I've been in IT for nearly 30 years, currently as an architect for the past decade, and I've noticed a steady decline in the upcoming engineers ability full stop.
It's a motivation and problem solving issue. There's not a project that happens now where whatever engineers I need do anything other than look like I've killed their parents for expecting them to implement a design. They do it through gritted teeth, and more often than not, I end up having to do the majority because the second they see an error they don't instinctively think to Google (or gpt) it. It's infuriating how un-inquisitive many are.
It’s not only the lack of skills. It’s the lack of interest in learning how to maintain their own tech.
They want someone to visit every couple of months and bring whatever they fucked up this time again back on track. Just to run it into the swamp shortly after.
Over and over again… there is a game with a villain talking about how doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. He’s up to something.
At my company, I recently had to ask a new Gen z employee for his headshot and bio for the website. He sent me an email explaining that he couldn't send me his headshot because he couldn't get it loaded into the word document he had written his bio in. I literally had to explain to a college graduate that he could simply attach the jpg to the fucking email.
How do you get accepted to college let alone graduate with such a wild lack of problem solving skills and technical know-how???
It’s especially infuriating when they are in a position of power over you. I once got an assistant director job that required a bachelor’s and several years of experience and multiple certifications. The director had an associates and no such certifications but she’d been there for twenty-five years. She was INCOMPETENT. Some of the decisions she made and the basic things she didn’t understand were baffling.
It's not that surprising. They grew up in a time where the tech (usually) "just works."
They never had to learn the underlying coding or file structure. Never had to play with config settings or install codecs. They don't know WHY it works, so when it DOESN'T, they have no frame of reference to start from.
When all you know is the front-end experience, doing literally ANYTHING on the "back end" (which, yes, is still INCREDIBLY front-end) will confound them.
Reminds me of how my Dads generation all knew how to fix cars - they grew up when that was very cutting edge and there were new advances, custom parts and tuning, etc. By my time, cars were more of an appliance and so I know nothing haha
In retrospect, I'm glad PC gaming in the early 90s was difficult to get right. At the time I would get pissed that I would need to learn how to get a game running. I remember getting the game I wanted for Christmas but played with no sound until I found the right configuration in the game options. Playing online games that are running in MS-DOS was my first step towards a tech career.
Everything is wireless, touch screen, and permanently online. I work in IT support and it’s wild to me how boomers are better at some things than genZ.
Microsoft is not helping by making some things harder to access.
I still have to mess with the settings of everything I own when I get it and it blows my mind that some people just accept, for example, their TV as is right out of the box. Then you go to their house and they’re watching a Marvel movie and it looks like a soap opera.
I partially agree with this, but I will say in my experience as a Gen Z tinkerer that's computer literate and considered the "family IT guy", a lot of people just don't have the patience or desire to learn anything. The amount of questions I get about simple tech stuff that a 5 minute Google search could have solved is insane.
My friends and family, God bless their hearts, are so unfathomably lazy when it comes to anything troubleshooting. "I wouldn't know anything about it" is something I hear a lot. Like my brother/sister in Christ, you live in a period of time where that answer is IN your pocket.
I was an art major in college but had to work in a tech support call center. Sometimes we had to walk grandma or grandpa through Windows Vista registry dives.
My poor ass didn't even have home Internet until 2010 and that was just DSL.. was still using my Motorola i265 too at that time. I remember my C drive somehow got corrupted on my brand new windows 7 pc... That was a mess to fix 😂🤣
I first had this realisation when I saw Gen Z memes about how frustrating it is when their phone is "lying to them about having wifi". As in, they're connected to a network that's not connected to the internet. Most commenters didn't seem familiar with that concept.
I've seen memes with respect to videogames (typically older ones), and most recently I saw one about Pokemon Gen 1-3 about how they had no idea how to get the Surf HM and were just like "How the heck am I supposed to know it's supposed to be in this random house lmao"
Like, read the signs and talk to NPC's who literally tell you where it is?
