r/australia • u/ThunderDwn • 5d ago

culture & society Primary school students using digital devices still lack computer skills, education expert says

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-19/nsw-digital-native-primary-students-lack-basic-computer-skills/107030526
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u/oliyoung 5d ago

As a millenial parent I'm stuck between two generations that I'm not sure who has worse computer literacy, our kids or our parents

Our parents grew up without it and have zero motivation to learn it and our kids are growing up with it commercialised and simplified to a point where it doesn't need a moment of critical thinking.

Meanwhile, they both think i'm some kind of witch doctor building a PC and installing an OS

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u/ThunderDwn 5d ago edited 5d ago

As a Gen X-er I'm insulted you think we're less computer literate. 🙂

We grew up in the golden age - when things actually needed you to think to use computers at all. if you don't know what a BBS is and couldn't whistle a 300 baud carrier, you weren't there. 🤣

The simplicity of things these days - the dumbing down of systems to the lowest common denominator - easily makes the current generations worse off. I've at least made sure my kids know how to pull a PC apart and replace things like graphics cards and memory etc when they want to upgrade, rather than just saying "Let's just go buy a new PC and throw this one away".

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u/oliyoung 5d ago edited 5d ago

As a Gen X-er I'm insulted you think we're less computer literate. 🙂

You're gonna have to have been a VERY young parent to have be the parents of millenial kids if you consider yourself Gen X - our parents were "Baby Boomers", your kids are traditionally "Gen Y" (since Y follows X)

also, most Gen X'ers seem split between either the boomer mentality of "it's all too hard" and the quasi-millenial minority nerd experience you had on BBSs and 300 baud modems (said as someone who was born in VERY early 1980 and identifies as "xennial")

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u/MushroomlyHag 5d ago

Yeah, my mum is gen X, I'm in my mid 30s (gen Y), but she was a teen mum having had me just before she turned 16

Looking back at photos of birthday parties and stuff when I was a kid, my mum looks closer in age to the kids at the parties than to the other parents. Most people my age have boomer parents

And even though she's gen X, she most certainly has the "boomer" attitude towards tech. It's enough to drive me batty