videos on demand... I thought oh wow, the next generations are going to have so much IT knowledge very early!

Turns out that today, in my humble experience, it’s very rare to find geeky (pre)teens unless they have geeky parents (and not even then). Computers became much more simplified, problem-free and in different forms to mostly consume content. So the curiosity that grew inside of me while solving daily computer problems is very difficult nowadays as most of the issues aren’t very challenging (which is very good for the average user).

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#47

Post by rodgerd »

Gen X doesn't have a clue about punch cards. Boomers don't have a clue about steam engines.

My teen is a lot more interested in what she can use tools to do and create, not fucking around with installing hardware and operating system. I feel like this is a better use of her time, frankly.

This is like listening to people my parents' age rant about how no-one has to use their pantyhose to fix a broken fan belt, or adjust a carb to a richer or leaner fuel mix as you go skiing and come home.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#48

Post by imgabe »

I imagine the author shaking his fist at the sky while writing this.

Speaking as a former teen, teens don't know much about sales and marketing, mechanical engineering, international politics, or basically any other aspect of the adult world. This is because they're teens.

I guess because they learn to use new technology faster it gives the impression that they know all about it. But I don't know why anyone would expect them to be an expert in operating system design or anything.

Re: Teens don't have a clue about IT? (2016)

#49

Post by Izkata »

> Green text with a black background is the norm, right? No. Using green text on a black background is not only obnoxious but also hard to read. If at all the norm is white text on a black background or white on black.

Hm. I use white-on-purple at work, and green-on-black at home. Anyone else use apparently-unusual terminal colors?

*green-on-black with occasional red, was part of a rotating color set I used to use. The Christmas colors were nice enough I kept them year-round.

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