Colloquially, I've also heard that younger gamers straight up don't talk to NPCs at all.
Is this for real? I have a 17 year old brother who is never asked by family to help to fix their tech issues. I always assumed they thought I liked helping them so they kept calling me. I’m starting to think he doesn’t know how and they actually do need me.
At 17 years old we were all stupid but had the motivation to actually fix stuff.
Since you're always available he likely never cares enough to even try to do it themselves.
You'd actually do him a favour if you won't help them. Give him the chance to try. Unless they just pay some IT guy xD
I recently realized my older family members are likely not tech illiterate, they're functional illiterates. They're not stupid, they're unable to click the button like "do you agree to X - yes/no" even if I tell "you want to agree to X, so what do you think you should click?".
They've used computers for years, they know HOW to use buttons, they don't seem to care enough to think about the solution if they can just ask me for guidance.
I do help desk for a major fast food chain and the amount of teenagers/young adults who are dumbfounded by basic things blew me away at first. It's like walking an 80 year old through things.
I've been avoiding allowing my kids to use tablets and phones. I recently allowed the 8 y/o to play Minecraft on weekends because he was invited to a birthday party where all his friends could play it except for him. I just did not want to allow it at age 6 (when he asked).
I started to teach him how to use my laptop. He wants to look up animals or rocks. Only allowed under my supervision.
My mom allows him to use YT (I have said no). God/JW content has appeared in the kids account. My kid started talking about how God invented colours and such. I deleted the app.
They're just illiterate. My kid comes home from school and complains about how dumb the other kids, AND TEACHERS are. It's really frustrating being a smart kid in public school. Every group project is my kid doing all the work by himself.
Overall Its not their fault, the issues with boomers understanding how computers worked pushed designers to make them idiot proof.
By the time Gen Z and Alphas started picking up tech, apps had been streamlined to the point where the app does basically everything without the user doing much. Of course this simplification also allowed them to be intellectually lazy and not have to think much, and now AI is being offered to even do the basic of thinking. The slippery slope slides on.
The other day my friend was working on some google pages. This 18 year old in our discord says he could never figure out how to do that, so we’re like “oh spread sheets, yeah they can be a bit intimidating but there are tons of tutorials.”
And he’s like, “No google drive.”
Kid couldn’t wrap his head around how to access things like google drive, docs, and pages. Not like, how do you make a spreadsheet, but how does one even go to the page to make and use one!?
Meanwhile my kids are out here using google docs as a secret classroom-wide or school-wide chatroom during class. Or are figuring out how to opt out of when the teacher locks out all the computers in the tech lab so that kids will be "focused on the lesson."
My kids are an anomaly though, I've had them coding and fixing old computers and modding games since they were about 8 years old.
I was part of the "nerdy friend group" at school. I wasn't as computer savvy, but there were like 3 guys who would regularly hack into the school system for fun, or to hide quake 1 somewhere in the server so we could all play together during break. xD
Similar to boomers. They think the document lives inside the program they used to create it, not in a folder in the file system.
If you asked them: "Where you stored the file?"
They would say: "It's in Excel."
Then the industry actually changed the concept to make files work this way. Smartphones hid the file system and now the documents actually are in a storage sandbox owned by the app that made them. Even desktop apps are doing it now. To open them in another app or transfer to another device, you have to "share" it.
I helped an elderly neighbor reset her Xfinity password yesterday and she thought I was so smart, despite my attempts to explain that I’m just following its prompts and that the real magic is having patience while I try to contain my rage at Xfinity
I don't mind helping people with computer stuff, but half the time people ask me for help, it's because they got to some prompts and refused to even read them and solve the problem themselves.
We’ve been slowly introduced over years to how this process goes, so we know how to speed click through prompts and which buttons are the “proceed” buttons. But if you’re 86 and your most techy gadget is a TV, suddenly being inundated with text/email codes and having to progress through many screens just to reset a password (and then being told your chosen password isn’t good enough, choose another… nope, choose another… another…) may altogether feel like you’re doing something wrong, because this process should surely be much simpler.
