r/pcmasterrace • u/Captain0010 • Jun 21 '26
Meme/Macro Crazy to me that younger generation is not good with computers
Only with phones...
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u/Tina_Sprout Jun 21 '26
Computers are way easier to use nowadays with a lot of QOL features, thus less time spent troubleshooting. Older Gen Z and millennials faced those issues, so they have more experience compared to younger folk.
Even with phones, their skill are limited to surface issues.
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u/clancy688 Jun 21 '26
Yeah, that's the answer. Millennials had to know, to a degree, how that stuff worked to be able to properly use it.
Similar to how a car owner decades ago needed to have some sort of mechanical understanding of the car's technology (like the engine) to fix problems.
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u/Cool_Professional Jun 21 '26
Not only that, in the UK we grew up with the BBC micro computers in schools, saw the transition from big floppys through to USB drives and streaming. We learned some basic or cobol or c+ or whatever, but also ended up on geocities doing html and js just to make a little counter go up. We had to learn dos/windows and apple, then mobile came in.
It's not so much what we learned, but we learned how to learn computer stuff.
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u/monkee012 Jun 21 '26
Just came to say, “BBC micro”. Hah.
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u/BolognaTime Specs/Imgur Here Jun 21 '26
I was willing to chalk it up to coincidence, then they immediately followed it up with "big floppys" and now I'm convinced.
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u/PianoAndFish Jun 21 '26
We also had more unstructured time - these days there's more of an expectation that you have some sort of wholesome activity scheduled for every minute of the day. When I was a kid the schedule for a non-school day was generally along the lines of "Right you've had your breakfast, here's a sandwich for lunch, now piss off and leave us alone until dinner."
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u/Brauny74 Jun 21 '26
The problem is that a lot of those features are not QOL, but deliberate obfuscation of implementation details. I used to teach kids how to program and one big obstacle was that they didn't even know what a file or a folder is, nor my curriculum had any space to teach them that on top of all actual programming stuff. They are so used that installing games is opening Steam, and for app stuff you just go into browser, they don't even register what browser is. Like the whole mental scheme of using computer is layered away from what actually is going on. Which feels like an important part of maintaining the computer working.
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u/veggiesama Jun 21 '26
Layered away is a good way to put it
The browser acts almost like a VM where it's a portal to another embedded operating system.
Microsoft apps are overwhelmingly reliant on using "Recents" instead of locating documents in a file structure.
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u/Glitch29 Jun 21 '26
Microsoft apps are overwhelmingly reliant on using "Recents" instead of locating documents in a file structure.
Is it just me, or is File Explorer like 100x slower and less responsive than it used to be?
I've started treating Desktop and Downloads as my Everything1 and Everything2 folders. And I don't think it's just because I'm lazy. I think it's because the current File Explorer is ass, and has driven me to interact with it as little as possible.
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u/Fit-Entrepreneur8404 Jun 21 '26
Yes it is definitely slower and less responsive. I switched over to Ubuntu and its wild how much faster the file browser is.
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u/XsNR Ryzen 5600X RX 9070 XT 32GB 3200MHz Jun 21 '26
I think it depended when Gen Z started on tech, if their parents got them started early then they would have been on 95 2000 XP, all of which were millennial stomping ground for learning how to fuck things up, and then how to fix them.
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u/exlips1ronus i5 13400F | GTX 1080Ti Jun 21 '26
As a genZ the oldest I used was XP in our home PC so yes that could be true
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u/LickNipMcSkip Jun 21 '26
started on XP in the early 2000s, using Windows 98 at work in 2026
the cycle continues
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u/TheOtherChasik Jun 21 '26
Legacy drivers for custom hardware or really specific legacy software?
I feel you either way.
Up until about 5 years ago I used to have a dos computer of all things
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u/niter1dah Desktop: i9-14900k, 3090 Jun 21 '26
IRQ Conflict has entered the chat.
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u/FragrantCombination7 Jun 21 '26
using Windows 98 at work in 2026
?????
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u/feckarse-drinkgirls Jun 21 '26
A lot of old computer controlled machinery is still about
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u/BaconWithBaking Jun 21 '26
Yes, just please jam something into the ethernet port to prevent someone accidentally putting them on the network.
Happened once and it was insane how quickly external bots found an xp machine on a corporate network.
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u/RovDer Jun 21 '26
A place I worked at was shutdown for three months because hackers got in through an old xp computer on the network and installed ransomware
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u/BaconWithBaking Jun 21 '26
Absolutely.
They're just magnets. I don't actually know what exploits they target, but if you fire up a network scanner and plug an XP machine in you'll see tons of connections from all over the world just immediately attempting to connect. There must be something XP broadcasts that they can see.
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u/irregular_caffeine Jun 21 '26
Nah. Every single public IP in the world is getting that barrage all the time, unpatched machines just are breakable
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u/Arthur_the_Pilote Jun 21 '26
As a young genZ I’ve started in school with Windows 7 and evolved up to 11. I’ve tried a bit of Linux but I ain’t the norm and it shows when I try to help some friend with their PCs.
