All I hear about is “boomers” this, “Millennials” that, “Gen Z” that, etc.
Why no one talk about Gen X? What happened to them? They just vanished like in Infinity War? Or are we mistaken Gen Z by Boomers?
All I hear about is “boomers” this, “Millennials” that, “Gen Z” that, etc.
Why no one talk about Gen X? What happened to them? They just vanished like in Infinity War? Or are we mistaken Gen Z by Boomers?
A lot of gen x got theirs. College was paid for and was cheap, lots of opportunities while they were young, got a house, a family and are just living. They will get a fair inheritance if their parents die on time, but they are also the first to see that huge nest egg disappear to the current healthcare system.
Their vote never counted. Too many boomers.
They were the first to figure out their parents had it incredibly easy, although it took them a long time. Sometimes they didn’t see it until their own kids struggled with costs and employment.
A lot are conservative but probably because they have assets and don’t like social welfare taking from them, even though their parents set it up for them to lose.
They aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.
Yeah, this is nonsense. Gen X were the generation that had to adapt to emerging technology in the workplace, when that technology itself wasn’t designed with user-friendliness at its core, and usually without an education that prioritised that. They worked with obscure hardware and obtuse software. They then continued to adapt as the Internet became prevalent and software within offices evolved. They saw the most change, and remain in the workforce.
As time has gone on, technology has simplified for the user. As such, Gen X are absolutely the generation that taught their parents how to solve their IT issues, and the ones that continue to teach their children, with Xennials being the peak of that curve.
Anecdotally, my teenage kids fly around an iPhone, but still think a computer is the fucking monitor.
I wonder if the context of ‘tech person’ vs average person is what they meant?
A genx tech person in their field is going to be on avg further along than millenial in the same field - because they’ve literally been doing it longer, more experience, learnt more, exposed to more fundamentals.
imo the distinction is the average (non-tech) genx probably will have less tech exposure than avg millenial, millenials were coming up during the shift of the average person thinking “computers are for geeks” to “tech is cool”.
disclaimer: generation names are kind of arbitrary divide and conquer bs anyway.
I’m GenX. If you ask my group of friends “who here has built their own PC from components?” every hand is going to go up. Including the teacher, the administrator and the financier.
Ask a group of Millennials who knows what the command line is for and see what reaction you get.
GenX is the generation that does tech support for its parents and its children.
Kind of… It’s really that weird bridge period between the two generations. 1980 seems to be the sweet spot. The further your birth year is from it, in either direction, the less tech savvy they seem to be.
I can prove this scientifically in that I am employed in tech and a lot of my friends are too.
Older millennials are firmly there with you in relation to tech.
That’s simply selection bias.
We built the tech. I was there, three decades ago.
I disagree that they aren’t as tech savvy as Millennials. I would say on average its younger GenX and older Millennials that have the highest tech skills, with GenX probably ahead. That’s referring to percentage, not total numbers.
My older Gen X Mom (late 1960s) is one of the most tech illiterate people I know….
“Xennials” probably have the most critical problem solving skills applicable to tech. But 80’s/90’s kids were dealing with really new or bad tech while 60’s/70’s kids were dealing with VCRs and ATMs.
Its pretty much Gen X who grew up programming their own games on Amigas and things like that, Milleniums grew up with iPads and game consoles.
When Gen X dies off I’d say the world’s going to have a lot less being fixed all round unless AI gets a lot better.
There’s quite a span between older and younger millennials. Older millennials were already in college by the time the iPad was released.
Yes, “xennials” probably have their own generation because of this, but I have met a lot more millennials that can manage UI changes over genx.
Switch a genx from windows to Mac and they are lost. Switch a millennial and they seem to be fine. I’ve seen this with phones, TVs, websites, etc.
Genx were young during “dumb” tech. VCR, digital phones, etc. millennials were learning the internet as it was moving from a hobby to its own platform, cellphones as they were first widely available then as they went “smart”, and a lot of other examples.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of knowledge was lost along the way like manual categorical systems including tabulation machines, phone books, Thomas Guides, even cabinet filing systems/card catslogs. Genx handles these things a lot better than the more recent generations.
What’s being missed here is that Gen-X were doing the same thing as Millennials at the same time, except in the workplace rather than school. But they also had the experience of what came before.
Gen Xers didn’t just stop at the “dumb” tech, they were the ones putting the smart tech into practice at work. While millennial students were learning about the Internet, Gen X were building it.