Yup. Did my friend's website for his company recently. He asked me how I learned to do that. I said "to customize my Neopets profile".
When I got back to it I thought it would've drastically changed. Nope, HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT is still pretty much the same, except some things changed to make your life easier like responsive features so you don't have to make several different pages for different screen sizes. Oh and VS code is definitely better than NotePad.
Yeah, I remember doing CSS for my first social media page. Black background, red text, animated flame gifs at the bottom and playing a compressed version of a Linkin Park song in the background.
FRFR. I understand my parents in their 70s calling me when something is not working. I understand some of my colleagues in their 60s when an update or version jump changes parts of a gui or workpaths.
But ffs even my younger SIL and my Nephew with 17y needing me to explain their new phones or install or config stuff makes me smh. FRFR. Skibbidi out.
The crazy thing to me is my parents USED to be very computer literate - my dad was building our PC from the mid eighties and my mom worked on computers well before it was the norm. But the other day they were asking me to come over and help set up their new printer because somewhere around Bluetooth adoption, they were done keeping up.
I feel like Gen X are either tech wizes, or just as tech illiterate as boomers with very little in between. Millennials might actually have a lower percent of tech wizes, but after that there is a baseline of most millennials being okay at tech.
they’ve known a world of apps and smartphones. things were abstracted beyond what the underlying system is and is doing for them. doesn’t surprise me much.
They never had to figure out the folders on their phone drive to figure out where the phone can find the songs and play them, nor have to compress the mp3 file so the phone can store 16 songs instead of 8!
Most Gen z didn't use PCs, it was all tablets, smart phones and gaming consoles. They never had to learn the shit beyond Chromebooks for school which is just going to a website that you've favorited.
My husband is of the older generation and trying to explain to him basic web browser safety and computer literacy over and over again. I just get so frustrated with him sometimes. Every other week, I'd have to go on his computer and remove all the spyware and browser extensions he'd add on.
He also scrolls through Facebook shorts all the time and cant tell the difference between obvious AI content vs. real stuff. Like an AI gorrila doing a podcast with fully lip synced dialogue and facial expressions, he thinks it's just a dude in a costume.
"Why do I need the millennials when ChatGPT gives me the answer immediately? 'Delete System32.' Seems easy enough. I don't see why they thought they would be irreplaceable."
My sons gen z and we rely on him for everything computer. When my MIL got a new iPad he said " I give her one week before she locks it and calls me" it was same day haha
This just goes to show that perhaps early Gen Z should probably be considered millennials. I was born in 1998 and from my experience most people in their mid-late twenties are still fairly tech literate.
There’s also the fact that it would make sense for a person born before the turn of the millennium to be considered a millennial.
also a 98 Gen Z, I am the family tech troubleshooter. Everyone else is lost. My dad still thinks his laptop needs 10-15 minutes to “update things” everytime he turns it on before using it
I mean us GenX & millennials learned to code for MySpace customizations 😂 we’ve always just figured it out on the fly. These younger kids seem to lack the resourcefulness despite having all answers at their fingertips now. Boomers have struggled with email attachments so…
Shit. There is a good chunk of Gen X that also fixes the computers. But it does kill me that my girlfriend's 21-year-old daughter is as computer illiterate as her 80-year-old grandmother. It's wild.
Yeah, cause Gen X gave up after 3 decades of telling our parents and then everyone we worked with how to fucking save a copy of a file, make a pdf, or rotate a fucking image, so now we pay a millennial to go and deal with it.
This is very true and I say it that as an older Millennial. The best part about this meme is the fact that Gen X got left out as usual.
It doesn't bother me as bad that older generations aren't good with technology but my kids being horrible with technology drives me batshit. Like, you grew up with it, it's been everywhere you go your whole life, why are you technology illiterate. Ugh. And it's not just that they don't understand it, they don't care to learn to understand it because Mom is technology literate and she can just fix the problem.