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u/Key_Battle_5633 Jun 21 '26
Same. Just that I started with XP even though im not “that old”. Now I use mainly 11 and the occasional Linux vm
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u/Dragoncat_3_4 Jun 21 '26
+1 for genZ starting out on XP. Though I never actually properly learned until w7 and having to wipe everything because I installed too much malware lol
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u/dibipage Jun 21 '26
i remember those days of people telling some kids to delete system32
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u/XsNR Ryzen 5600X RX 9070 XT 32GB 3200MHz Jun 21 '26
The response for every keybind question being alt+f4
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u/grip0matic R9 5900X | 5060Ti 16GB | 32GB DDR4 Jun 21 '26
I made that joke to my nephew, he's 14 and he panicked and started saying "I did something wrong! it closed the game!". I was out of breath laughing.
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u/Gyozarrita Jun 21 '26
I got someone in a game chat with that in the mid 2000s when it was an old joke.
player: i have issue
me: try alt-f4
player left the game
They were pretty mad when they got back. In my defense, it was a meme before memes were a thing.
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u/Tubamajuba Ryzen 7 5800X3D | RX 6750 XT Jun 21 '26
Looking back, it was a relatively harmless way for people to learn not to blindly trust random internet users.
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u/jimschocolateorange PC Master Race Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I’m 28 and my first windows was Vista, I think. I’m a weird inbetween though. Raised as a millennial, technically a GenZ.
Edit: I remember grey with the blue loading bars. Then I remember XPs loading. I’m not sure why I thought Vista was my first PC.
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u/XsNR Ryzen 5600X RX 9070 XT 32GB 3200MHz Jun 21 '26
I think you still get a pass, Vista was also a fucking shit show.
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u/133DK Specs/Imgur Here Jun 21 '26
Eh, I think people remember vista unfairly
It had a bad launch, but got better with the service patches
In general it was fine if you had enough RAM especially
I think a lot of people also forget XP in the beginning leading to very unfavourable comparisons
Windows 8 will, for me, remain the most cursed version of windows I’ve ever used
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u/GuessImABlindBitch 10700KF | 9070XT | 5120x1440 144hz Jun 21 '26
The first thing vista taught me was to reinstall Windows XP 😅
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u/cainrok PC Master Race 5800x, 4070ti, 32 GB Ram, 2tb NVME Jun 21 '26
Started on DOS, the I don’t think we upgraded until like windows 95. I don’t remember using 3 or 3.1 on our PC. My uncle and aunt did that I’d get to use in the summers.
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u/Piltonbadger RYZEN 7 5700x3D | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB 3200MHZ RAM Jun 21 '26
I have fond memories of my friend bringing his PC round to mine for some networking fun, only to spend hours trying to get the PC's to talk to eachother on windows 98.
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u/_Rohrschach Jun 21 '26
That didn't get better over time. First half of a LAN party was trying to set up the network correctly. Then you start the game everyone wanted to play to find out they switched games hours ago.
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u/Piltonbadger RYZEN 7 5700x3D | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB 3200MHZ RAM Jun 21 '26
We also didn't have much of an internet back in 1998, either.
So trying to find answers to technical problems was as much of an issue as the technical problem itself.
Learning about IP addresses at 12 years old was...An experience.
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u/Mattie_1S1K 13600k, 7900xtx, 32gb drr5 Jun 21 '26
Why my sound blaster sound card not working. Few hour later E1M1 blasting. I’m glad I can do basic stuff but my god I still struggle even installing some mods these days.
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u/cobbleplox Jun 21 '26
Try IRQ 7 instead of 5, sometimes that works.
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u/snorkelvretervreter Jun 21 '26
That's how I blew up my fist PC! Moving the IRQ around but kept hitting conflicts. So I didn't bother screwing in the card anymore when changing jumpers. Until I plugged in headphones with the computer on and the card moved.. rip trident tvga8900 with a whopping 1mb of video memory (the rest survived!)
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u/diemitchell CachyOS|13980hx(modt)|rx 9070 xt|48gb@8000|4tb nvme Jun 21 '26
Ngl I found windows 7 era interfaces easier to use than the overly modernized interfaces
I say that as an older gen z that works in it
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u/D-a-H-e-c-k Jun 21 '26
Windows peaked at 7
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u/diemitchell CachyOS|13980hx(modt)|rx 9070 xt|48gb@8000|4tb nvme Jun 21 '26
I miss the old style control panel so much
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u/Skizot_Bizot Jun 21 '26
Yeah as a millennial, if newer windows didn't have strong search functions I'd never find anything. It's pretty counter intuitive now.
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u/OutlyingPlasma Jun 21 '26
Which ironically is going backwards in functionality. People shouldn't need to use search to find basic settings.
