| Let's edit this comment for accuracy: "[Some of us chose] to debug viruses, worry about floppy disk compatibility, learn how to change out failed hard drives, etc. if we simply wanted to use technology at all" Now, Millennials is a pretty uselessly broad term, so depending on what age range you are actually talking about, there is slightly more truth to this. If you are talking about someone who is 29-34 today, then you would be an early adopter of these technologies and it did require a high level of expertise. However this was a very small portion of the population. If you are talking about 22-25 year olds, then computers and the internet had become more common in households and de-skilling. I know plenty of people who have used and owned computers most of their lives and have never debugged a thing. Nerds have the inability to understand that most people use computers like any other tool. They do not obsess over it, seek to understand how it works, or otherwise care. Like a microwave, they buy a new one if their current computer "breaks." Like a light fixture, if it malfunctions, most people hire a repairman instead of doing it themselves. This has always been true for the mainstream users of computers. It only seems more absurd now because 16-19 year olds have had smartphones and other technology luxuries their whole lives, and so we expect them to have invested more interest into truly learning how to use them and how they work. But availability of a technology does not have much of a connection to proficiency of said technology. Ironically, I am sure most of the people here who whine about how little other people understand computers have a similar lack of understanding for other objects they use everyday. How many people in programming/I.T. know anything about plumbing or car maintenance? |