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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3634 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 2, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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They've just grown up with tools that work. They aren't shadetree mechanics because that hasn't been something in their environment. They know other things.

In your opinion what are these other things?

For my kid and her peers, their people skills are lightning years above the people skills of the computer people I know (and mine). There seems to be a higher baseline for presentations than there used to be. They have broad computer skills - they may "just" be power users, but they also don't just know excel, they know all the tools. They have better virtual meeting etiquette. I think they have broader skills in general. My kid and her STEM peers have high level accomplishments in athletics, arts, humanities, in a way that I didn't see among my computer peers in the 80s and 90s. Unless you count D&D, quoting Monty Python, and taking the Church of the SubGenius a little too seriously broad high level accomplishments.

I'm not meaning to talk down myself or my peers. But I would like those of us who are shocked at what the kids don't know to consider why they don't know it. If I can't show someone how to plug in an ethernet cable that's on me. It's unreasonable to expect everyone to know everything. I've been employed in tech since 1995, and got "my" (it was a family computer) first computer in 1979 (Atari gang represent!). There are loads of things I don't know. Even things I obviously should know that I just don't.

Definitely video editing.

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