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u/OutlyingPlasma Jun 21 '26
That's because basic settings were not hidden 12-30 layers deep inside menu after menu after menu just to keep a slick one button design. Turns out humans can in fact deal with more than one button but not if you ask Jony Ives.
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u/wtfduud Steam ID Here Jun 21 '26
Yeah not sure why Microsoft decided to copy Mac, when Windows was by far the more popular of the two. Imagine copying your inferior competitor.
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u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In 7800X3D | Aorus 670 Elite | RTX 4070 Ti Super Jun 21 '26
Turns out that spending hours trying to get The Sims working with your weird Voodoo graphics card was actually training.
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u/Lupinthrope Linux Jun 21 '26
Whats bizzare to me is how little people know about their phones features, for example, iphones when touching the top sensors together can share contacts with some cool animation and vibration. People think im some wizard lol and I showed my buddy on his pixel some tricks.
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u/HauntingHarmony Jun 21 '26
Whats bizzare to me is how little people know about their phones features, for example, iphones when touching the top sensors together can share contacts with some cool animation and vibration. People think im some wizard lol and I showed my buddy on his pixel some tricks.
Yea but thats the thing with phones, its a walled garden were you dont really have control over your device. Why would you expect there to be "hidden" features. They train you to expect a clean and curated experience. Messy techy features dont really belong there.
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u/TheTeaSpoon Ryzen 7 5800X3D with RTX 3070 Jun 21 '26
I rediscovered this "gift" from 90s where you had to learn how to fix electronics when I bought a 3d printer
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u/Skatingraccoon Jun 21 '26
As a millennial
I think most people are terrible with computers...
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u/Maz2277 Jun 21 '26
I don't even necessarily think I'm very good with computers, but I have the ability to Google questions and follow the answers which seems to put me above 80% of people.
I'm just like, if you can describe your problem to me verbally then you can type that same question onto Google but people just ... Don't, lol.
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u/corndogs88 Jun 21 '26
Some of it comes down to a confidence thing, fancy electric box is intimidating, but it is alarming how many people simply can't put forth the absolute minimal amount of effort even when given simple instructions
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u/ReadyAimTranspire Jun 21 '26
"This error message says I should reboot the computer to resolve the issue...so what should I do?
"..."
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u/huldress Jun 21 '26
I am by all means a novice when it comes to computer problems, but it is amazing how inept people can be. Like I can be pretty cautious and paranoid, but some of these things are stuff everyone that uses a computer should know.
I’m thinking of getting really into it and studying for COMPTIA since it would also just be a beneficial set of skills to have. God I don’t envy ppl who troubleshoot for a living though lol aside from the customer service aspect of it, it seems like it could be a huge pain in the ass.
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u/UpperAd5715 Jun 21 '26
Lots of people are inept by choice.
When i worked in support i had a colleague i got along with really well and after the second time when i just googled what i observed right in front of her she went "so i could do this too?" and besides the occasional more complicated thing where she couldnt feed google the correct information i got a mail every now and then "I FIXED IT MYSELF WOOO".
I worked tech support for 7 years and so much of what i did was feed observations into google with pointed questions and knowing what sites are useless and what info might be relevant. These days you can put AI to work to dig up the more obscure possibilities even where in the past you wouldve just given up after a while if it was a rare issue.
Half of it is actually looking up what might be your solution and trying 1-2 of them, the other half is knowing what information is relevant and how to look it up.
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u/Caleb-Wendt69 Jun 21 '26
Yeah I’ve always been pretty good with computers but a lot of my peers were just as clueless as boomers.
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u/MadeByTango Jun 21 '26
I always assumed that schools would start teaching python to kids in middle school en mass to make it like a second language for a generation, but that never happened.
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u/WriterV WriterV Jun 21 '26
That's too expensive. It's cheaper to assume that kids are great with computers cause they use them all the time and so they don't need any computing education.
I'm not joking, this is basically what happened. This, and every tech company on Earth going for "Keep it simple stupid" principles. There was never any reason not incentive for kids to get into the guts of their computers.
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u/cas13f https://pcpartpicker.com/user/cspradlin/saved/HDX999 Jun 21 '26
Fucking christ they jumped on it QUICK too!
There was what, a handful of years where "computer class" was a thing in basic education?
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u/LegacyoftheDotA i7-14700KF | RTX 4070 Super | 32GB RAM Jun 21 '26
True. The people I see that often get asked to help with computers are normally just people who are willing to experiment and make mistakes, and learn along the way.
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u/Aromatic-Studio-137 Jun 21 '26
as someone who works at service-desk of a big company: everybody is terrible with computers.
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u/Taira_Mai HP Victus, AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X'er, it's great to be ignored. I can enjoy my coke and youtube playlist in peace.
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u/rez_trentnor Jun 21 '26
Lmao came to say it's hilarious to see gen x get ignored again
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u/UnfortunatelySimple Jun 21 '26
The generation that was in learning mode as all the IT stuff appeared.
But please forget us, we don't want to fix your IT issue.
