Technology

They are not tech-savvy, we had to dumb down technology so boomers and gen Z'ers could use it.

Guess that means I'm uncle tech support forever

I agree the 'tech-savvy' phrase has outdone its use. We should use a better phrase, like 'tech-indoctrinated' or 'tablet-fed' to give a better perspective into these younger kids' digital lifestyles.

back when i was still a teenager, ww did battle ourselfes who typed faster even without a keyboard lol. We just typed on a table or something just based on our finger memory of where which key is normally on a keyboard. This days i often type on my smartphone, but you can't rly type a lot or fast on phones so i still prefer normal computer typing for most things. But people who just chat and don't code or similar...yeah, they probably are mostly only using their phone. my sister as an example hasn't used her laptop for nore than 4 years, probably more.. and just does everything on her phone.

Keyboard typing is a manual skill distinct from tech savvy and has to be taught as such. You're not going to learn it by dealing with a touchscreen swipe "keyboard". I've known a fair number of programmers who were two-finger typists because they were too busy taking CS courses to learn to type.

On the gripping hand, my early-Boomer mother, who learned on typewriters, can type fast and accurately but is quite technophobic.

This might be true but WPM is a very stupid way to measure this argument.

Tech has evolved to intentionally give less and less choice to the user. Tech skills have declined on average as a result.

I'm the oldest of Gen z (late 1990s). I have two younger siblings who are also Gen Z. Typing was a skill we learned in middleschool/ elementary. When I was about 8, we learned how to use google because it was considered a great resource to find information. By the time my middle sibling was in similar classes, they moved away from Google due to NSFW search results. When my youngest sibling was in school, they worried about shock sites.

They've slowly been removing computers from the school curriculum because of fear of outside forces. That includes typing, sadly. This is all coming from someone who grew up in a Plato self self education plan. (Online, self studies)

Do public schools not teach keyboarding anymore? I ask because I had a keyboarding classe two-hrs 1day per week in grade school plus a full class one year in 7th grade and then again for a full year in high school, and they were always taught by some of the oldest teachers in the school. -My high-school teacher started his career teaching typewriter typing something like three or four decades prior to teaching me in 2004. It seems strange that new young people aren't getting that same basic education.

Really shows the difference between Knowing how to work with, and how it works

Not being fast at typing does not mean you are not tech savvy. There is more to tech than typing. Like an architect doesn't need to be good at brick-laying to be a good architect.

the entire stereotype that gen Z is amazing at technology is overrated, it's the same as the millennials there's some people who have excellent troubleshooting skill and are able to use technology with very little issue, and then there's some that you can tell that they operate technology strictly on memorization not actually understanding how it works. You can differentiate the two by modifying their environments slightly and seeing if they struggle to figure how to do the stuff they normally do.

It's actually more likely that with how user friendly environments are, that gen Z is less Savvy when it comes to using technology then the Millennials due to the fact that they've been pampered into environments that don't require them to think outside the box, when I worked in the customer service field, it leans towards technical service and most of my customers who requested help were either Boomer or Gen Z, Millennials overall seemed to have the troubleshooting skills to be able to figure out problems without involving a third party.

That being said like above, this was a person to person basis I did have some Boomers who were able to rock the kiosks or have the troubleshooting the skills to be able to do it; just as I had gen Z that was able to rock the kiosk as well I'm just stating my observation of what usually happend.

Then to address the keyboard skills, most of what gen Z uses is going to be touchscreen, the desktop / laptop is a dying technology as a primary device for the younger kids as a whole, my sister didn't even have one until she entered College(outside of a school laptop) because she just used her mobile phone or tablet, neither of those required a keyboard outside of an on-screen which you can't use with the home system layout that used to be taught in school. So it's only natural that gen Z might have fallen behind in keyboard skills

The physical keyboard is just a tool. There are alternatives like speech-to-text software, virtual keyboards with swipe features, or stenotype.

The goal should be to use whatever is most effective and efficient for yourself, so if Gen Zrs are more used to touch screen, maybe they should invent a touch screen interface that you can use with the computer, maybe even incorporating the mouse somehow.

For me personally the touch interfaces right now are fucked up - I always tap the wrong letters on my phone, the auto-correct and suggestions used to compensate for this often times make it even worse, and swipe doesn't come up with the words I want, I often have to swipe multiple times. I can't imagine operating a computer like this, but maybe for Gen Zrs it's no problem.

Maybe in the future you just need to think the word and it appears on the screen, and typing would be obsolete.

Are computer labs still a thing in schools?