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Gen-X and the Technology Knowledge Gap
I’m Shocked By The Lack Of Technology Skills Possessed By Some In My Generation
I know my generation are not technology native, but we grew up with this stuff from an earlier age, not all of us had early access, but most of us did. I remember seeing my first microcomputer, a Tandy TRS-80 in about 1977 in the Radio Shack store in our small town of only about 3,000 people, I think the store owner even let up type on the keyboard sometimes, I was only 9-years-old.
Given that my generation, Generation-X, came of age at the start of the micro-computer revolution I am stunned by the lack of computer skills demonstrated by some of my peers. I will preface this statement by saying that I started teaching in a vocational college a little over a year ago. About 50% of the students that I teach are new to the country and are learning job based skills to find their first jobs, basically getting a North American perspective of things that they already have advanced degrees in.
The other 50% are my age, 50-plus, have lived their entire lives in our country. In some cases they may not even be able to turn a computer on, let alone use one for any meaningful purpose. I am serous when I say that some have never physically touched a PC keyboard. Some are even terrified that they will break the machine or unleash some Hollywood disaster scenario on the world if they were to use one…or at least turn the computer into a paperweight by typing something wrong that then short circuits it out.
My Experience With Computers — Typical? or Not?
I will put a further caveat on this thesis, all of the people that I teach have smart phones, but they use them only for phone calls and text messages, a few may actually have Facebook on them. I think the thing that surprises me the most about this is that I took computer science as soon as it was offered in my high school, and the classes were always full, the school actually didn’t offer computer science to grade 10 students, so I actually had to register in the grade 11 class that was offered…