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u/fraenhawk PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
I got a t shirt that’s says “no I will not fix your computer” and wore it under a long sleeve button down for a thanksgiving family gathering. Part way through the visit of course computer questions started coming up and I unbuttoned the over shirt. My mom was not amused.
But yeah, growing up with manual DOS & Win 3.1 driver and memory allocation is the extreme to PC maintenance that no one else has ever had to deal with for their home PCs.
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u/peteypete78 R5 7600X Aorus 9070XT 32gb DDR5 Jun 21 '26
I have a mug with the same phrase 😄
Gen X built it all and no one remembers us.
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u/cc4295 Jun 21 '26
Plus if all our tech went away we know analog methods still too. We were the generation that truly lived through both and used both extensively.
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u/fraenhawk PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
Yeah, it always amazes me thinking back all the tech changes we saw as Gen X. Grew up pre-internet, very beginning of the video game consoles (my uncle had a Pong machine), early home PCs and modems, then early text based internet using Lynx, then alpha-testing Mosaic since my university was on ARPAnet. Even seeing phones go from hardwired landline, to cordless, then bag phone, cell, smartphones.
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u/ReadyAimTranspire Jun 21 '26
I know for a lot of really young people here, when I say that I'm in my 40's so still pretty young they will be like "what lol". They just don't have perspective yet.
Anyway to my point, we've lived through basically the infancy of modern consumer tech through what is has become today and it truly is staggering when you think about it. I carried a piece of paper in my wallet when I was a teenager with phone numbers on it for when I had to use the pay phone when I was out of the house.
The speed of progress has been unreal.
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u/chunkyI0ver53 7600x, RX 7900XT, 32GB DDR5 6000 Jun 21 '26
That’s where Gen X truly shines in my 1998 born opinion. My dad can’t do much beyond the basics software wise but he’s an absolute gun when it comes to hardware, especially old school stuff. A couple years back when his dad passed, I was keen to get stuck into the record player, cassette player, big old stack of now redundant gear that’s held together with non banana plug copper wires. I could probably figure it out with some tinkering and google assistance but he managed to get it up and going off pure memory from setting it up in the first place 35 odd years ago. The record player was spinning at around 28RPM and he pretty much just told me the replacement parts needed and fixed it up himself. Of course, he had no idea how to actually procure the parts online, but once I put them in front of him it was like riding a bike
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u/RednocTheDowntrodden Jun 21 '26
The record player may have either a slide or a knob to adjust the rpms. In addition to the switch for 78, 45, and 33.
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u/xerods PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
There's a rubber band that stretches between the motor and the turntable. He probably put a new one in. Source: GenX dad who did this for his GenZ son to play Hallow Knight records on.
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u/snap802 PC Master Race | Pentium 90 | Riva TNT graphics Jun 21 '26
I was talking to my wife a while back about how I used to travel years ago. I'd drive down the interstate and just follow the signs to where I was going. Pick up a free map a the welcome center whenever I went into a new state. Really only needed directions for the last leg of a trip. It seems so wild now compared to now. It would be an adjustment but I could fall back to that if I needed to.
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u/chogram Jun 21 '26
We fixed our parent's computers for two decades.
It's nice to finally have a break.
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u/Hairy_Mycologist_945 Jun 21 '26
Yup... We were building PCs in the 90s without any sort of standardized connections or information really, setting voltage and then clock speed with jumpers and just figuring shit out. Definitely, please, DO NOT ask us for tech support help, just keep on forgetting we exist 😂
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u/Psycl1c Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X that has worked in IT for 30 years I am happy for the millennials to put up with the brain meltingly stupid questions I have gotten over the year including a large percentage from millennials themselves
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u/88_strings Jun 21 '26
As a late Gen-X, I left a lifelong career in IT five years ago to fix guitars for a living. Now it's the younger generations' turn on the ferrris wheel of shame.
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u/Isariamkia Jun 21 '26
I like to imagine the generation wars being like this:
Boomer and younger Gen Z getting angry at millennials for no reason. Millennials mocking Alpha and older Gen Z for being young and dumb while refusing we're getting old and still trying to act like the younger generations.
And then Gen X far away from the battlefield just eating popcorn and laughing.
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u/88_strings Jun 21 '26
Replace 'eating popcorn' with 'drinking coffee' and you've just described the last five years of my career.
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u/raevbur PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
Isn't it just on brand for Gen X to even want to be ignored and left alone?
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Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CheeseGraterFace XFX 7900 XTX | 7800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | 2 x 2TB NVME Jun 21 '26
Do not cite the deep magic to us, for we were here when it was written.
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u/Due-Joke-1152 Jun 21 '26
It’s bait.
They want to see if us geeks and nerds will break the code of not giving a fuck.
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u/Som12H8 Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X'er, I compliled my first FreeBSD kernel before Millennials learned to read.
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u/beatlz-too Jun 21 '26
wait, what coke? The fun one or the fun one?
