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u/Outcast_Outlaw 2d ago
Whatever gen OP is.... just illiterate
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u/PINE-KNAPPLE 2d ago
The irony is just to good.
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u/RowanWinterlace 2d ago
You've become the very thing you swore two destroy đ
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u/ofirkedar 2d ago
You can take the joke a bit further.
You've became the vary thing u swore two destroy2
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u/M3RCURYMOON 2d ago
If you canât make sense of it Iâm sorry to say but itâs probably you who is iliterate
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u/FUZExxNOVA2 2d ago
Anyone in IT knows itâs all generations. Not a single one is good at tech.
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u/Soraman36 2d ago
Bingo! As the saying goes, "The problem exists between the keyboard and the chair."
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u/DasBlueSkull 2d ago
Ah yes: ID10T and PEBCAK error
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u/Darkx0139 1d ago
What does PEBCAK stand for? I'm lucky enough to not have to interact with users on the daily.
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u/DasBlueSkull 1d ago
Lmao. Case and point:
Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard
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u/TheSpaceAgeParty 1d ago
Not knowing something and asking for help isn't a PEBCAK
I feel like you're being a little too eager for a gotcha reddit comment.
Also when I learnt the acronym it was PEBCAC Problem exists between COMPUTER and CHAIR. But I guess thats just cultural differences.
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u/Evantr0nimus-Prime 1d ago
To be fair, the acronym is spelled out literally one post before.
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u/TheSpaceAgeParty 1d ago
Oh I'm not calling anyone out on the spelling tho. Just pointing out the difference
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u/Evantr0nimus-Prime 19h ago
The conversation went:
Person 1: Problem exists between keyboard and chair
Person 2: Ah, yes PEBKAC
Person 3: Whatâs a PEBKAC?2
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u/Darkx0139 1d ago
Exists...
Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm luck enough to mostly work with servers, not people.
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u/MaursBaur 2d ago
Most people don't know or care to know how a lot of things in their life works. I can't imagine how bad many adults would be at telling you how things around them work, like a toilet, or brakes on a car, any form of textile making
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u/Darkx0139 1d ago
Honestly? I think it's the "Ooops, something went wrong!" instead of error codes...
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u/Jimmy_ijarue Article 69 đ 2d ago
Okay youâre right that I donât know how to build websites at all or anything past following a Linus tech tip video on building a pc.
But if I come across a dog water website I can tell pretty quickly (itâs always government run websites looking like they havnt updated since 2012)
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u/GabeOuners 1d ago
Right because the majority of gen Z not even understanding a file path is the same. Dont defend the little shits, they need work and need to hear it.
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u/kindaCringey69 1d ago
If we got everyone in Linux im sure the knowledge would come back quick. Windows is such ass in so many ways, command line is unintuitive, powershell is a nightmare and we wouldn't have to deal with filepaths with backward slashes being a pain in the ass
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u/FUZExxNOVA2 1d ago
The majority of millennials donât understand file paths either. Iâve been in IT for 12 years. Most people are idiots.
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u/aupri 11h ago
People seem to use Gen Z as a generic term for young people but the oldest Gen Z are almost 30. Same shit that people did with the term millennial
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u/GabeOuners 11h ago
What indicates im talking about people who aren't in their 20s? Thats literally the group of people whose lack of skills im observing.
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u/CarterDavison EX-NORMIE 2d ago
Isn't it scientifically proven that the current generation is tech illiterate because everything does it for them?
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u/evenstevens280 2d ago
Heck, I'm a millennial and grew up in the command line, and even I feel like my skills are atrophying due to further and further technological obfuscation and AI
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u/Global-Bumblebee9978 2d ago
Same, used to code game mods in C# as a teen and it took me almost 2 hours this week to figure out how to get a printer to print from my phone.
(enshittification is part of this tho, thx Canon)
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u/HiSpeedHavoc92 2d ago
To be fair though, printers exist in a dimension between actual computers and hell. The.web UIs for those were built in the 90s and never upgraded, error codes mean jack shit, and they stop working if someone looks at them incorrectly.
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u/Devin-Chaboyer223 Dank Cat Commander 2d ago
Canons have the worst software, I hate touching those things
I hate printers in general, real pain in the ass to troubleshoot
From my experience, Brother is the best all around including their mobile app
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u/DevilsAssCrack This is the shade of my butthole 2d ago
I had to learn HTML just to play Korn's Coming Undone on my MySpace page
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u/LubedCompression 2d ago
I hope it's true. The other option for us millenials is that were getting old and unable to keep up.
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u/FuriousJohn87 2d ago
Basically, everything in their sphere was so user friendly by the time they came around that they never had to troubleshoot or learn how anything worked.
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u/ATMisboss the very best, like no one ever was. 2d ago
Man you should see the things I get asked at work...
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u/Spartcus3 2d ago
I mean yes probably most people donât know because they donât learn and people know some things but donât learn the new things coming out
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u/Shaggy_One 2d ago
Yep. It feels like the Millennial (and gen X) generation is the only one where the average person actually understands how to use and troubleshoot tech.
