Generational IT Differences

I think what it is, is that you grew up with DOS and Windows. You'd probably find Microsoft's way of networking odd in that it's trying to be helpful but by dumbing down on detail they actually make it more confusing, as flicking some options on here and there is not the same as understanding subnets etc. As with the modern day with phones, these are Linux under the hood and that is alien to a lot of Windows users. Also, this is dumbed down in some regards since the average user is not encourage to understand how it works, just a dumbed down set of choices through settings etc, so you're not in the most part directly using the OS and a native file explorer etc. Contrast that though to understanding how to obtain root privileges on a phone and flashing roms, that is the modern day equivalent of the Linux neck beard brigade.
 
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Terminal_Boy said:
Same here. People’s smartphones reaching their EOL and apps being updated beyond what their iOS version will support is a regular issue and explaining that to someone who has zero idea about how any of that works can be painful.

I’m not looking forward to Windows 10 ending as no-one I’ve helped with PC issues is running anything modern enough to run Windows 11.
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No, even my Ryzen 1700 is deemed too old hat for W11. I could spend a hundred quid on a later processor but cannot be bothered as I can do everything necessary on it. I have a Samsung galaxy tab 4 ditto. I have a phone which does not do apps. At all.

I started building computers thirty years ago aged 40 and was definitely ahead of the curve then, you had to be to keep up with software. Nowadays a fairly modest setup will keep up with the majority of software.

As for cars it's mostly bloat ware. When I was a kid I tinkered with engines rarely going to a garage for servicing. Now I rarely lift the bonnet except for fluid level checks. I get the emissions thing but why you need a computer god only knows.
 
Hades said:
I just had a great example of this while out with my daughter. We stopped at a sushi takeout fast food place. They had a McDonalds style ordering screen. After choosing food I couldn't work out how to click finish and pay. There was no pay button, no basket, nothing.

My daughter clicked on the current price in the top right corner and that worked. There was no indication that clicking on the price would take you to the pay screen. What an awful UX.
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However you can bet that she was originally told what to do
eg many years ago I was having trouble lifting up my arm rest on a plane and a passenger pointed to a button, every flight I have gone on since then there will always be someone sitting near me who I show the button to.
 
Hagar said:
As for cars it's mostly bloat ware. When I was a kid I tinkered with engines rarely going to a garage for servicing. Now I rarely lift the bonnet except for fluid level checks. I get the emissions thing but why you need a computer god only knows.
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The battery encoding thing just blows my mind. Need a new battery? Needs to be encoded to the car. WTF!
 
And one more thing that slab of glass looking like something from 2001 a space odyssey and purporting to be a hob. Give me gas everytime, instant heat and you know how long a thing will take to cook.
 
Hagar said:
And one more thing that slab of glass looking like something from 2001 a space odyssey and purporting to be a hob. Give me gas everytime, instant heat and you know how long a thing will take to cook.
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This one again :)
I was the Quality Audit Technician for Hotpoint/Creda and tested hobs etc in a Laboratory.
There has been hobs that instantly heat decades ago, a quick test by the assembly line inspectors was to put your hand on the plate, switch on and within a second your hand would be lifted off because it was too hot.
These same plates also turned the heat down instantly just like gas, a simple test was to heat water until it was just ready to boil over and turn down just like our gas hobs.
 
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Adam_151 said:
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I was born right at the end of 79 so I actually fall in gen x but realistically I'm probably closer to a millennial in most respects.

I remember a time when I was in high school where there was a cat and mouse between the students and the 'tech person' to stop us getting to this game where you were a gorilla slinging explosive bananas at another one, ironically it was all angles and the likes so good for maths but the teachers didn't like us playing it so they kept blocking it. We literally beat the tech person because we loaded the game via word of all things lol. I can't imagine the majority of todays teens going this far to play a game, they'll just pull out a phone.

I've got to be honest in as much that I have issues with newer mobile phones too, it's not that they're hard to use, they're just convoluted and in some respects it feels like it's done on purpose (data gathering by Google/app developers etc). UI/UX isn't consistent either like you say and then some things just don't work how you'd expect them to...probably because they've dumbed down so much that those of us with 'tech experience' are either looking for the technical term or expecting it to be under a different category. It's a bit like the cookie pop ups which are deliberately designed to make it hard work to disable everything.

As daft as this sounds, you can actually make things TOO simple to use and you end up losing that granular control that's actually needed to make something work properly.

Unfortunately it seems we're on this path towards AI did my work for me so it's only going to get worse imo....
 
lsg1r said:
I've got to be honest in as much that I have issues with newer mobile phones too, it's not that they're hard to use, they're just convoluted
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unless you are genX and need a mobile phone for your social media addiction, what internet access is so pressing that you can't perform it more effectively at home/work, on a laptop with a big screen, keyboard & mouse,
even for google searching copy/paste with a mouse is indispensable.

Car touch screens have been proven as more distracting / less efficient than traditional manual controls.

Nonetheless (Guardian article) the scanner functionality of the laser printer at work did require additional training - networked device where you enter your employee id and the scans are forwarded as emails.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
This one again :)
I was the Quality Audit Technician for Hotpoint/Creda and tested hobs etc in a Laboratory.
There has been hobs that instantly heat decades ago, a quick test by the assembly line inspectors was to put your hand on the plate, switch on and within a second your hand would be lifted off because it was too hot.
These same plates also turned the heat down instantly just like gas, a simple test was to heat water until it was just ready to boil over and turn down just like our gas hobs.
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Yeah but I bet you would pull your hand away from a gas hob even faster :D
 
jpaul said:
unless you are genX and need a mobile phone for your social media addiction, what internet access is so pressing that you can't perform it more effectively at home/work, on a laptop with a big screen, keyboard & mouse,
even for google searching copy/paste with a mouse is indispensable.

