My kids grew up with iMacs. Apple is the only type of computer I’ve ever owned. I was talking to my son and I was telling him about last week when my husband didn’t know how to take a screen shot and asked me for help with basic tasks.
My kids are millennials — born in the years from 1981 to 1996 — my daughter being born at the tail end.
My son said that not only are boomers (referring to me and my husband) not great with computers, zoomers are also inept.
What’s a zoomer? It’s a new term I learned from my son for Gen Z. They were born in the mid-to-late 1990s up until early 2010s. (Technically my daughter could be a millennial or a zoomer.)
Case in point, my son said his wife’s youngest sibling (yes they are married!) is a zoomer. He graduated college in June. My son asked him to get a workout spreadsheet from his laptop.
“How?”
“It’s on the desktop in a folder,” my son explained.
“Where’s the desktop? What’s a folder?” was the zoomer’s reply.
Wouldn’t you think that young people who literally grew up with technology would know how to use computers? According to my son, zoomers are used to doing everything on phones — which work entirely different than laptops or desktops.
I googled it and discovered this to be true.
What’s your experience with zoomers and computers? Do you find it strange that zoomers are not as computer literate as the generation before them?
I think ios were very different when it was either mac or windows. Whatever you had became familiar so I don’t know that it’s fair to generalize that certain groups don’t seem to know or understand computer use but that stereotype seems to be hanging on. I find it frustrating when aging folks are singled out as needing “classes and coaching” on how to use tech, and I suppose “zoomers” may feel the same. My grands are proficient on the phone but as they are using tech all the time now in school they’ve adapted well. If you have a curious mind and enjoy figuring things out the challenge can be a lot of fun even when you don’t know something on your first try.
Good points. My dad who is 91 is quite proficient with his iphone and macbook. Yes, he does have trouble and needs help from time to time. But think when he was young, they had an ice truck to deliver ice for the ice box! Think about how much change he’s gone through in his life. I haven’t kept up with technology like I did when I was employed and it was part of my work in marketing and PR. I was also having to learn new things.
That’s just it EA- we ALWAYS have and need to learn new things! That is simple curiosity at it’s best, not something to be based on lack or inability because of age or generation. No defined generation knows everything so it’s frustrating when folks who grew up with specific technology feel everyone else before or after is lacking somehow just because they aren’t “experts”. That’s how stereotyping and bias begin, when we stop understanding that everyone knows something- even one small thing, that other people don’t. We are all experts at something in life, just not necessarily the same things! 🙂
I love that. ” We are all experts at something in life, just not necessarily the same things!” Yes, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes we have to learn new things because of a job or project we’re involved with. Other times, it’s our own curiosity. For exaple, when I moved to the desert, I was intent on learning about plants because they are so different than where I’ve lived before.
I like that! There’s always something we can learn from pretty much everyone if we just take the time to learn it!
It reminds me of that old story that if you test everyone’s agility by their ability to climb trees, then fish and kangaroos are going to be judged poorly 🙂 Doesn’t mean they can’t teach us swimming and jumping!
Well said!
That’s a great analogy!
My grandson is a zoomer according to this classification. But since he does all his schoolwork on a laptop, he is quite proficient on all times tech.
That’s good. I think it has more to do with what technology they are using. If they have laptops for school work, they’ll be proficient. If they can use their phones, then they won’t be needing a laptop for much.
He is not allowed to take his phone to school! Luckily he had seldom used it.
That is so good!
Yes this is good. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
😊
My daughter uses a laptop regularly. I don’t know if that is normal for her age group
I’m not sure. My son uses a laptop for work remotely. My daughter works at a university and has to use a PC which she was totally unfamiliar with. It was a learning curve.
Interesting. I’ve been a Mac girl since the beginning. Got my first Mac as a surprise Xmas gift from my hubby in 1995. Used it to help figure out that we could afford a down payment on a house if we sold some stock! Interestingly, the kids were against Macs and said that “everyone” used the other kind, including the school. Now, they are all Mac owners, including their phones, proving once again that Mom was/is right – LOL
You’re exactly like me! We got Macs at work for desktop publishing in PR and marketing. When we could afford it, in 1993, I got my own. I tried to get my husband to buy Apple stock and he bought a few shares. He thought, like everyone else, when Microsoft came out with Windows, Apple would go under. If he had invested $5,000 to $10,000 we’d be worth more than $40 million!
Yeah, we didn’t invest in it either but definitely should have!
I know. I always thought my husband bought a couple thousand shares and was so disappointed to find out it was in the double digits.
I remember that computer. It was cute, reminded me a bit of Rosie the maid on The Jetsons. I know zoomers love their phones. I’m hoping to live long enough to see them hit the bifocal stage of life and not be able to read a darned thing on those small phone screens. Like how I live now.
