[shahbazac]

I have also found this to be true. Very surprising and, frankly, hilarious. I teach an intro to programming course to grad students, many of them freshly minted undergrads.

I've had to explain the concept of downloading files, file system directory structure and other basics. These are students are at a pretty good school, studying to become data scientists!

The reason is exactly what the author in the link says. They grew up with smart devices, but apparently not desktop/laptop computers.

[foofoo4u]

This reveals how the chasm between mobile operating systems (iOS, Android) and "desktop" operating systems (OSX, Windows) are impacting generations. The next generation live nearly their entire lives on smart phones and tablets. I think most almost never use a desktop computer unless they have to. And why should they? These mobile devices can do almost all conventional tasks that one would want out of a desktop computer. You mention that the concept of files is bewildering to them. And this makes sense when you consider the fact that mobile operating systems are "application based" while desktop operating systems are "file based". On a mobile OS, you never have to think about managing files. Everything is managed by the app. On desktops however, the user has more responsibility to properly manage files and have the appropriate application to run them.