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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

I have only my personal experience and perceptions, but I think most people here (likely technically savvy) would agree that, quite simply, most people of any generation are not technically savvy.

While I don't "get" TikTok, I understand how it works, on a broad technical level. A 20 year old might understand the social scene of TikTok and "get" it, but my guess is the average 20 year old will have no idea how a webpage even shows up in their browser, let alone how an app like TikTok works.

I think most people would struggle to diagnose technical issues with web-conferencing tech. The older folks in the workplace have had the advantage of observing the rituals other people do to try and get it to work (turn it off and on a again, restart your router, etc.)

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> I think most people would struggle to diagnose technical issues with web-conferencing tech. The older folks in the workplace have had the advantage of observing the rituals other people do to try and get it to work (turn it off and on a again, restart your router, etc.)

Every single company I've worked for has had at least one meeting where a group of developers all sit there awkwardly as one of us tries to fix the conferencing setup.

> where a group of developers all sit there awkwardly as one of us tries to fix the conferencing setup.

Or the more hilarious one where the group of developers each take turns to try, and fail, to fix the setup only to proclaim "Can't you just use your phone" before passing the baton to the next hopeful subject.

I think they all know that:

* any one of them could diagnose the problem

* the problem may or may not have any fix within their control right now, may or may not even be diagnosable in a short time

* and that the most effective way to get the problem solved is to leave whoever is working on it alone until they declare victory or defeat or ask for something.

I mean that is why I would be sitting and waiting patiently rather than trying to "help" if there was already someone working on it.

maybe if I didn't think this problem was really something they would be good at hunting down I might make it known that I'm available but only in the least suggestive most casual way I could manage. Or I might quietly prepare some alternative to have ready in case plan A doesn't work.

We have one conference room at work with a display that's inside the table and there are no instructions to be found how to get it to go up.

Turns out you actually have to connect something via HDMI (or whatever) and it will automatically turn on the motor to emerge from the table.

The room is 007 and actually being dubbed the "James Bond room" by building management but due to working from home none of us had ever been to that room.

So yeah, sometimes even a group of usually tech-savvy people can't figure it out because it surely can't be "just connect it". Nothing ever just works.

Another part of the problem is that a good chunk of kids only use phone/tablets/gaming consoles, and have little experience with desktops/laptops. Likely as a result, several university professors have reported issue with gen Z students not understanding what files and folders are: https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

This, plus all the recent UI/UX improvements across every software in the past decade.

Millenials are more tech savvy not just because we grew up with computers, but also because computers & software when we grew up was much more complex and complicated to use than the software today's users are facing...,

I would say that it is not about being tech savvy it is more about how their brain is wired. Some people just do not do analytical thinking: break down a complex a task into smaller, more manageable parts and make a plan. In other words, they do not think step-by-step.

And majority of computer task require that type of thinking.

I agree but I think that is why they are not technically savvy. I've seen clever, analytical people become technically savvy through necessity and exposure simply because they are an analytical thinker and the understanding came easily to them. I see it in BAs all the time who come in fresh with little technical understanding, but after a year or two working on a system they understand it almost as well as the developers who created it. Then they start making the connections to the other tech in their life and their understanding grows.

> Some people just do not do analytical thinking: break down a complex a task into smaller, more manageable parts and make a plan.

I would venture to say that most people do not think like this. And the people who do and the people who don't usually have a hard time communicating or understanding one another.

Much of my success in my career has been acting as a liaison between technical and non-technical folks.

Most people of any generation are not technically savvy. Most people here in HN were technically savvy before formally joining the tech industry.

Our industry benefited a lot from new employees who had prior experience fighting against buggy Linux distributions or writing random hacks for fun [1]. One of the many consequences of the abatement of general purpose computing is making it harder for teenagers to accidentally discover this wonderful world.

[1] https://xkcd.com/519/

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