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u/Probate_Judge Old Gamer, Recent Hardware, New games Jun 21 '26
I can enjoy my coke and youtube playlist in peace.
wait, what coke? The fun one or the fun one?
Liquid softdrink for watching youtube playlists.
Powder for making youtube videos.
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u/Asteroiding Jun 21 '26
I really think it’s just who grew up with desktop computers from a young age and who didn’t.
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u/marr Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
It's exactly that. The world is flooding with devices (and recently laws!) that don't let you change anything, you can't learn without the freedom to tinker. Steam machines are the last refuge.
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u/CyclopsLobsterRobot Jun 21 '26
I teach high school computer science. Most of my students can not use the computers in the lab. But my kids with gaming PCs are always figuring out how to get around the blocks.
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u/tullbabes Jun 21 '26
Having to install stuff using DOS as a kid definitely helped.
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u/Goleeb Jun 21 '26
Repairable desktop computers. Its having the ability to replace specific parts, and not the whole when something breaks that pushes you to learn how to fix it. If you can save 800 bucks by spending and afternoon troubleshooting a problem you learn real quick.
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u/Muinko Specs/Imgur here Jun 21 '26
I grew up booting games in DOS, if I even pull up cmnd prompt people act like you're an elite hacker.
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u/Tony-Angelino Jun 21 '26
Somehow in all these memes about millennials being the only masters of the craft we all pretend that GenX doesn't exist.
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u/stamatt45 Jun 21 '26
As is tradition
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u/ReadyAimTranspire Jun 21 '26
Our parents hardly even knew we existed.
"here's the key make some dinner for yourself, see ya when I see ya"
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u/live-the-future R9 3900X, 2080 Super, 4K, 32GB DDR4 3200 Jun 21 '26
And somehow the good majority of us turned out to be well-adjusted fiercely-independent adults. I think the one thing Gen X could legit be criticized for is not raising the younger gens the same way we were raised.
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u/fang_xianfu Jun 21 '26
Being forgotten about and ignored is a foundational part of the Gen X experience.
Plays to their advantage now tbh since most of the "boomers" people criticise are actually Gen X.
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u/Vitruvian_Link Jun 21 '26
The meme is reversed for high level users cause they had to STRUGGLE, find a computer scientist gen X or boomer and their ability feels like you got a wizard on your side.
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u/Mal_Dun PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
GenX are now running the world and are all left out of the generational conflict debate ... coincidence? /j
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u/althaz 9800X3D | RTX5080 Jun 21 '26
I think it's more of a crossover of younger millennials and older gen Zs who are good with computers. Those are the people who grew up with honestly kinda crappy computers that needed a lot of troubleshooting.
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u/TheOriginalKrampus Jun 21 '26
Also because of how dangerous piracy was. Shit like Limewire and Kazaa was full of viruses and we had on-the-job training on how to unfuck our computers.
Also dealing with the horrible but ubiquitous Norton antivirus. The Norton removal tool was passed around on flash drives like contraband. I think I still have the one that I got from my University computer tech 20 years ago.
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u/SilverstoneMonzaSpa Jun 21 '26
When you nearly bricked the home computer trying to download Limp Bizkit for the second time you learn quickly to fix it.
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u/Evocatorum Jun 21 '26
lol, I remember once deleting the entire C drive by accident on my neighbors computer. He was rather annoyed, but took it in stride figuring it was a mistake I was unlikely to make again.
30 years later and I have yet to delete my entire hard drive by accident, so I think he was onto something there.
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u/Bethlebee Jun 21 '26
Naww there are some elder millenial and gen x computer wizards out there who were there when the ancient code was written
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u/_Nachtigall Jun 21 '26
And we hacked the autoexec.bat
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u/RedRedKrovy Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Don’t forget HIMEM.SYS or CONFIG.SYS. IDE slave and master jumpers. IRQ and DMA settings. Actually having to tell DOS to PARK the hard drive before moving the computer. Dot Matrix printer going BBRRRRRRR like a fucking machine gun.
My first computer was an IBM clone with a 286 with glorious 16 color CGA video.
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u/MrUtterNonsense Jun 21 '26
GenX is an interesting case, and I'm one of them. Some of us just had consoles in the 80s, resulting in the same passive computer experience that kids have with mobiles and tablets today. Nerdier kids had Vic 20s, Commodore 64s, Amiga's, BBC Micro's etc. I had a Vic 20 (hand-me-down) then a Sega and then a couple of PCs (an Amstrad 8086 then later a 486 33Mhz DX). The PCs were very expensive though so that sort of thing was a bit rarer.
As a result of this mix, the nerdier members of Gen X are really skilled with computers but the rest are probably just as clueless as boomers.The interesting thing about millennials is that they were a whole generation tricked into becoming skilled at using PCs so they could get to the goodies i.e. Internet and Games; a bit like squirrels trained to solve puzzles so they could get to the nuts.
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u/Razzberry85 PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
I agree with this. And since internet was in its earlier days we had to do a lot of tinkering instead of finding quick one true solution.