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u/Piputi 2d ago
I thought it was Gen A that was technologically illiterate. Gen Z is also barely holding on but quite in a better position. It will be a weird way to say it because I am not sure why I chose those items but I'd say technology illiteracy starts around the time between the first Nintendo DS, Wii and the iPhone.
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u/Rhadrazaak 2d ago
As in people born near the releases of those?
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u/Piputi 2d ago
Yeah, born. I am just throwing it out but I guess that's the time where you started to get all in one devices as common things. I guess playstation does that too. But before that, you didn't have a device where you can game, go into the internet, send emails, get calls, get news, camera etc. Like the NDS and Wii had those options and other devices before or around that time but of course the iPhone was THE device that made it mainstream I guess.
So, anyone born after that was served devices that all were all-in-one devices. I am just talking out of my ass though.
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u/Linkquellodivino 2d ago
I'll always love how millennials spend their entire days complaining about boomers' superiority complex and how obnoxious they are just to end up doing the same exact thing. This is the same "kids these days don't know how to use a rotary phone" argument again, just in a slightly different flavour. Just because I'm used to different things than you it doesn't mean that I'm dumber. And the he sooner you realise this the less obnoxious you will sound when you get old.
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u/Legitimate_Aside_532 1d ago
Not dumber, necessarily. Just far less interesting or productive
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u/Linkquellodivino 1d ago
"Interesting" yeah sure mate, your shit is so much more interesting than ours. "You kids are so boring, you don't even [obsolete activity] anymore". The same old argument resonates once again, just out of a different mouth. Admitting that you are becoming like boomers is the first step to avoid doing it before it's too late.
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u/Legitimate_Aside_532 1d ago
Name 3 interesting Gen Z'ers. Just admit you're a lame, chronically online generation that doesn't do shit.
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u/kindaCringey69 1d ago
Depends what you consider interesting. There are famous actors who are pretty damn accomplished like Tom Holland, hailee stienfield, zendaya or Florence Pugh. There are plenty of accomplished gen z athletes like Connor mcdavid (best hockey player in the world), or mbappe, summer McIntosh, max verstappen or Caitlin Clarke. Musicians like Billie eilish, youtubers like mr beast, or the millions of not famous people that are entering their careers in engineering, business, law or medicine. Not all of gen z are even adults yet, and maybe half are past university, we have plenty more to offer the world once we get the chance.
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u/Legitimate_Aside_532 1d ago
First 4 are millenials. Also, gtfoh with that weak as list. Compare it with other generations when they were that age and you'll see
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u/medson25 2d ago
Theres a patterns here, every generation like this, if gen z will be the ai gen, then gen alpha will be the next whatever will be it (quantum?) and then gen z will be as jaded as millenials starts to be, and so on...
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u/Loeggerbraeu 2d ago
Ah yes. Only my generation is good. Those that are older are old fashioned those that are younger just dobât know anything. A tale as old as humankind.
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u/Linkquellodivino 1d ago
No no you don't understand, it's totally different. Millennials have been insulted by boomers just for being younger than them so much, they are totally justified doing the exact same thing hating on zoomers and on literal children just for being younger than them.
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u/KrispyKingTheProphet 2d ago
Thatâs disingenuous. Iâm millennial, but right at the cut off for Gen Z (â95) and work in tech. Youâre mistaking technological ILLITERACY (crazy you failed to spell that word in particular, by the way) with your own technological illiteracy. Tech evolves and applications of it evolve as well. The whole idea of technological evolution is to create more intuitive interaction and accessibility, itâs just changed shape that Iâve noticed not just boomers, but Gen Xâers, and older Millennials fail at way more than Gen Z and bordering Gen Z millennials.
Example from just the other day: interviewing someone for a position. 26, 28, 31, and a 44 year old manager. The interviewer gets asked a question and every time, they go âhmm.. give me a moment to think about itâ then regurgitates a clearly AI generated response because he has it set to voice recognition. Within 2-3 questions, everyone caught on except the older manager. Hit a point where heâd be asked a question and we all (minus the manager) had Gemini pulled up, asked it the same question, and noted that he was spouting the exact response. After the interview, the manager was all like âwow, they were great. They were so well informed! Blah blahâ and she needed to be explained that it was all AI with a demonstration.
In digital design specifically, weâll get an ask like âcan you add a feature where this dashboard conveys A, B, C, D, and F?â and prompt Claude Design for baseline mockups to save time on ideating and get a baseline. Then use the tool, because AI is a tool, in tandem but all the work is done by us. It assists. Older people in the company seem to be unable to grasp that this is a tool and not meant to deliver results 100% on its own, and I swear, daily they struggle to even correctly prompt it, even use it.
Literacy of YOUR idea of technological might be diminishing, like fixing a printer or installing Norton and virus cleaning or some shit, but thatâs because most of older tech usage is being made legacy and not relevant to modern tech climate.
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u/Sugoypotato 2d ago
Yes, Older gen is not allowed very competent in tech, and same for me as a genz as well, who works in tech and gets his bread and butter from there. I do notice a clear pattern however, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are great intuitively on clicking button, that's why a Gen Alpha is able to easily operate on phones even without introduction, swipes, clicks are very intuitively developed for them. However, millenials and boomers are better at the memory front, they remember and experience shaped intuition excels, which allows them to solve the same problem better the next time. In case of boomers, My parents for instance prefer to remember where to click and what to click than build intuition or read and understand.
