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?

  • ultranaut@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    23 hours 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.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      23 hours ago

      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.

      • Quicky@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        18 hours ago

        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.

        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.

      • Count042@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        19 hours ago

        Switch a millennial to a CLI or ask them to understand underlying technologies or networking and watch the difference between them and xennials for example.

        Digital native means they learned how to click next.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          18 hours ago

          Younger millennial here, some of us grew up using Linux. There are literally dozens of us!

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      19 hours ago

      “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.

    • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      22 hours ago

      Its pretty much Gen X who grew up programming their own games on Amigas on 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.

      • kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        19 hours ago

        There’s quite a span between older and younger millennials. Older millennials were already in college by the time the iPad was released.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          18 hours ago

          And some of the younger ones were too poor to get one. 93 here and I remember growing up using 95/98/XP/Linux rather than iPads.