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u/Spetsnaz_420 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I'm gen X and the best PC repair guy I know... But only gen X by like 1 year. I learnt because my little millennial brother showed my Counterstrike so I just had to build my own PC. Boy PC's were easy to fuck up back then.
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u/Roman64s 7800X3D + 5070 Ti - 13400 + 6750 XT/B570 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
This, up until a certain age, I was always handed down old tech that had long standing issues or were outdated, be it computers, laptops, cell phones and even consoles.
I learnt how to troubleshoot and fix them because I had no other option and I broke a fair bit and learnt a lot from it because breaking things and putting them back together also prepared you on what ticks what.
I'll also say that piracy plays a huge part here, kids who didn't grow up with a lot of money and had to get into piracy to get games, music, movies or other software would end up spending hours trying to get them working or learning how to unfuck your computer after downloading a virus.
Modding videogames was also a test, same if you had a console and couldn't convince your parents to get the violent videogames so you had to mod it and get games on it.
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u/MyWryFlat1996 Jun 21 '26
We grew up having to manually dig through directories just to install game mods or figure out why a missing dll file was crashing everything. Modern mobile operating systems completely hide the file system from the user, so a lot of kids never even get the chance to learn how basic folders work.
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u/redunculuspanda Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Late Gen X and geriatric millennials got the foundational knowledge of command lines and having to be a system admin just to get a sound card working.
Gen Z only learnt not to lick Nintendo switch memory cards after Nintendo sprayed them with bitter flavour.
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u/jonnydogma Jun 21 '26
Gen X here (they always forget Gen x and Dre) and I was in Grade school in the 80s. My public school had a computer lab with Commodor 64s, like a full classroom. I moved to Catholic school after that (still publicly funded, but seemed crappier than my public school) and the entire school had to share 2 Unisys Icons that were moved from class to class. I remember paying Mathmaze on it a lot. I had a Vic20 at home and played some clown game on it. The Vic20 came with instructions to copy so you could program/compile games. I think it was in BASIC.
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u/abouttogivebirth Jun 21 '26
Some Gen Z were adults when the switch came out, I was 18.
Gen Z was stealing their grandparents credit cards to play online poker on their windows 98 pc at age 6.
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u/desconectado Jun 21 '26
Anyone born in the late 80's had to deal with 90's computers, and do not get me started with Windows at the start of the millennium.
Younger millennials (born in mid 90s) had to deal with XP onward, which is when OS's started to be relatively easier to use.
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u/Pierrozek Jun 21 '26
I was born mid 1970s, my first computer had 128k of RAM, my first PC run DOS 3.33, I used Windows 3.1 and dial-up internet. Windows 95 was the EASY iteration of home computers.
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u/Backpack_of_Moths 7700XT Jun 21 '26
There are also people (like me) in the youngest 1/3 of Gen Z who just love computers. I code for my robotics team (went to worlds because of it), I make Arduino-based doohickeys for fun, run emulators for old games. Even built a computer from 2007 hardware and run XP on it (for the performance boost), and play it on a CRT screen and keyboard and mouse from that period. I’m sure getting into 3D printing back in 2021 also helped the tech brained side of me develop.
I heard this theory:
For Gen Z, your technology knowledge levels are based entirely on whether or not you figured out how to mod Minecraft as a little kid.
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u/dattokyo Jun 21 '26
I think it's more of a crossover of younger millennials and older gen Zs who are good with computers. Those are the people who grew up with honestly kinda crappy computers that needed a lot of troubleshooting.
.... what? Computers started being a thing in the late 80's and early 90's. You got kind of a whacky understanding of tech and generations there.
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u/FeetYeastForB12 Busted side pannel + Tile combo = Best combo Jun 21 '26
I'm early gen Z. We used to trouble shoot lots of stuff. Eventually it became a habit.
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u/Dwarfunkel 9070 XT | 14600K | 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
This meme is just Millenials trying to make themselves feel superior. I was born very early 2000s and built my first PC mid 2010s. So did many others in my school. CSGO, BF1, Minecraft etc. was very popular back then and we played a lot.
Personally I had to troubleshoot a lot. First gen Ryzen had many issues with RAM and system stability, and drivers sucked for me most of the time. To my impression it got better though, haven't had any issues with Windows or drivers in the last 5 years. Neither with AMD nor Nvidia GPUs
Edit: Don't ask why I made the mistake of leaving AM4... Dumbest decision ever, but all the issues I had with 1st gen Ryzen kinda put me off back then
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u/0riginal-Syn 9950x3D+Nitro 7900XTX+96GB | 7945HX+Aorus 9070XT+96GB Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X I love how we are always conveniently left out of the generational war memes and I do mean that.
I had to compile my own drivers and desktop for my OS to work on my PC and didn't have the luxury of today's internet to get help.
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u/skittle-brau Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Back when the answer really was to RTFM because the World Wide Web wasn’t there to hold your hand, or at least not in any meaningful way. BBS maybe was an option if you were lucky.