Car touch screens have been proven as more distracting / less efficient than traditional manual controls.

Nonetheless (Guardian article) the scanner functionality of the laser printer at work did require additional training - networked device where you enter your employee id and the scans are forwarded as emails.
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When looking for a car I actively search out the older non-touchscreen radios which I can use by touch and not having to look at.
 
potatolord said:
O YES.

My new car is ridiculously complicated. Just turning the heating up means endless faffing and using a screen. Give me the old days of a couple of chunky rotary dials.

I'd be very happy with a 90s control set and modern safety features.
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There is a movement towards unnecessary complication resetting the clock involves diving thru umpteen menus and a screen whereas it used to be a simple cocktail stick you pushed in and twisted around mine doesn't even show the right date I can't be bothered faffing around with it. I can't figure out how to reset the tripmeter and I don't have a clue where the fog light is! The heater and fan is at least a couple of rotary dials still thank goodness

Stu999 said:
I've not struggled too much with technology just yet. My Dad is in his 60s now and it still pretty tech savvy, in fact he has more gadgets than me. So I hope that is the case with me and I keep learning.

Only generational thing I've noticed is one of my young nephews asking me what the 'floppy disk' save icon meant. :D My grandparents weren't great with the VCR, Freeview, etc.
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My grandma never owned a VCR it simply didn't register with her in the sense of it being something she'd use I remember the first time we brought our first VCR home the fact that you could record, pause, rewind live TV was some kind of voodoo magic for her my mother still doesn't understand the concept of Freeview or satellite or god forbid, catchup TV she's got a capable set I was the one who set it up but they don't have a clue whenever I flick through iPlayer etc she doesn't understand at all and when I watch something that was aired earlier she looks at the TV Times and can't figure out why its playing now when the clock says something else, its quite funny as well as worrying because you know you'll probably end up the same way eventually heck I'm already half way there I don't even own a smartphone

Pawnless Endgame said:
Born 1978, so probably a late Gen-X.

I grew up with the BBC Micro. Secondary school in the 1990s still had a lab full of Beebs and another lab full of Windows 3.1 PCs, plus many more Beebs/PCs dotted throughout the school. The music department had an Atari ST with Cubase - a damn good computer for its time. My first PC was in 1999, aged 20, so a bit late on the bandwagon but I got used to it fairly quickly. First mobile was in 2000, aged 22, so again fairly late for someone of that age in 2000.
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The BBC Micro was my first foray into IT as well was introduced to them in a classroom at college most people were baffled by them but I totally fell in love with it so much so I bought a couple of my own but they were definitely for enthusiasts or "nerds" in colloquial terms they weren't for the masses the advent of tablets and phones had a democratizing effect so that everyone could utilise the tech but at the expense of any understanding of any of it and the dumbing down of tech in general like microsofts tendency to increasingly treat its desktop users as idiots when they're actually more informed than your average "why have you removed these features dammit!"

HangTime said:
I'm a Xennial and am generally OK with both old and new tech, although I'm not going to pretend I'm 'down with the kids' when it comes to the latest trends on social apps etc. I'm not complacent though and can forsee a time when my son will roll his eyes at me in the same way I do when speaking with my dad.
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Oh god I have no desire to and social media is an anethema to me so I'm definitely a relic as far as they're concerned
 
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Blackjack Davy said:
The BBC Micro was my first foray into IT as well was introduced to them in a classroom at college most people were baffled by them but I totally fell in love with it so much so I bought a couple of my own but they were definitely for enthusiasts or "nerds" in colloquial terms they weren't for the masses the advent of tablets and phones had a democratizing effect so that everyone could utilise the tech but at the expense of any understanding of any of it and the dumbing down of tech in general like microsofts tendency to increasingly treat its desktop users as idiots when they're actually more informed than your average "why have you removed these features dammit!"
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Learning to program in BBC BASIC and QB45 on the PC at a young age was a kind of gateway for me - expanded my mind, gave me an interest in understanding what goes on behind the scenes in a far wider context than IT.

Learning to solve programming problems yourself I think opens a skill set with much wider application.
 
UI design is shockingly poor these days. I can't find anything in Google phones without using the search function. I guess that's what's it for though.
 
You're right about the different and poor UI/navigation styles in apps - that's because the barrier to entry has dropped significantly. Historically you had to have some modicum of common sense and intelligence to design and write software - these days any idiot can do it (with things like chatgpt you barely even need to know how to code, just feed it an idea!). Problem is, good designers don't necessarily make good developers and vice versa...
 
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Haggisman said:
You're right about the different and poor UI/navigation styles in apps - that's because the barrier to entry has dropped significantly. Historically you had to have some modicum of common sense and intelligence to design and write software - these days any idiot can do it (with things like chatgpt you barely even need to know how to code, just feed it an idea!). Problem is, good designers don't necessarily make good developers and vice versa...
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Yep which is why a lot of apps, websites etc have very similar looks to them now. They all just use similar code and templates.
 
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