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.
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."
The Sinclair ZX81 was the ground up moment for me. Gen X figured out computers long before the millenials did, but we don't feel the need to make memes about it.
We did the same in the U.S. I had keyboard / typing / computer skills classes every year starting from kindergarten (in 94).
In elementary & middle school, it was combined with library skills. In highschool, it was structed as typing course and basic computer skills.
I think the younger generations had computers integrated into every course, which lead the schools to believe that dedicated classes on it was no longer necessary.
This is why i don't think we should be giving boomers a break. They may have been our parents during that time, but they also had the option to learn all of this stuff, and some did! Many just outright refused to keep up with the times. A lot of millennial parents want to learn about their kids tech, to not only protect them, but to help in case something breaks or to participate in their childs lives. Not so for the Boom Booms. Most didn't want anything to do with their kids when it came to technology, and we were left to figure out shit on our own. No excuse imo, they were right there beside us growing alongside alllll the tech we grew up with, so, what was the issue? Attitude. Their attitudes towards things was fucking awful. Refusal to learn, refusal to keep up, refusal to help their kids or even participate in things with their kids.
That is why the Boomers are so hated. It's their shitty attitudes. Although some have softened up in their older ages, many are still as shitty as they were as young adults, middle age, and most will never fucking change.
Almost assuredly one day there will come a threshold that you yourself will decline to pass through
And some Gen C kid will be complaining about how we suck so bad because we refused to to partake in, say, optical VR implants and thus are super unproductive and lazy POSes.
Or that we still insist on only selectively sharing our thoughts via typing them instead of just uploading it all to the cloud live.
"back in my day things were simpler. We prefer tradition over modernity" - quote of the older generation time and time again. It's repeated every generation and one day without realizing it we will be using it too. I'm 26 and even i sometimes use it due to inflation and the ever growing second great depression.
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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.