• oyo@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Let’s be fair though. Adobe changes the Acrobat interface every two weeks for no reason. PDF has always been an absolute shitshow, super slow, walled garden format. After like 30 years it’s still a 30 step process to add a note box with an arrow that looks half decent

  • Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    It only relatively recently occurred to me that the vast majority of people use the Internet either solely or mostly with a mobile phone. It blew my mind since I grew up with PCs and modems and the Internet is so much better on a large screen that’s not half full of ads.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    > be me
    > zoomer
    > use linux
    > i use linux
    > i don’t know how to use windows, or macos
    > i dont know how to use the most popular operating systems
    > wait
    > i am the joke now

  • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Computers have been dumbed down and simplified for the masses. When I was a kid a computer did not cooperate until you raised your voice.

  • shads@lemy.lol
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    4 days ago

    OK so I have a pet theory about this. I grew up in a period when computing involved friction and lack of ready resources to ease that friction. Solving problems involved actual research, in the research process more and more details of how computers operate were exposed to me. I had the time and focus to learn and the motivation to stick at it when it was difficult. I then did something horrible to almost everyone who asked me for help, I removed that friction.

    With the noblest of intentions I prevented everyone around me from experiencing that friction, I made it easy. Consequently I caused those people around me to miss out on those basics I struggled with. I uncovered the arcane lore of endianess so everyone around me who wasn’t already an adept would be spared. I plumbed the mysteries of the parallel port so that others could use a printer with only mild mystical invocations. I immersed myself in SCSI termination so that my friends and family might partake of IDE (retroactively named PATA) in peace.

    I came from an era of computing where these things mattered (at least to some degree) and they moulded me and shaped how I use a computer to this day. My brothers will always be dependent on myself and my ilk to act as guides and so much of what I know is functionally useless today so a neophyte could not follow the twisted path I did.

    I was blessed as well to come of age in a time when a computer was a comprehensible assemblage of parts, when I could identify at an IC level the components of it. I feel like that is what is missing in the modern incarnation of technology. I also worry this is where we stagnate, the field is too large for anyone to compass it entirely and we splinter in to specialisations.

    However this is also a sign that technology has come of age. I am certain, absolutely positive, that if I was to pick an arbitary topic, say music, I would seem as illiterate and helpless as the Zoomers we are bemoaning as mere consumers of Tech. I can enjoy a piece of music, I can even take a rough stab at the rusiments of how it is made. Ask me to explain the nomenclature of a time signature on sheet music and I will look the dunce before I finish the first sentence.

    So maybe we should give them a break and realise that for a lot of them, It… Just… Isn’t… Important…

    They will learn this stuff if and when they need to. Otherwise “magic box does things when I perform this ritual” is enough for them to function in their world, the same as “Car starts when I turn this key” is enough for me to function in mine.

    Holy crap, I wrote this on my phone, what is wrong with me?

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    As a boomer, reading this thread/discussion has been so amusing in many ways while enjoying my cuppa tea this morning. A classic “the younger generations are stupid.”

    The older generations looking down the ones that follow. And the following generations looking down on those that precede them. And no one understanding ain’t none of us are all that bright.

    Ever has it been, and so ever shall it be.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I can:

    • Accomplish damn near anything from a command line
    • Write machine code
    • Remember a fairly broad swath of special character altcodes without looking them up
    • Disassemble damn near any computer or other machine, and stand a good chance of putting it back together

    But also:

    • Use modern programming languages, including object oriented paradigms
    • Actually read what is on my screen and comprehend it, including error messages
    • Understand and operate any arbitrary interface without having to have it explained to me by rote

    Behold my mixture of skills, and tremble.

    • TheEntity@lemmy.world
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      Can you summarize this in a vertical video? I stopped reading after the third word, I’m here for memes, not to read a damned book!

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      Write machine code? For what kind of processor?

      That is one ability that doesn’t really belong. That’s much more of a Boomer thing. Not all boomers, obviously, but the ones who were computer experts were the ones who had to learn machine code. By the time even Gen X came along, assembler and C were already much more common.

      • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Depends, my browser has mostly taken over as my pdf viewer and I think it lacks the functionality but if I were to install a cracked copy of Acrobat Pro or PhantomPDF then that’s like a 2 click operation.

    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
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      I can

      • reinstall VLC

      oh wait that was all the dependencies VLC needed, I deleted them??, oh no, oh crap. Why isn’t my password working, help???