You gave me a good laugh! Yes, I hope I can watch them with bifocals, too! They do look like Rosie the maid. 😂
LOL. Gotta love the view points of multi generationals. I am a last year Boomer but I grew up with computers. I was a total geek then and nothing has changed (my books case: VBA, C, C++, HTML5, 10 technical books on SAP and the list goes on). I often find myself demonstrating with millennials and zoomers. I laugh because I still get the “how did you do that” questions. I’m just not normal and your son’s comments about zoomers is nuts on. My wife calls me a loser. LOL
It sounds like you were a computer wizard. I have one other friend who knew all those programs.
No if I could only figure out how to install a Ring camera, I would be golden. LOL
I hired a handyman to do that! He charged $45.
I see the leaning away from desktops, laptops, computers…the ‘youngsters’ love using high-powered phones to do it all and the functional skills about computing aren’t part of the vocab. I’m also seeing the hints of how AI is highlighting the attitude of ‘the machine should just KNOW how to do it’ without needing to speak any sort of tech/computer language to do the programming. Such a great post, Elizabeth. Super timely, I’d say. And I love Ally’s memory lane moment about Rosie from the Jetsons. She had it going on, didn’t she?? 🥰😎🥰
Thanks! I’m afraid of what AI may do for students. I love Ally’s reference to the Jetsons. In fact, I’d love to see the cartoon again. and discover if any of their space age gadgets we use today.
Wouldn’t that be fun!? Flying cars and all…not that far away from reality with self-driving, parking, eh? 😎
Yes! I’m sure they had many more things that we use today. I remember they had an automatic vacuum cleaner like the Roomba.
See? Soooo many things…I’d just like that ‘food-a-rack-a-cycle’ or whatever that was the was like a super magical microwave/vending machine creating things on demand! 😁
Yes! I would love to have that in my kitchen 😊
Me, too – me, too! 💕
😅
It is strange to see. My youngest son has not bought a laptop for school. He has an iPad with a keyboard. I;m pretty sure he knows what the desktop is but now you’ve peeked my interest, I have to ask him. Ha, ha, ha.
I know a lot of kids my daughter’s age that use an iPad with a keyboard. I’d have way more trouble using that then a laptop.
Wuhoo! They are married!! And that iMac – so cool!! What an interesting post but it makes sense that Zoomers (I hadn’t heard that term) don’t know their way around a laptop. Huh – funny1
It is funny! I never heard the term zoomers before either. We were so sad we didn’t get to attend the wedding. It was last minute with people in their “pod” which included our daughter and DIL’s siblings. It was outdoors of a courthouse and the photos looked beautiful. We didn’t want to insist on going and chance bringing germs while she’s beginning chemo. I had one day of feeling sad. Now I am so happy for them 💕
I can understand the sad/happy feelings around that. I saw a picture on IG – looked beautiful. Perhaps when she’s through chemo there can be a bigger celebration?
I’m glad you saw the photos! The original plan was for a wedding in Santa Barbara, August 2024 (They met at UCSB.) The new plan is to have a celebration in Santa Barbara when they were planning on getting married.
Hi Elizabeth, I’m finally catching up on blogs today and I had to search for yours because it was not showing up on my feed? I thought maybe you were taking a writing break but then I found all these posts! WP can be tricky sometimes especially when it comes to your feed. Interesting, I haven’t heard of the term Zoomers, but I agree they were born with a phone in their hand. Makes total sense. Hugs, C
It’s WP glitches. LA’s blog doesn’t show up on my feed periodically. There’s a couple others who I thought quit blogging but I looked them up individually and there they are!
I find that many of the teachers I work with use their phones constantly to connect. They are very adept with texting but sometimes the meaning is lost. One class is eating up learning how to use microsoft excel and make files, etc. One student in the class told me he was practicing typing skills online and was impressed I can type 50 wpm. Perhaps lost arts return.
I hope so! I think those skills are important to have. I took typing in school, which was so good when I went to college and had to use a typewriter for papers.
NOwadays, they don’t have to take computer courses and it appears that robotics is offered.
Time has moved on and beyond.
Typing is not offered or business English which might be helpful.
That’s too bad.
Being familiar with the computer keyboard is important and this particular English class stressed this skill which impressed me.
👍🏼
If the “thumbers” ever need to learn how to write and send a proper email to multiple folks, they’ll need to resort to a computer, right?Otherwise, aren’t they just a little crippled—especially in the business world? And how do they do school papers? But hey—some of us are in the silent generation (that means we’re pretty old), so what do we know? Oh wait—we DO know how to use a computer, or else we would not be blogging buddies. Some kids can’t read cursive either, because schools stopped teaching it. We learn what we need to know when we need to know it.
You make some good points. I love the term “thumbers.” You gave me a good laugh. Think of how we had cursive, spelling, math, maps — all without electronic help! We also wrote papers for school using the library card catalogue and Dewey Decimal System.
People shouldn’t view them as outdated but what made ways for the advancement in technology. Nice post , enjoyed it👏👏.
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Thanks for sharing!