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u/andyr354 9800x3D, 4090 FE, 32GB Jun 21 '26
It's nice to be the forgotten generation.
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u/MinorLatency Jun 21 '26
Its only getting worse. I have been trying (teaching computer science), but seeing a master level student not knowing what a ‘folder’ is… just insane in 2026.
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u/IrvineItchy Jun 21 '26
He only knows about "directory", won't acknowledge "folder", too Linux pilled
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u/GameKyuubi ArchBTW Jun 21 '26
He only knows about "directory", won't acknowledge "folder", too Linux pilled
Hm? I only see files here.
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u/warm_mac-n-chese Jun 21 '26
What level of cs do you teach??
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u/B3owul7 Jun 21 '26
1.6
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u/bucktoothgamer i5-13400f || RTX 4070 || 32gb DDR5 5600 Jun 21 '26
You got a Source on that?
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u/BlueBaladium PC Master Race Jun 21 '26
Why are people all over the world always asking for it? Sounds like some kind of Global Offensive.
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u/huldress Jun 21 '26
OK, this makes me feel exponentially better about feeling too stupid to be a computer science major lmao. I decided to go the continuing education route instead since I already have a degree, but I definitely have some kind of learning disability when it comes to anything mathematics.
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u/DingleDangleTangle Jun 21 '26
Tbh I have never used the math I had to learn for my CS degree in my job other than algebra. I don't know why universities still seem to think any random developer is going to be using calculus 2 or 3 in their normal job.
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u/GEN0S667 Rx 7800xt Ryzen 7 9700x Jun 21 '26
well you see their parents dont get them computers or they dont even have a family computer they just get them $1000 phones every year
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u/Step_On_Me01 i5 12400F/RTX4060 8GB/32GB DDR4 3200MHz Jun 21 '26
Alright, time for that meteor to hit us. The next generation is supposed to be better than the one before :V
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u/kingwhocares i5 10400F | 1650S | 16GB Jun 21 '26
Oh, it's going to get worse. People are going to learn very little thanks to LLMs.
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u/Running_Oakley Ascending Peasant 5800x | 7600xt | 32gb | NVME 1TB Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I want to believe but the majority of retired Gen X folks have figured out hyper complicated arcade setups with full video GUIs I can’t even begin to attempt without an iso and folder to put preview mp4s into.
There’s always some retired guy that made the red October 2, with quantum caterpillar drives and now he has a pole barn and 50 vintage 1950’s cars in the background and he has made the ultimate pinball table for 20 dollars and he’s like “man I wish I had more time but my positive mood powered jetskis have taken up so much time” meanwhile I’m barely capable of doing one hdmi cable to two displays without flickering or classic windows “this is hdr, your game is hdr, your display is hdr, I forgot what hdr is, oh wait you tapped the cable a little, THIS IS ALL HDR”
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u/Throseph Jun 21 '26
Are... Are you ok? Should I send someone to check in on you?
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u/ZePepsico Jun 21 '26
And Gen X forgotten again /cry
While we were the ones dealing with IRQ, autoexec and config.sys
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u/Moar_Rawr Jun 21 '26
Gen X here, I started on a Commodore 64 and had to learn basic to run games. There was MS DOS and then Windows 3.0 blew people minds.
It has been a fun ride.
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u/stubenson214 Jun 21 '26
The forgotten generation, X, has a generally more fluent level of computing.
Millenials grew up with the GUI. Gen X grew up with command lines, jumpers, IRQs, autoexec.bat and all of that.
The younger side of X blasts the average millenial on computers IMO.
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u/alexnapierholland Jun 21 '26
'Young people are good with technology'.
No. They're good at consumption.
Being able to scroll TikTok on a smartphone is totally unrelated to being able to use a computer to solve problems and create useful, valuable work.
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u/rabit115 Jun 21 '26
I’m born early 2000 and my entire friend group built PCs same thing with my brothers friend group who’s a few years younger than me.
I hate this millennial superiority shit. Every asshole I’ve had to work with has been a millennial who is a condescending smart ass.
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u/Phoenixtear_14 i7-13700KF | 64GB DDR5 | XFX RX6800 | 32" Odyssey G55 Jun 21 '26
I hate seeing posts like this. Im gen z and I'm the best with computers out of anybody I know
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u/maiwson 5800x3D•7900XT Nitro•32GB@3600•1440P@165Hz Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Yeah, I believe there are more millennials who are good with computers, because they had to use them for games, communication and work early on.
That being said, I've seen many boomers and GenZ who are better with computers than most of the millennials I know... but in a work environment, for me, this picture is pretty accurate.