      (real reason why my first Ubuntu distro got nuked)

      • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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        I once wanted to move all the files in the folder was I in to another folder and I did something like mv /* ../. What is important here is that I did /* and not ./*. Fortunately it was only a raspberry pi so it went fast to flash the SD card.

        Also, how did you go about reinstalling VLC if you deleted all dependencies?

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          that I did /* and not ./*

          that’s so funny but so sad 😭😭

          how did you go about reinstalling VLC if you deleted all dependencies

          I just distrohopped to kubuntu instead lol

    • Zorsith
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      I’d argue at a certain depth in an OS its actually harder to do things with a GUI than a command line

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      The day I started learning Regex was the day I felt like I was really learning computers. I went from 2 hour tasks to 15 minutes.

      I doubt you’d even be able to reasonably explain what they are let alone how they work to the average person outside the Millennial generation.

      I fear AI data processing will replace much of the Regex skill set. Why learn Regex when the computer just does it for you… 🙄

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        Silly millennial, even Boomers were using regexen in the 70s, and they were commonplace by the time GenX nerds started playing with them in the 80s and 90s. Your elders also know that regexen are fun but extremely dangerous, and should only be used in cases where they won’t make things much worse.

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        I agree that regex is an important thing to learn. Not sure any old LLM would do a very good job, and I hope that no tool replaces people actually learning how to write regex.

        I’m not sure what you mean about the average person outside the millennial generation not understanding them, though. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think the ‘average’ person in any generation knows what regex is. Unless there is some reason the average millennial was actually exposed to them and forced to understand them?

        As for being doubtful that anyone could understand them aside from a millennial, I assume you’re being hyperbolic? Sort of sounds like “Kids these days can never learn what I learned!” (I’m teasing).

        Anyway I’m in agreement with you. This thread did remind me of a pretty neat project that, while still requiring domain knowledge, could save some time and be a good learning tool without being as fallible of a crutch as an LLM.

        Have not tried it, and am not an experienced developer, so I am curious to your thoughts/criticisms: https://github.com/pemistahl/grex

        • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          That’s a good idea actually. I hate writing regex, so I asked Gemini to do it just now. Once I explained it in the format it wanted: what the source would be, what I wanted filtered and the language I planned to use it with it spat out a perfect expression without me needing to even use my brain. Technology is wonderful.

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            I’m sure LLMs can get it right, but if I was going to use a tool for something like that, I’d want one that was more deterministic like the linked tool claims to be.

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          Yeah, I am exaggerating a bit, but I’ve not met anyone under the age of 25 that’s even remotely interested in putting in the effort to learn (anecdotal, I’m aware). Many have expressed wanting to learn, but then they never follow up when I try and pursue teaching anything.

          And I’m not necessarily saying that the average person already understands them, but someone from our generation will probably pick them up far more quickly then your average Gen Z/Gen A.

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            Maybe what you’re claiming is true, I don’t know whether is ‘probable’.

            I poked fun at this before, but I don’t think it came across. If I’m not mistaken, millennials were the subject of a lot of boomer complaints about “kids these days”, being called lazy or entitled etc…

            Maybe zoomers are dumber, maybe they’re full of microplastics and entitlement. Or maybe this thread is an example of the “chastise the next generation” history repeating. One generation is lumped together and shat on by older generations, some of which then make similar claims about the next generation(s) all backed up with nothing but anecdotes and confirmation bias.

            I’m not trying to take dig at you, but I do want to highlight the similarities between claims like these and when a boomer might’ve said “I know a millennial who spends more on coffee than I would, so millennials are bad with their money. Millennials, who are bad with their money, cant afford houses. Yet they act entitled to homeownership, and so, they are lazy.” It’s a claim that assumes something about the integrity and intelligence of a swath of people and ignores the systemic issues that made homeownership hard for many millennials compared to past generations.

            Again, maybe you are right, I do not know. I don’t think, though, that boomer rhetoric that shat on millennials as a whole was particularly accurate or productive.

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              I certainly don’t blame them for these pitfalls I don’t think it’s laziness. It’s 100% a lack of education. Teachers have all but given up trying to get kids to pay attention in class. It’s become a snowball effect.

              When I was in school, most of my classmates took it seriously and took much of the education at face value. And almost all of my classmates are people that could handle the full Office suite.

              Now it seems every kid thinks they already know computers because they started with an iPad at the age of 4, but what they don’t realize is phones and tablets are the equivalent to toys.

              You don’t ever actually learn how to use a phone. Just individual apps. People don’t even really browse the internet blindly anymore.

