It really bothers me how tech illiterate Gen Z is.
It really bothers me how tech illiterate Gen Z is. And that’s including people born in the weird 1996-2002 era in between millennials and us.
Being able to use social media isn’t at all a substitute for knowing and being able to operate a damn computer. I know I sound like some crotchety developer from the 70s, but it really is terrifying how little some of the people my age and younger know– and I’m nearly 20. Let’s get this out of the way: the oldest people in Gen Z are around 25. They are adults, and this is a major issue that will soon impact a majority of adults.
Onto the main issue: Generation Z is, as a whole, largely unused to operating computers in easy ways– using keyboard shortcuts, being able to protect their privacy, being able to access content that isn’t legal (e.x. through torrents), even using Microsoft Office… I’m still unable to let go of 8th grade, 2014-15– I had to teach one of my classmates how to use certain features of Microsoft Word, keyboard shortcuts, and a mouse. The basic ones. Like right-clicking, ctrl+C and ctrl+V, and using the dictionary feature.
At the time, I was woefully in awe of how stupid she was, and took it as a moment to roll my eyes and feel both smug and disgusted. Now, I know better than to write her off as an airhead who didn’t know something I’d assumed was universal.
I was fortunate enough to have been born in 2000, and to have gone to an elementary school that was still in the odd middle ground between “let’s educate the kindergartners about computers!” and “eh, screw it, we don’t have that much funding and their parents will probably teach them at home anyway.”
I learned the proper method of typing when I was five. We went to our school’s computer lab at least once a week and practiced and learned. I learned about the different parts of a computer (kindergarten edition, so nothing detailed about internal parts, but my parents are software engineers who taught me later down the line).
And then… they just stopped. The last time I, as a kid, did any sort of computer learning or proper keyboarding that was school-initiated was 1st grade. At the latest, that’s the first half of 2008.
For perspective, children born in 2008 are now 12.
I don’t know how else to describe how bad it is. Time is passing. Older people think that Gen Z is “tech literate”, but it simply isn’t true. We are social media literate. We are wary of online advertising (but still fall prey to it, thanks to shifting marketing strategies). We use social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. We care about social issues. But unless we teach ourselves, we know next to nothing about information technology.
Our parents, overall, did not teach us. Schools, in their haste– whether that be out of sheer laziness or lack of funding or some twisted combination– failed us.
Putting aside things like piracy of entertainment or being able to use all ten fingers to type, our security is at jeopardy. So many companies take advantage of and actively prey on us for our computer illiteracy and lack of knowledge on digital privacy.
Even I’m not well-informed enough to make a real write-up on it. It’s something I’ve noticed, and something I’ve read enough about and been taught about by my own parents and my own technology classes in college to be afraid of. People can’t do research. They can’t use keywords.
I’m being somewhat overzealous, but it is a problem how quickly basic things like using computer parts, doing in-depth research on your own, and privacy are just not being taught to young kids anymore. I haven’t stepped foot in elementary school in a long time, so maybe things are different now, but I highly doubt five and six year olds of today are being taught about computers via computers instead of using interactive iPads.
This isn’t to say that everyone in Gen Z knows nothing. I am Gen Z. Many, many kids and adults born in Gen Z are fully aware of the ramifications of this issue and others related to it. But there’s just as many, if not more, who aren’t.
TL;DR… There’s a lot Gen Z wasn’t and still isn’t being educated about when it comes to computers and tech, and it’ll definitely lead to problems later down the line.
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