Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do
Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do
The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.
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As an older member of the cohort I've noticed a certain gap. Those of us who grew up when computers were just becoming a thing for everybody (sorry gen X I know you were first but they were expensive luxuries rather than ubiquitous) had to learn to fix shit all the time and got to learn about the dangers more or less as they came into being, computers still weren't entierly user friendly and learning was encouraged by the fact that it didn't take much knowhow to do things like play an entire game by just downloading the free trial over and over and moving your save file.
Past a certain line however (I think the 2000s to 2010s kids) computers became much more of a black box and companies like apple were making 'it just works' user interfaces that required very little fixing but also gave you very little control if you didn't already know where to look. So we got that disconect of a group that are very comfortable with computers but don't understand much about how they work and get bombarded with all the dangers of the internet at once rather than having had the chance to learn them as they came about.
Im a middle gen z id say i defiently notice this modern tech isnt built for the average its built for the dumbest. For example I had to spend 10 minutes teaching my friend how to unzip a file also a lot of gen z dont have computers and just use thier phones for everything
I deal with a lot of kids fresh out of college. The surprising part is how many don’t know what Windows File Explorer even is, much less file manipulation. Everything is saved to the desktop.
What's funny is that the generation(s) that get computers understand things like the file explorer, the desktop, etc. But, they're mostly too old to get the metaphors those are based on.
I especially think the "Desktop" metaphor is interesting. Because until laptops became common, people's computers rested on desks. The main use for a desk in a business setting was a surface for your computer keyboard and monitor. But, the "Desktop" metaphor referenced a previous world where desktop computers didn't exist, and the main point of a desktop surface was for writing and organizing papers.
So, there's this tiny overlap in time where the metaphor made sense.
Like, from the 1700s to 1980s if you took a businessman and said "imagine you're sitting at a desk in an office, what are things you'd find on that desk?" They'd talk about things like, pens, pencils, folders, documents, maybe a desktop calendar. But, you take a businessman from 1995 onwards and ask the same question they'd say things like a computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, etc. The computer desktop is basically a time capsule of the time before desktops had computer equipment on them. All the metaphors are paper and paper-related things, which are no longer in much use because they've been replaced by a computer.
Oh yeah. When you ask people to check their downloads folder, and they open up chrome "because that's where my downloads are". FML.
I'm just glad that when I'm old, my knowledge of computers will be seem to be confounding wizardy to the generations behind me.
Granddad what’s an ISA?
You'll learn about it when you are older.
Nobody needs to know about ISA now and good riddance.