              I think it’s probably the difference that a lot of boomers probably saw with cars in the 2000s-2010s. It used to be everyone had a rough idea of how a car worked and most people could learn in a year or two how to do basic stuff.

              Now it’s all a closed magic box requiring a full technical degree. Phones fell the same. Its a magic box that they never had the opportunity to wonder how it worked.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      Understand and operate any arbitrary interface without having to have it explained to me by rote

      Omg, this all the way. I’m in a class for learning AWS stuff and its crazy the amount of people who suddenly can’t do anything when one button is on a different screen than the instructions told them it was. Like come on, use some basic thinking skills.

      Another infuriating situation was having to do a class on Microsoft Office. It was infuriating because it was incredibly basic stuff. I’ve never used Outlook before, but I completed each task they asked of me in like 5 seconds because I have a basic understanding of how software works.

    • kazaika@lemmy.world
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      … modern … Object oriented

      wat?

      Bro that shits like 30 years old and most langs released after lets say 2010 have put that stuff in the backseat for backwards compatibility. Anyway I get your point

      operate any arbitrary interface

      Dont believe it. Behold the shittyness of modern UI

    • baines@lemmy.cafe
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      Bobby no one’s paying you for this shit, go show Billy how to sum numbers in Excel.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      Remember a fairly broad swath of special character altcodes

      I use the compose key. When you message with me, you are sure to receive proper dashes and real ellipsis.

      Well, unless I happen to be using my phone or another computer at the time.

      • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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        Hold on — why can’t you do proper ellipses and dashes on your phone? I don’t understand…

        This message brought to you by Android.

        • Emerald@lemmy.world
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          Well there is no em dash or en dash key on the mobile keyboard. And there isn’t a … key either.

          • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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            I typed my comment above on my mobile keyboard. I’m just using the standard Google keyboard on my Pixel, nothing fancy. Em and en dash are available by holding on the hyphen, and the ellipsis is available by holding on the period (annoyingly, only when on the numbers/symbols page).

  • burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world
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    this is less a problem of ‘people are stupid’ and more ‘educational institutions have been dismantled over the last several decades and large numbers of people are pushed through school despite being functionally illiterate, if they graduate at all’

  • Neps
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    Yea surprise some people are good at using computers some are bad, has nothing to do with whatever generation someone is apart of, generation labels are so dumb. Literally every “milleinal” I’ve known comes to me for their computer problems.

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    The number of people in this thread stumped by the “rotate a PDF” comment, even what it means at all, while a smartphone has been 95-100% of their “computer” usage in their lives.

  • Chloé 🥕
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    in today’s edition of “why are the kids I raised so damn incompetent?”

    i long for a day where people understand that it’s not the ipad kid’s fault they were given a tablet at age 2

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      That’s… part of it, but part of it is just ease of use. In growing up, I had to figure out issues with my computer,and getting games etc working took some work to do. I build a gaming PC for my nephew(under 10, but games a lot mobile and with consoles) and he played a few games on it, but then my sister (a gamer herself) said he couldn’t really get used to keyboard over controller (at which point I reminded her she could just get him a PC controller or use one of the console ones that also work on PC).

      He just seems to prefer to use things that are already intuitive, and since my childhood things have gotten much better in that regard for consoles and mobile stuff. You can definitely do it on PC as well, but it often means more accessories, sometimes figuring out issues . I got another sister of mine a controller for pc and it took a bit of effort getting it properly synced for the game she wanted to play. It would show up properly in the OS, but then the game he issues, so we had to switch through modes and such, and sometimes even though one mode may work an update or something may break it.

      I like using controllers for some games, and WASD for others, but even though IT is my job and I’m good at fixing things, some games have weird issues with some controllers, especially if they have mode options. All that extra fixing and finding the right settings is just frustrating for some, and with easy to use alternatives they may not bother to learn. I had no choice, just SNES and pc while growing up.

    • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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      No one taught me how to use a computer, I figured it out as I went. I had to tell my 25 year old brother that theres more than one USB port on the back of his computer because he only saw the one in the front and asked me where he plugs in the keyboard and mouse.

      Part of the issue for a lot of the older and younger crowd is “Well, it’s not immediately obvious, so therefore its impossible and now I’m mad at you for it.”

  • missandry351@lemmings.world
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    Expectation: these new generations are practically born with computers in their hands when they grow up they are going to create a new world so fast and develop new technologies

    Reality: if tik tok doenst work they don’t know what else to do with their 1000+ euro smartphones

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    I think Zoomers need a generational divide in their generation, tbh. In my experience, older Zoomers are intelligent, capable, motivated, and largely leftist. For some unknown reason though, younger Zoomers are ignorant, prudish, too easily contented, and weirdly conservative. I have yet to understand what happened to cause the divide, and I can’t point to any stats or evidence to support this belief, but anecdotally I have noticed this trend within my own life and spheres of influence.

    • Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee
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      For some unknown reason though, younger Zoomers are ignorant, prudish, too easily contented, and weirdly conservative. I have yet to understand what happened to cause the divide,

      The online manosphere/tradtube spent the past 10-15 years raising these kids while their parents fucked off. That’s what happened. These are the kids who made people like Andrew Tate famous, and made Joe Rogan way more relevant than he has any right to be. It’s a great lesson in why people need to pay more attention to the media that their children consume.

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        That, and it’s unsurprisingly connect to the piewdiepie fascist pipeline thing, Helldivers popular as fuck, Warhammer 40K having a renessaince, I see plenty of shorts about how boys want to die a heroic death, that’s a fucking staple of fascism

        This is such a good video on this stuff, how young kids get sucked into fascism layer by layer https://youtu.be/pnmRYRRDbuw

        https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g

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          Most of the reasonably intelligent people playing Helldivers know full well that it is satire with a side of sick sarcasm.

          If anything it’s antifascist indoctrination on a grand scale.

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            I think a lot of people meme too hard and you end up with a the_Donald situation where all of a sudden the people agreeing with your jokes aren’t aware you’re joking. I have seen multiple right wing review channels unironically praise the helldivers government.

        • Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee
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          Yeah Pewdiepie was an entry point for kids. There were a ton of them back in the early 00s that did video games and other seemingly innocuous stuff on YouTube, but would slow-drip the racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry, while promoting the “heroic death” trope. I have two nephews who loved those TY channels, and luckily my brother caught on real quick to their game and made some changes. Now I have two full grown Leftist nephews.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        I agree with this, but what made this different then our generation or early zoomers? I was raised online as a house with an internet-connected home PC in the early-to-mid 90s with two parents who worked until night; there were grifters and proto-manosphere groups then and I’m sure moreso for the early zoomers, so I have to assume there was either some change in the methodology behind the delivery in these messages or, more likely, some change in the parental oversight, but I can’t identify exactly when or what

        • kugel7c@feddit.org
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          I think perhaps in tandem with education - parental or institutional - getting even worse/changing from what you or I might be used to. The shift from search to algorithm as the primary way to interact with the Internet is also a significant factor, the Internet might’ve changed significantly before I was really there, but it certainly changed 2008-2016 mostly in that shift from search to platform/algorithm.

          And early zoomers might’ve started their online existence just around the start of that transition while late zoomers, basically only know the Plattform/App/Algorithm world we have today.

          If you were to be really cynical about it : The powers at be started losing the control over the messaging specifically to the online world, and managed to grapple it back starting in the mid 2000s just as the size/power of the space became significant. Zoomers might be here or there depending on how and when their first online experiences played out.

          I’m just on the very earliest of zoomers, and my cohort largely got hit with 2008 as we were just starting to grapple with politics, and with 2016 right around graduating high school. For me Search was the Internet starting point, Wiki, YT and forums all in service to my curiosity and also there for my entertainment/ placating.

          perhaps for someone a bit later it’s all just entertainment, no problem solving, no strange sub subculture, just whatever you desire to see or listen to or read imidiately there, without you even needing to think about it, so accurately getting your attention that it’s perhaps more attractive than thinking, or making a decision.

          The bad habit is there for me too, I think some younger people might not be able to even recognize it as such, maybe for them that’s just how the world works.

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      Even with millennials (1981 to 1996) there is a big difference when you where born.

      If you are an early millennial you grew up with MS-DOS, so you had to learn the terminal to get anything done. You probably had your first smartphone after you where 25.

      If you are a late millennial you grew up with Windows XP and probably had a smartphone as a teen.

      • thebigslime@lemmy.world
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        Circa 1990 didn’t get smartphones as teens. The iPhone launched on only AT&T in the US in 2007. We were all locked into 2 year contracts back then with LG Envys and Motorola Razrs.