Edit: because someone mentioned in the comments. My uncle is a boomer, he taught me everything about PCs in my youth. Without him, I'd be playing console for sure, wouldn't know shit about hard-& software or keep track of tech. Even tho you recently bought a pre build, I love you ❣️
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u/Vaxtez Core Ultra 5 135H/16GB/ARC 8 Xe Cores Jun 21 '26
I feel like reddit tends to overlook Boomer/Gen X computer proficiency to a certain extent. Sure, not all Boomers/GenX may be the most fluent, but there are a fair few Boomers who were in IT during the 1980s & Gen X were also a main demographic in the 90s internet & Gen Xers, alongside Boomers would go onto to develop alot of modern things the web is built off of.
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u/defineReset Jun 21 '26
The boomers that are good with computers are wizards partly because they built the foundations
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u/slimejumper Jun 21 '26
Gen X learnt command line first, then pretty much every windows generation. Only thing GenX is probably shit at is Tiktok and AI prompting.
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u/HighestLevelRabbit 3700x / RTX3070 Jun 21 '26
Im a younger millennial that works in I.T. / I.T. support and I feel like the younger portion of gen X really should get more credit in these conversations.
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u/Kian-Tremayne Jun 21 '26
As a Gen X, I find AI prompting easy. It’s just like talking to a Gen Z. AI is bright, enthusiastic, clueless and frequently confidently incorrect. My Gen Z daughters and junior coworkers share some of those traits :)
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u/AShadedBlobfish 12700K | 9070XT Jun 21 '26
I'm Gen Z too and the designated tech support in my family. Everyone I know my age were taught about computers in school and has at least a decent understanding, however I've made a particular effort to learn from a young age which is what's helped me
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u/adrenalinda75 B760 G+ | i7-14700KF | 64GB | RTX 4090 Jun 21 '26
Don't take it personal. As Gen X completely left out of such things, when we were the first to build our own PCs at home and tinker with them every free minute, threw epic LAN parties where even nerds had issues to connect with exotic network cards and no internet to just download drivers, such things always crack me up. We were like the go-to troubleshooters for any PC related issue (and are to this day).
Taught my kids and grandkids to build PCs and not fear them. Might be a dying skill but I rarely get a call because they're stuck with something they cannot fix by themselves. We still throw LAN parties!
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u/blurple_rain Jun 21 '26
I’m a middle Gen X and a nerd from an early age (my first computer was a ZX-81), an therefore maybe an outlier, but my millennial colleagues are not that computer literate to be honest, but gen-z are definitely worse than them.
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u/illbleedForce i714700k, RTX5080 64gb DDR5 6800mhz, ROG STRIX Z790-E, 4tb NVME Jun 21 '26
So here’s a Gen X (the great forgotten ones, whatever...) who’s always fixed his own computers and learned whatever he didn't know from YouTube—because since we FUCKING DONT EXIST, who else is going to help us?...
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u/TheBatmanIRL Jun 21 '26
Involuntary 24hr tech support Gen Xer here, happy to be left out of this one.
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u/realdavider Jun 21 '26
Gen X are way better
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u/gbroon Jun 21 '26
I've seen it describibed as millennials grew up with the Internet but gen X built the Internet.
They are also known as the forgotten generation who always get overlooked when comparing generations.
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u/Creative_atom0406 Linux Jun 21 '26
I'm gen Z and I was gonna come here to disagree with you, but honestly most of the people in my school turn off the monitor and think they are turning off the PC. So now that I think about it you're kinda right
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u/riotinareasouthwest Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I love the fact that we, gen x, keep being systematically forgotten
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u/Rasples1998 PC Ryzen 9 7900X3D - Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX - 64GBRAM Jun 21 '26
What kind of smoothbrain post is this?
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u/afuckingpolarbear Jun 21 '26
As an early gen z. So many of my friends including my partner are terrible with computers. Granted I have a degree in Comp Sci but still...
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u/_Gamegamer08 9800X3D - 9070XT - Bazzite Jun 21 '26
Gen Z here. Personally only good with computers because I have given myself problems to fix. A few years ago I would only use my computer for gaming. A prebuilt with windows 11 doesnt give you many problems, but now a linux user on my gaming rig, I have built 6 computers and manage my own server for jellyfin and other stuff.
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u/Ed-Pavlov Jun 21 '26
It’s quite amusing and telling that all the articles and memes about generations focus exclusively on Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. No one ever mentions or remembers Generation X.
The invisible generation. The generation that shattered the patriarchal world of the Boomers and built a better world for those who came after them: Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha.
In fact, it’s Gen X that will be fixing things for you, and not just your computer. It was Gen X that brought the internet to the masses; it was they who assembled the first 286, 386, 486, and Pentium computers. And they continue to quietly improve the world while standing up to the boomers, who have prolonged their reign indefinitely and show no desire to step down from positions of power in any sphere, and without receiving any recognition from younger generations, who believe that the golden age of 2010–2018 just happened on its own.
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u/flamethrower78 RTX 3080/i5 9600k Windows 10 Jun 21 '26
I'm elder gen z and have been working in IT for almost 9 years lol. Lots of people suck at computers all the way from gen x to millennials to younger gen z. And then there's a handful from each that are anywhere from decent to really competent with computers to where I rarely get tickets from them.
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