[oskarkk]

> I still find it strange how people use the word “WiFi” to mean internet. For so many young people today, WiFi IS the internet.

I don't think that's the case, people don't call mobile internet "WiFi". In their minds "WiFi" probably means "home internet", so it's more like they call LAN "WiFi", because they have never used cable connection.

[sekh60]

I have a friend who, no matter how many times I have explained it, calls her Internet connection WiFi. I was really confused at first when she said she pays for Wi-Fi. She's 27.

[k1t]

She's not alone - here's an example (from today!) of an HN user using WiFi to mean cellular/mobile data

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45620379

[encom]

And they used to say kids were good with computers. I think if you graph computer illiteracy vs. year of birth, people who were born around the 80's are in the bottom of a bathtub curve.

The boomers are hopeless with tech, because they grew up without it. But gen-z is also hopeless, because they grew up with opaque appliances like Iphones. You use it how Apple allows you to. The inner workings of it are hidden behind endless abstractions and shiny (liquid!) UI. Every error message is something like "Oopsie woopsie" with a sad face emoji. When it breaks you toss it in the garbage.

This reads like an "uphill both ways" story, but we used to build our own computers (still do, but I used to too), because that was how you aquired one unless you bought a Dell like a lamer. When your software messed up it segfaulted or coredumped, and you had to figure it out. When your hardware broke, you took it apart. People today use Discord because picking a client and specifying a server and port combo to connect to is too hard. And so on and so forth, you get the point...

And the point is these damn kids are on my lawn, making TikTok videos.

[bonoboTP]

This also applies to many other things, such as cars. But perhaps the timeline is shifted.

But if we go earlier a bit, it was common for people to know much more about house construction, electric work, flooring, making furniture etc. IKEA emulates some of this, but it's really a different thing to live around things you truly understand, you participated in builting your house, you know how and why everything is in it, you can fix your car, you can make produce in your garden, you eat your chickens' eggs, which you can turn into baked chicken, the whole process from hatching to hen to plate is managed by you etc.

People are having less and less control and understanding of their lives. It's all "coming from somewhere" and wrapped in abstractions and euphemisms. You no longer buy things, just rent, etc. It really changes the mentality to a more child-like thinking, at the mercy of some opaque system. With AI we will get the final blow. No skills, no intellectual muscle, just as people don't even remember the and driving directions to even places they regularly visit, because GPS gives instructions so it's just not memorized. It will be the same but for everything.

[encom]

It's why I became an electrician, and specialised in telecoms. I realised in my 20's that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life typing on a keyboard, and telecoms is the right kind of combination of geekery and practical work. Plus I know all the fundamental electrician stuff. I highly recommend this career path if you feel the same way. My last job was in robotics where my combined skillset of being a Linux-focused computer+networking geek and having electrical skills made me pretty unique. Lately my career has taken a bizarre turn where I do AV, networking and electrical work, plus... swimming pool maintenance. Life, uh, finds a way.

Anyways, apart from knowing how a car works on a theoretical level, I have no idea how to fix mine, and getting fucked at the dealership is a part of my life I have begrudgingly accepted.

Thanks for reading my blog.

[20after4]

Brawndo: it's got what plant's crave.

[adfm]

It’s got electrolytes.

[mantas]

I had similar revelation watching friend’s son asking him stuff about how to use cell phone. When I was young, it was always the other way around. And it still is, I keep helping my parents. But now I wonder if I’ll end up the IT guy in both generational directions.

[xp84]

I think we will, but I’m cringing harder and harder these days because my “clients” (friends and children) are often bringing me problems that are just unsolvable due to all the guardrails put up “for our protection.” For instance, “my iPhone says it’s full”

looks at storage stats

40GB worth of “System Data” and 20GB of Safari “Documents and Data” - zero visibility as to what it is let alone simple controls to get rid of it in a reasonable way. On a real computer, that’s the kind of thing an admin has ultimate authority over. Now, especially on phones, you may as well be a call center tech saying “Well, I guess you can erase the entire phone and don’t restore a backup?” because that’s the only guaranteed fix for most problems.

[rossant]

My mother too. She can't understand how she can access the internet anywhere in nature if there's no wifi.

[zenoprax]

I think if you're not "on Wifi" then you're "on data" (or perhaps "on 5G" if it's a social status thing). If one were to connect via Starlink then it would still be correct to say you were on Wifi I think but if you could hook up ethernet directly... I think most of us would say you're now "on satellite"?

I didn't even consider that the newest iPhones can connect to satellites directly.

[cortesoft]

Yeah, that’s true. I even thought about that when I was typing my comment but wasn’t sure the best way to articulate the difference, but I think you are right with it being about home internet vs cellular.

Although I really think it is just used to mean “non-phone based internet”, rather than just home internet.

[bonoboTP]

It means Internet where your monthly data cap is not consumed.

[xp84]

Haha, yeah right. American ISPs got jealous of Australian ones I guess, because most have caps now. With my gigabit connection I have a 1.25TB cap, so I can technically burn the whole month allowance in 2.77 hours. Yay “broadband”!

[bonoboTP]

Ok, in my world that's not a thing. Mobile data is for most people at most a few or few 10s of gigabytes, so they need to pay attention not to watch many HD videos and download big stuff. On wifi it doesn't matter. The biggest reason for people to switch to wifi in a Cafe etc is the data cap.

[1718627440]

I used to hate the term mobile data, before I got to know, that this is the official term, because no you can't take the internet with you.