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        Of course, it just seems to me like there’s a more distinct mid-generation cultural shift rather than just technological in comparison to our generation, and I am curious about potential catalysts. But again, I can only speak from my experience and personal exposure, so there is the possibility of locality specificity as well as other variables, so everyone remember I am just a layman and weigh my experience anecdotally rather than definitively.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        That has not been my experience, no. I am speaking younger adults, not teenagers; I don’t really have many interactions with teenagers or children these days so I don’t have enough experience with alphas to have really any sort of opinion on them. As I understand it, Gen A starts after 2010, so any adult today would still be a Zoomer. Granted of course that “generations” are a loosely-defined concept so the years they are defined as may vary, but it is my understanding that the typical understanding of Zoomer goes as far as 2010 at least.

        • Genius@lemmy.zip
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          Boomers 1945-1960
          Gen X 1960-1980
          Millennials 1980-2000
          Zoomers 2000-2020
          Gen alpha 2020-2040

          If we’re going to have a made up system with no rules, it might as well be well ordered.

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
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            Convenient as that potentially would be, that does not seem to be the popular understanding, and I see no reason not to use to the conventional understanding in a case where stubbornness is unlikely to shift said understanding.

            Hopefully unnecessarily preemptive “if you don’t like Wikipedia” invitation to websearch using the engine of your choice and observe the general response without hunting for a cherry-pickable example which defines them as such.

            edit: i noticed you were downvoted and feel compelled to mention that I did not downvote you; it’s weird to downvote people for normal conversation.

            • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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              15 year generations don’t really make sense though, the whole concept of a generation is that they’re the previous generation’s kids.

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                I don’t disagree, but unfortunately nobody granted me authority on the general consensus on this one. I will say though that lineagial generations feel like only one possible definition, and cultural generations defined by common cultural experience (as is the case we’re discussing) feel like they have some validity for me as well.

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      As an old zoomer I’ve observed a sharp difference between 2001 zoomers and 2004 zoomers far beyond a simple 3 year maturity difference. Its jarring.

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        I’m sure this had profound impact, but frankly we all lived through it so I find it hard to accept as the sole or majority-dominant reason alone, personally.

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          4 days ago

          It’s not that we all experienced it but what stage of mental development we were at when we experienced it.

          Not everyone experiences a shared experience the same way.

          • Vespair@lemm.ee
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            4 days ago

            That’s fair. This may be it then; as somebody who sort of “speed ran” childhood due to my circumstances it might just be hard for me to understand and relate to the normal developmental cycle and the impact of such things during it. Thanks for the perspective, cheers.

        • monarch@lemm.ee
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          4 days ago

          I was never a “main friend” in any of the groups I interacted with. I hung out with a lot of people on a very shallow level. When covid hit I stopped talking to all of them. it was nearly a year of me only seeing my parents and sibling because a family member is immunocompromised. I still struggle to make real connections after that and I was at the end of highschool. If that had hit in middleschool when I was still taking “cool” seeming peoples sord as gossiple I have known idea what it would have done to me.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Gen X could write a program that’ll make a floppy drive’s loading noises play the Imperial March.

    • MochiGoesMeow@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      Hahaha its funny each time that happens.

      My uncle is GenX and way smarter than my millennial ass. They paved the way for child free poppin off and being tech savvy with a normal tech free upbringing.

      Anecdotal I know. But always funny how self centered us millenials can be thinking were the last normal generation.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I figured they were talking about the Oregon Trail generation. It’s made up of the folks who were old enough and young enough to play the game in schools and spans across parts of X and millennials.

    • TwanHE@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Or those of us from Gen Z that where born just at the cutoff and got tech acces at a way to young age.

    • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      Probably. But if I’m being generous, we’re really only talking about younger X and older millennials.

      • tomenzgg@midwest.social
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        4 days ago

        This always surprises me as I’m younger millennial and my Gen X dad always feels more technologically behind than me.

        But it’s funny because I’m only so into computers because of him as he had things like Windows 3.1 and 95 and 98 in our home from a young age and he even went to school for C++ but he doesn’t really remember it (it got him an accounting gig) and his pursual of technology these days is pretty limited to pre-built stuff from Samsung and Sony than any real grasp of how it works. I struggle to get him to show even passing interest in something like Linux (like, I get liking Windows; you grew up with it: you’re more comfortable with it. But not even curiosity, even if you’ll never use it?).

        Expert on Excel and OneNote (because it’s his daily bread-and-butter) but probably would ask for my help on rotating a PDF.

        What OP describes sounds much more aligned to my millennial peers than the bulk of Gen. X I know.

    • SuperNovaStar
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      4 days ago

      Honestly? Why do we let people who have no clue what’s actually going on decide the generations?

      Oregon Trail generation sounds great.

      I’m in the Minecraft generation.

      Don’t know what the next generation would want to be called, but they’re the iPad kids for sure.