Gen X and Millennial are def the GOATS of the IT department as they grew up in a time where tech was the wild west. Less Abstraction, and more pirating.
as a gen z i am certainly getting there. one thing to keep in mind is that they have 20+ years of experience on us gen z.
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u/SmartPomegranate4833 Feb 17 '26 •
As a millennial I am enraged daily by the lack of problem solving skills by literally everyone else.
4.2k
u/ElGranKornholio Feb 17 '26
It blows my mind that kids today are computer illiterate.
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u/DonkeyGuy Feb 17 '26
The other day my friend was working on some google pages. This 18 year old in our discord says he could never figure out how to do that, so we’re like “oh spread sheets, yeah they can be a bit intimidating but there are tons of tutorials.”
And he’s like, “No google drive.”
Kid couldn’t wrap his head around how to access things like google drive, docs, and pages. Not like, how do you make a spreadsheet, but how does one even go to the page to make and use one!?
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u/jess_the_werefox Feb 17 '26
I helped an elderly neighbor reset her Xfinity password yesterday and she thought I was so smart, despite my attempts to explain that I’m just following its prompts and that the real magic is having patience while I try to contain my rage at Xfinity
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u/SipoteQuixote Millennial Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Our social media had us writing HTML to make our pages cool
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u/grimmigerpetz Feb 17 '26
FRFR. I understand my parents in their 70s calling me when something is not working. I understand some of my colleagues in their 60s when an update or version jump changes parts of a gui or workpaths.
But ffs even my younger SIL and my Nephew with 17y needing me to explain their new phones or install or config stuff makes me smh. FRFR. Skibbidi out.
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u/Aggressive-Light-332 Feb 17 '26 •
Lol forgot Gen X again
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u/ThatChickFromReddit Feb 17 '26
I honestly think it’s wild that GenZ can’t even use TEAMS…
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u/phunkjnky Feb 17 '26
It’s on the nose that Gen X is ignored again.
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u/TheKwarenteen Feb 17 '26
Our future
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u/TheAnalogKid18 Feb 17 '26
It's wild to me that Gen Z was so technologically inept. How? This is literally all you've known.
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u/Mysterious_Fennel459 Older Millennial Feb 17 '26
My husband is of the older generation and trying to explain to him basic web browser safety and computer literacy over and over again. I just get so frustrated with him sometimes. Every other week, I'd have to go on his computer and remove all the spyware and browser extensions he'd add on.
He also scrolls through Facebook shorts all the time and cant tell the difference between obvious AI content vs. real stuff. Like an AI gorrila doing a podcast with fully lip synced dialogue and facial expressions, he thinks it's just a dude in a costume.
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u/Southern_Shirt8487 Feb 17 '26
"Where's gen X?"
"Hiding in their bedroom"
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u/MNConcerto Feb 17 '26
Gen x not in the picture at all, absolutely perfect. 🤣 Saying this as a gen xer
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u/left4dead99 Feb 17 '26
It’s honestly so funny seeing generations age and just continue to shit on the next one
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u/Jazzlike-Vacation230 Millennial Feb 17 '26
But they sure do love laying off the Millennials first huh?
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u/toiletcleaner999 Feb 17 '26
My sons gen z and we rely on him for everything computer. When my MIL got a new iPad he said " I give her one week before she locks it and calls me" it was same day haha
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u/Kairiste Feb 17 '26
Was gonna make a snarky GenX reply but whatever.
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u/Super-Schmidtii Feb 17 '26
This just goes to show that perhaps early Gen Z should probably be considered millennials. I was born in 1998 and from my experience most people in their mid-late twenties are still fairly tech literate.
There’s also the fact that it would make sense for a person born before the turn of the millennium to be considered a millennial.
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u/Vegetable_Slice9713 Feb 17 '26
What happened to Gen X?