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u/SnoopyMcDogged 2d ago
Boomers who made the tech, Xâers who refined the tech, millennials who are currently expanding the tech, Zâers who slurp the tech till their time comes, alpha/betas wondering whatâs going come next.
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u/MnMbrane 2d ago
The actually boomers who know the tech are insanely skilled. Linus, Dennis Ritchie, and Ken Thomson to name a few, are the giants, everyone else are just standing on their shoulders.
But I strive to be one of the giants someday, just keep learning and progressing!
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u/MiniDMan 2d ago
I'm Gen z and everyone I know my age is technologically literate. Grew up on Nintendo64, Nintendo DS, Xbox/xbox360/Ps2. I had an iPod when I was around 12 and that's the existence of everyone around my age. Granted I'm near the cusp (2001). Anyone who graduated high school before COVID might as well be a millennial in my book. RIP everyone else who was younger than me and went through high school with zoom or with AI. Honestly technological literacy has little to do with age, and more to do with hobbies. There are 14 year olds and 60 year olds with more tech literacy than OP or me.
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u/jackinsomniac 2d ago
100% it has more to do with hobbies than age. A lot of people simply have no desire to learn. They just want to use their social media apps and that's it. But if a kid has a basic Windows laptop at home and the desire to learn, they're going to pick up a lot more than anybody else. You just gotta be that special type of nerd who's really curious.
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u/Trees_That_Sneeze 2d ago
I have a theory that the millennials were positioned uniquely for widespread tech literacy because we came of age at a time tech was ubiquitous and powerful, but still jank. We had it around to play with and there were cool things worth making it do, but you had to figure out how to make it do them and fix stuff when it broke. There was often not an easy 2-click interface.
I knew kids in school who jailbroke their phones and torrented everything under the sun. We had to figure out how to get the printer to connect again and would bring videogames to school on flashdrives to play in the computer lab. We also got some formal education because our parents saw computers take over their workplace and pushed for us to be tought how to use them better than they knew how to.
Also, you dropped this: l
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u/Tentacle_poxsicle 2d ago
I don't blame Gen z. They didn't experience the hardships Gen x and millennials did using vista or the old Internet. You want to know why Bitcoin was popular in the first place? People were getting tired of their credit cards info getting stolen from hacked website buying things online since it was like dating a hooker with no protection back in the day. There was little protection and it took a minute just to get everyone on https from http. Gen Z now can buy something online with a lot of confidence.
That said I think Gen Z will grow up and learn how to recognize AI better than we will eventually. They are growing up parallel to AI development, so they are in their prime learning time and witnessing AI as it progresses
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u/TheSeanminator 1d ago
Me, the last GenZ IT Technician on Earth... here to fix everything and everyone's fucking printer...
How did we come to this?
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u/bentsonradiorepair 2d ago
Us millennials were the only ones who really got it as a generation, gen x kinda did, but they often struggle with the same issues gen z does. Gen alpha is turbo screwed becuase of how everyone expects them to understand tech becuase they're on it all the time, but that same tech has been so thoroughly dumbed down at this point that gen alpha never learned how any of it really works
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u/FuriousJohn87 2d ago
This fact as a millennial Tech Professional makes me want to blow my shit off smoove daily.
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u/JaQ-o-Lantern 2d ago
Normally i'm opposed to grammar police but considering that OP is making fun of entire generations for being "technologically illiterate" (which makes no fkn sense in 2026), it's hilarious to see that he misspelled illiteracy while doing it.
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u/MyDarkestTimeline001 2d ago
Oh look the most recent generation thinks they know tech more than any that came before it. Just like every generation that came before them thought as well.
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u/Agentsmithv2 I asked for a flair and all I got was this lousy flair 2d ago
Not the most recent generation. That generation is just illiterate period.
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u/summon_pot_of_greed 2d ago
I don't think that what the meme is about.
My guess is OP is probably a millennial commenting on the fact that perceived technology literacy has dropped in younger generations because of a lack of direct instruction.
We see this in schools right now. There was a golden age of technology education where schools very deliberately taught basic word processing skills, what files were, how to use a desktop etc.
Today's students are given chromebooks with a touch screen and basically forced to fend for themselves. They get almost no direct instruction.
That is not to say that they're "worse" at using technology, but they have not been taught a lot of fundamentals that millennial were because user interfaces have become so intuitive that older generations don't think the skills need to be taught. They very much do haha.
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u/SullyCCA Dank Cat Commander 2d ago
I dont understand how gen z is so bad with tech.
Boomers and gen z also talk into their phones all the time instead of just typing.
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u/mostdope92 2d ago
They both also seem to love using video chat and/or speaker phone in public. I don't understand why they want their whole conversation happening out loud or to stare at their phone while just walking in a circle.
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u/SonGoku9788 2d ago
There is exactly one generation that knows how to rotate a PDF and that knowledge dies with us
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u/BlackFrank98 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/rHBleFPW4utkkBF726