i just want zoomers to know that computers were actually useful once. before the iphone/ipad/android/chromebook, computers ran software that was just like a program that did what it was supposed to do. also the internet used to have a lot of cool stuff on it that didn't give you an anxiety disorder
before spotify there was grooveshark and 8track and pandora that let you make public playlists and find new music. there was a time when pop-ups & intrusive ads were considered a problem of the old web that we had sensibly left behind us. it absolutely wasn't perfect but it did suck less
the biggest failure of my generation internet-wise was believing that its positive qualities were inherent, that "scarcity" was impossible to manufacture for digital goods ("information wants to be free" etc). alas, turned out an unregulated market can do whatever the fuck it wants even if it sucks
the last few years for me has been real eye-opening, in that i've realized just how thoroughly the early net optimism was a marketing ploy to expand the web's reach, make us dependent so they could charge rent. the positives EXISTED, but they were not inherent and they've largely been abandoned
but like. when i was growing up we were taught how to use computers. do they teach you how to use computers or do they just stick you in front of a touch screen with apps? do you do command line shit? do you learn html/css? christ, do they even teach netiquette anymore? that used to be a big thing
like there actually was a time when the idea of companies charging rent for software was abhorrent and offensive to a lot of people. alas, lack of regulations from an aging out of touch government (and this was 15 years ago, largely the same people!) allowed corps to boil the frog anyway. oops!
kid's content on the net when i was young was like. cheap flash game platformers. here's a digital coloring book. here's a bunch of animals you can click on to read about. where the fuck even IS carmen sandiego??? i spent hours making "modern art" in mspaint. "just one more line then i'll do chores"
this isn't about nostalgia or superiority or whatever. i know we can't go back. mostly i just feel bad for gen z. everything turned into a casino in the last ten years. nothing works, nothing's fun, nothing belongs to us, and it all costs more than ever. y'all got fucking screwed, man. i'm sorry
i know i'm blurring the line between gen z and gen a here, i'm 35 and don't get out much so everyone more than like 6 years younger than me may as well be a child. which is not an insult! that's a me problem! i'm all out of "kids these days," we all got fucked over by the same rich people.
I mean…speaking of rent-seeking, “Generation Alpha” itself is just a marketing term invented by the guy who runs his own consultancy. It doesn’t really matter if you get it mixed up with “gen z”
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generat...
My youngest is now 20, and when they were growing up sites like PBS Kids and Nitrome were THE SHIT. Just hours and hours of games. Even sites like LEGO had tons of Flash games—it’s what every company thought they needed to have before everything became an app.
Lego not only had flash games, they had fucking EXCELLENT flash games that, IMO, have stood the test of time. Go back and play any of the World Builder or Junkbot games and, with some late-level difficulty spike exceptions, they're STILL good. I remember pre-advergame Neopets too...
The thing that's really disappointing about this is that web browsers have far surpassed flashes capabilities, web games could be so so much better nowadays, but that culture seems to have mostly died.
I think earlier zoomers (1997-2006ish) still had a lot of this stuff. Flash games were the shit. Gamepost was my go-to website because all of the games would keep me occupied for hours. Man, I miss that.
Teaching kids that computers are inherently fuck-around-with-able is a VITAL task and we've societally been neglecting it (as an intentional plan on the part of Google et al).
I don't know about other folks, but "information wants to be free" was always a war cry for me, not an idyllic statement.
'gen z'-er here, netiquette was never super prevalent but I still grew up in a time where computer class was integral. 7th grade was my first exposure to making a website. I will be transparent; I worked in IT/networking and had unrestricted Internet access in the 00s, so I always tinkered around-
with tech and was exposed to it very early. Younger ones especially alpha are the poster child for "iPad kids", and it's a shame to see them in such a state on top of computer classes not really encouraging them to still know even the parts of a computer.
Hopefully this doesn't come across as any version of (X)-splaining, I genuinely agree with everything and just wanted to give some of my own perspective.
And as someone who has taught computer literacy to adults with special needs, I'm annoyed at how reliant people are on endless subscription / commercial based apps for education. Old 90s computer games CAN still engage children and encourage computer readiness, but they don't exist anymore. ☠️
Thank you! And hey, I'm still learning; I replaced my first hard drive with an SSD this month and I feel great, but I genuinely Don't think many younger people are encouraged to tinker with tech. They're still out there though, some Roblox stuff goes crazy. ☠️
Fellow gen z person here, I was kinda taught netiquette, but it was more copyright laws and how to look smth up on google (wich is still good to learn lol)
How to look something up on google 2024 edition:
Type query
Click "search"
Ignore the first half a page of ads, AI and sponsored results
Change your keywords several times, maybe use quotation marks
Give up and go check Reddit for the answer.
And Reddit has a bunch of passive aggressive know it all's at worst, or the person who answered your question years ago had their post deleted at best, so it's not a great resource in my experience. ☠️
Still marginally more likely to give me an answer than Google, unfortunately. Search engines used to be these amazing things that would deliver real web pages matching your query, now they're just delivery systems for autogenerated slop.
to most people, even the ones who were taught in school, computers might as well be magic. people don't want to know how the soup is made, because that means they'd have to care if something was wrong.
Idk I’m 19 so maybe it’s different for the zoomers a few years younger but we had computer class and we were taught how to use them and how to properly type and once we got a bit older we were taught how to use different software
I worked in a school a few years ago, they for sure at least try to teach some internet safety, and kids still play lil educational games and learn basic coding. I worked in SEN so I assume mainstream gets a bit more complex too.
I think it was my first year of middle school when I was first taught about computers in the ‘lab’ but after that they kinda just stopped. Same for most classes throughout my school life. I just watched as the older kids did these classes that were no longer a thing for me when I reached that point.
In middle school I learned to type, and in high school CSS and HTML. I am afraid of asking what the curriculum at the places I went to are now.
—Zoomer
The modern smartphone era began in my first year of high school (2007) and I never had any classes for anything remotely like this.
We barely had typing class.
We were basically plopped in front of crusty old Dell computers and left to fend for ourselves.
So I can't imagine it got better.
Not to be That Guy but early net optimism was really a lot of naivety. People really did think that it was going to be a new world, a new, ungovernable, low barrier to entry global society. And then it got big enough to be governed, controlled, and commercialized. And all it happened easily.
What also happened was, at scale, barriers to entry come down hard. If not just from costing too much to run anything (remember when sites would sputter to a halt because people discovered them?) but also because the modern web is a fucking minefield of CSAM and hacking and other illegality.
Yeah I am here to say the same. Early optimism was from true NERDS who had not yet had their motives poisoned by the prospect of potentially becoming billionaires. The concepts we gushed about were themselves the rewards we were after.
Honestly that internet and that infrastructure still exist—