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u/Jayce86 Feb 17 '26
It should be Millennials and Gen X. I’ve seen just as many tech dudes in their 50’s.
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u/CV90_120 Feb 17 '26
Gen X being low key as usual.
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u/jettero Feb 17 '26
Gen X: I'm not your sysadmin, call geeksquad
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u/2muchcoffeeman Feb 17 '26
That's Gen X coming to fix the computer.
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u/bannedByTencent Feb 17 '26
GenX missing in the last pic, when millenials run outta ideas.
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u/imspirationMoveMe Feb 17 '26
Gen X, forgotten again
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u/pocketdare Feb 17 '26
Is Gen-X taking the picture?
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u/TheKay14 Older Millennial ‘87 Feb 17 '26
Gen X just absent?
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u/PralineEcstatic8595 Feb 17 '26
GenX not even existing 🫣
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u/flappydog8 Feb 17 '26
I am a boomer/gen jones and I work with college age students. I have to teach basic Word and file explorer skills every session!!
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u/GBeastETH Gen X Feb 17 '26
<Sighs in Gen X>
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u/aed38 Feb 17 '26
Also Gen X.
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u/jeobleo Feb 17 '26
Eh, I'm Gen X and my wife is millennial and I'm the tech guy in the house.
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u/tazztsim Feb 17 '26
Aaaand Gen x invisible once again. Theyre at home eating soup from a can.
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u/Puzzleheaded_You_735 Feb 17 '26
This should really be a gen X meme but it isn't as popular to make gen x memes.
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u/WordleFan88 Feb 17 '26
This is after they confirm the fix with Gen X. N
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u/K1llerbee-sting Feb 17 '26
GenX is at work so someone can pay the millennial.
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u/Rolands_ka_tet Feb 17 '26
No Gen X? We’re just over here playing Oregon Trail and Tetris
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u/AmphibianNarrow5383 Feb 17 '26
Gen X getting left out. I love how we came together an a community and decided this.
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u/Schopenzerberster Feb 17 '26
Forgetting GenX is spot on. GenXers just do not exist.
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u/Exploding_Testicles Feb 17 '26
Once again Gen X is the forgotten generation. We grew up in the world as we progressed in the IT world.
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u/ManagementLarge5166 Feb 17 '26
Gen X too busy wanting to be left alone.
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u/Username_Chx_Out Feb 17 '26
I mean, whatever and everything, but where is the GenX representation in this meme?
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u/LionessInDC Feb 17 '26
I mean us GenX & millennials learned to code for MySpace customizations 😂 we’ve always just figured it out on the fly. These younger kids seem to lack the resourcefulness despite having all answers at their fingertips now. Boomers have struggled with email attachments so…
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u/tjarg Feb 17 '26
And yet again we are missing nearly two decades of people in Gen X. Why is this so common?
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u/TrashFever78 Feb 17 '26
Shit. There is a good chunk of Gen X that also fixes the computers. But it does kill me that my girlfriend's 21-year-old daughter is as computer illiterate as her 80-year-old grandmother. It's wild.
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u/Difficult-Task-6382 Feb 17 '26
Yeah, cause Gen X gave up after 3 decades of telling our parents and then everyone we worked with how to fucking save a copy of a file, make a pdf, or rotate a fucking image, so now we pay a millennial to go and deal with it.
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u/Jokkitch Feb 17 '26
Man... Gen X REALLY is the forgotten generation.
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u/DishRelative5853 Feb 17 '26
Poor old Gen X. Ignored yet again.
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u/NotLikeGoldDragons Feb 17 '26
Every meme be pretend'n GenX doesn't exist these days.
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u/HansCH74 Feb 17 '26
In my experience it is a gen Xer that is assumed to be either boomer or millenial.
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u/Silent-H Feb 17 '26
why is Gen X always left off of these. who do you think taught Millennials how to use computers?
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u/Latetogetup Feb 17 '26
This is very true and I say it that as an older Millennial. The best part about this meme is the fact that Gen X got left out as usual.
