Yes.

Of course, there will be a range in all generations from those who ignore technology altogether and who will inevitably be bad at it, to those who keep on top of every change and continue to be skilled users of that technology.

I don’t see why there would be a difference from one generation to the next. The proportions might be different: boomers and GenX who saw this stuff come in later in life and who know there is more to life than technology might be more inclined to spend their time away from that tech than later generations that grew up with this stuff. Or maybe the later generations will want to get away from it and rediscover nature.

I suspect that if and when retirement happens I’ll (GenX) be spending a lot of time away from computers.

Its dependant on how much of a jump in tech we can go. To me, the next jump is immersive AR, and/or realistic AR. That could be a hurdle for people not grown up with it.

I’ll add my two cents as a Gen Z that realized he was way more tech illiterate than initially thought.

In my undergrad, I was tasked with running molecular simulation jobs on an HPC that I could only access through a terminal. The complete paradigm shift I experienced going from just a Windows user to Linux was shocking. Didn’t realize how little I knew about file system hierarchies, connecting devices, and seemingly unheard of concepts like mounting and partitioning drives. I didn’t know that Bash existed, what a shell even was, or literally anything with networks. Imagine going from using Word and thinking the terminal is terrifying to writing python scripts in Vim without really knowing how to program either.

Linux plus a de-Googled phone is where I’ve been at. After nuking Windows 11 from my laptop, I even saw that it got a decent amount faster. Using software that won’t have its UI drastically changed every year is nice.

Maybe?

I mean theres boomers who were engineers in their youth who are complete idiots with modern technology, especially computers.

But as an elder millenial myself, I can kind of see it happening to me too. While I do enjoy technology and gadgets, I just dont have a need for all of it, nor the time to tinker like I did in my youth. Like I havent bothered at all with apple devices, so Im kinda clueless with how to navigate those things. Last time I used an apple product was around 2008 when I was using MacOS in college.

As a member of the Oregon Trail Generation (a sweet spot on the boundary of Gen X and Millennial), I think people who were in elementary school in the 80s have a pretty special set of skills where we can use “old” technology, and were frequently the ones who had to help our elders with it, and we have seen new technology (home computers, the Internet, smart phones) come into being and mature.

So we didn’t just learn how to use tech, we learned how to grow with tech as it grew.

I’m guessing large language models - imitative so-called “AI” - is going to do that same sort of growth and change arc over the next couple decades. It’s likely I’ll be pretty mystified by it, but hopefully my kids will be playing with it and growing with it as it grows into a mature technology.

Probably not as bad, but it is an inevitability I think. Once you get a certain age, major shifts are just more difficult to adjust to. On a smaller scale for example, I don’t understand things like Tiktok, Snapchat, etc. I’m a millennial that will be hitting 37 this month, so my adjustment to social media ended with Instagram basically.

The porn tech pendulum:

Boomers: So your telling me that if I know the right people and go to the right theaters, I get to see porn? (Boomers become good at networking)

Gen X: So your telling me if I buy a TV I get to see porn? (Gen Xs don’t get any cool knowledge, so they restrict porn on TV)

Millennials: So your telling me that if I get really good at computers and internet, I get to see porn? (Millennials get really good at using computer technology)

Zoomers: So your telling me if I own a phone, I get to see porn? (Zoomers don’t get any cool knowledge, move to restrict porn on the internet)

Gen Alpha: So your telling me if I install these image AIs and VR programs, I get to see porn? (Gen Alpha gets really good and working with AI and VR ‘interactions’)

I love new tech and I’m gen X. I’ve learned new tech all my life. What will fuck me going forward is bad UI. At some point graphic designers decided a dark gray font was better than black. All the keyboard shortcuts I used were changed by Microsoft and I’m still butt hurt about it. Still use MS office but grumpy with the Ribbon.

Every new technology so far has been an enshittified version of what we had in the early 2000s, so no.

Lemmy is good, but is basically crowd sourced reddit. So not exactly an alien concept.

I am that person and yes, I have little patience for a lot of the new tech. See: Discord

I work in tech and it’s honestly exhausting trying to keep up. I already feel this way tbh, it’s a non stop procession into the future.

I think most millennials and and gen-x folks will be totally fine.

I don’t want to sound like one of those “kids these days” people, but kids these days have it rough.

I work in tech and old folks, mainly boomers, are usually ok to work with when it comes to tech, because they know they don’t understand it. They grew up without it, avoided it when possible, embraced it when necessary, but they know that requires effort, and they’re just generally not interested. I get that. They just need some reps and to feel comfortable, and they get it.

Most gen-z folks have grown up in a world where you just click things and they work. As a general rule, gen-x grew up in an era where you had to tinker with the hardware and software yourself if you wanted to do something. As a millennial, I had it easier. Most of the hardware was sorted, but some of the software was not, so you still had to do some configuration yourself if you wanted something to work.

Gen-z hasn’t had that. If app A doesn’t work, download app B. They’re so used to things just working, they have no idea how to troubleshoot anything. In that way, they’re usually worse than boomers. Generally a boomer will make an effort to try to fix something, understanding it’s outside their wheelhouse. The zoomer won’t and just stops in their tracks.

For example, a boomer will mangle the displayport connection on their computer trying to plug their HDMI cable into it. It looked like it would fit. The zoomer doesn’t understand they need to plug in the computer to the monitor. The computer is already plugged in to the wall. Why plug it in again? Both things I have seen in the last 3 months. If someone thinks their computer is broken but it just needs the monitor turned on, they’re more often under 25 than over 55.

Again, these are generalizations. There are individuals who don’t fit into these trends. This is just my experience.

Maybe kids have a leg up on the boomers that only had slide rules growing up, but I believe that tech literacy is much lower than people realize. Beyond the bare minimum of using email and browsing the web, most people generally just don’t aren’t using computers in a deep way, including kids that just grow up consuming content on tablets. Touch screens actively obscure the complexity of computers to make them more intuitive.

This research was published nearly 10 years ago but I it’s relevant today: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/

Yes. Because I already take tech support calls/chats from them while working at an ISP. There was a very limited sweet spot where SOME kids became computer literate. Then smartphones happened. It’s all been dumbed down again. People call the Internet “WiFi” and have little to no understanding of how anything works.

“I’m working from home on my MacBook Air!”

Absolute madness. Trust me. They’re mostly very dumb already.

What about ancient technology? Give them a rotary phone, a tape player, a pickup, basically a good old stereo tower, worst, gave them a VCR and ask them to program it to record a show!

Also some Z and mostly A don’t type well on regular keyboards, sometimes struggle with mouse or windows environment. They only know cellphones.