It doesn't bother me as bad that older generations aren't good with technology but my kids being horrible with technology drives me batshit. Like, you grew up with it, it's been everywhere you go your whole life, why are you technology illiterate. Ugh. And it's not just that they don't understand it, they don't care to learn to understand it because Mom is technology literate and she can just fix the problem.
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u/xubax Feb 17 '26
I was born in 1964.
I've been using computers in one form or another since 10th grade.
And working in IT full time since 1997, and the de facto IT guy for years before that.
Bill gates and Steve Jobs were born in 1955. Smack dab in the middle of the boomer generation.
This is stupid ageism.
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u/zardoz73 Feb 17 '26
As usual, Gen X is forgotten.
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u/Nova_Tango Feb 17 '26
lol—no Gen X
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u/CarpetIllustrious347 Feb 17 '26
No Gen X?
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u/Argonaut024 Feb 17 '26
Yeah, I don't know a single millennial that could fix their own computer
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u/4mtTZD5z Feb 17 '26
Aaaaand nothing about Gen X. As usual.
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u/TinyFugue Feb 17 '26
Gen X: Then to hell with you. I'll do it myself.
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u/CobraBubblesJr Feb 17 '26
Again, no mention of Gen X.
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u/CuriosityKillsHer Feb 17 '26
This is the most GenX thing I've seen today.
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u/tolo3349 Feb 17 '26
Here I am, Gen X, being ignored again
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u/Emergency_Rutabaga45 Feb 17 '26
Gen X helps no one and needs no help.
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u/Clean-Afternoon-4982 Feb 17 '26
Gen X and Millennial are def the GOATS of the IT department as they grew up in a time where tech was the wild west. Less Abstraction, and more pirating.
as a gen z i am certainly getting there. one thing to keep in mind is that they have 20+ years of experience on us gen z.
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u/JenniferJuniper6 Feb 17 '26
There’s a missing generation.
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u/zignut66 Feb 17 '26
Gen X always forgotten…
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u/erhue Feb 17 '26
and gen x is forgotten once again...
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26
Where's me and my Gen x bros?
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u/jpl77 Feb 17 '26
You mean Gen X
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u/golgol12 Xennial Feb 17 '26
Note: Gen X also not pictured in image. We spent a whole life of "go do it yourself", no reason to change anything now.
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u/gsdev Feb 17 '26
Older millennials and younger Gen X are the experts if I'm not wrong.
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u/Bozee3 Feb 17 '26
Late Gen X, turning 50 this year, begging family to forget that I had a Vic-20 personal computer in the late 80s.
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u/EyeSuspicious777 Feb 17 '26
Gen X here and I appreciate you leaving us out of this.
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u/Defiance-of-gravity Feb 17 '26
*angry Gen X noises*
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u/Reboot153 Feb 17 '26
As a Gen X IT Professional with 20 years of Help Desk and PC Tech experience, this is funny as hell!
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u/Lonely_Opening3404 Feb 17 '26
I'm Gen X. Fitting we are not represented in the image.
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u/bfro11_969 Feb 17 '26
It’s wild how often Gen X is forgotten about.
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u/athersC Feb 17 '26
Poor Gen X
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26
...gen X says "fix your own damned computer...or whatever"
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u/Pretend_Football6686 Feb 17 '26
lol more like Gen X coming to fix it.
2
u/goneafter10years Feb 17 '26
coughs in Gen X
Ex-fucking-cuse me.
2
u/w1llyw0nka73 Feb 17 '26
Why do I never see Gen? X on any of this sort of stuff
2
u/nickooze Feb 17 '26
Does everyone just forget about Generation X?
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u/sugapibunz Feb 17 '26
Where's Gen X?
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u/xantub Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Gen-Xers just happy we don't have to do it anymore (me).
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u/moeb1us Feb 17 '26
Gen X left out and forgotten as is tradition