this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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screenshot, probably from Ex-Twitter but I saw it on NOSTR, showing a guy saying that training a zoomer to use a PC at work is as difficult as training a boomer, with a reply indicating that there is only one generation that can rotate a PDF and that knowledge dies with us

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[–] maporita@lemmy.ca 22 points 6 days ago

My favorite:

"Where did you save the file?"

"I saved it in Excel"

[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 52 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

just want to add, it's not the zoomer's fault. they were intentionally raised in ignorance because its apparently profitable

fuck the corporations who've deliberately turned our living computers into soulless commercial brainwashing surveillance machines

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago

It's their parents fault for not using GNU/Linux

[–] monarch@lemm.ee 16 points 6 days ago

Also schools that thought just seeing the tech used would give you innate knowledge on how to use a computer.

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[–] emberpunk@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Don't blame the people, they often cant get a mobile and tablet and computer... blame the awful corporations who made everything an app and pushed locked down mobile and tablets environments

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[–] nargis@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Messing around with your old WinXP/95 computer and then fixing that mess before your parents come home and scold you does wonders to one's troubleshooting skills. People of this generation never got to hear that scary XP error sound, and it shows.

[–] Bohurt@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fun fact: Windows XP had cool day 0 loophole that saved my my ass. Once I decided to explore new options and I stumbled upon new and cool feature: setting a password. The only issue with it was that I've forgotten it half an hour later. I already knew 'admin' word so I used it in hackerman style and I logged in and I was able to reverse old password. This loophole was patched with first service pack but I still giggle when I remind myself of that.

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[–] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Windows XP's error sound wasn't scary. Windows 95 and 98's were. That natural alarming chime, combined with the angry faces when our parents find out the non-functioning operating system...

[–] nargis@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

Turns out the one I was thinking of was the critical stop sound and the error sound was less threatening. Learnt something new...

[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The key concept they're missing a lot of the time is that software sits within the file system and not the other way around.

This is largely because apps hide this and data is generally stored in one place on your phone (the downloads folder).

Best way to fix it - have 1--2 lessons entirely devoted to finding shit on their computer. My favourite activity is "ok, save your word file, close word, you now have 10 mins to find that file without opening word".

[–] toddestan@lemm.ee 3 points 5 days ago

I'd at least start them with something simple like Paint or Notepad. Once they have that down, then you can throw the disaster that is the MS Office file save dialog at them.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The working class should hold the bulk of the wealth.

[–] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

"Should" is doing all the work in that sentence

[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago

More work than the 1% will ever do.

[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 17 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Gen Z here, in college.

Some of these people are braindead when it comes to tech.

Like, I get if you're not used to technology because you're poor/had a lack of access to it, as many people might not have a home computer. So there were kids who were absolutely hopeless when it came to using windows at my tech school because they were broke, and the school only gives out Chromebooks (cause they're shitty and cheap).

But outside of not knowing a UI and different file formats, you should absolutely know how to use anything on the web, unless you literally lived in an area with absolutely no internet and electricity.

Some people at my college STILL don't know how to share Google documents correctly, and it's the most insane and frustrating thing to me. Literally any device with an Internet connection can use it. Windows, apple, Chromebook, Linux, you name it. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO WORK GOOGLE DRIVE?!?!?!

Like many comments have said, devs have dumbed down a lot of shit in the name of protecting users, and people expect stuff to just work without any issues/effort, which I get, but damn, you've never simply done a 5 mins search on Google or YouTube for a quick fix?

My hand-me-down phone journey started with a Samsung G Note 4 as a kid, then a old iPhone (don't remember which), moved to a Moto G Play 7 (I adore that thing today), moved to iPhone X, and now I'm at a Pixel 8a cause I put GrapheneOS on it. My mom got me it as a grad gift cause I hated my iPhone so much for all the shit I couldn't do while I was on it. I've always just liked Android and Windows more for the freedom to fuck up (which I never did), instead of Apple's shitty walled garden. And now I'm on Fedora, because I know I don't have to subject myself to a shit user experience on Windows just for simplicity.

But other people my gen who aren't willing to be adventurous for a bit and even try will never do that. Hell, you get shamed in school for not loving the Apple overlords and wanting Apple deciding everything in your life (green bubble shaming is real, I hated middle and early high school...). We want quick and easy, and we got it, but at what cost?

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Google drive is absolutely horrible to use for any real purpose. Organizing things is awful, search sucks, sharing permissions are dumb in terms of their specific behaviors. Its not particularly hard to use for basic things where you've got like 10 files in there, but it's a terrible example of usable software. Like... SharePoint is better, and I didn't think it was possible to be worse than SharePoint.

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[–] Lychee@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Mate just my 2 cents ignore overlords and enjoy using other stuff and getting a more global knowledge. Didn't know the situation was getting this bad, let me guess: they know every single thing that has been posted on tiktok, but nothing else?

[–] notgold@aussie.zone 7 points 6 days ago

That's no different from boomers and millenials really. Boomers only know the 6 o'clock news and either the front or back page of the paper. Millennial only know 90s cartoons and how to complain; I should know as i am one.

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[–] terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

The paradigm has changed. The rift between PC and smart phone. Is it really a surprise? My 18yr step kid can at least type on a keyboard with proficiency. Beyond that and installing games in steam, he's lost outside of that. Both I and his mom work in IT. We try to shore up the gaps, but it seems the 'kid' actively refuses to learn.

[–] Rift5899@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 week ago (13 children)

One friend of mine told that he read once that kids these days doesn't even know how to create a folder (or directory), is that true?

[–] monarch@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago (5 children)

This is the only one of these that I simply do not believe I am genz and admittedly more into computers than average but I have never met anyone who couldn't figure out to right click to make a new folder unless they mean that they didn't know how to use the terminal to do it.

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[–] Wolfram@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I'm an older zoomer but still a zoomer. Its a crazy dynamic seeing people my age and younger just not getting IT stuff. There's a high ratio of older to younger people where I've worked too.

[–] Grofit@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

The challenges thst existed to use technology no longer exist, so there is no longer a reason to look under the hood for most people. It's like how a lot of generations after boomers don't know about how to change a tyre or spark plugs etc, cars got more reliable and industries created services to stop you needing to worry about that stuff.

As a kid I remember WANTING to play games with a friend on PC, he knew we needed a null modem cable and we went to pc shop 2 towns over got one and tried to figure out how to play together using it. Then when the Internet came out and we had to fight against Internet connection sharing so one computer could share Internet with friends pc. Trying to use no-cd patches just so we didn't need to keep grabbing cds to play games etc.

There were so many things you learnt back then but it was because we had no alternative, I get why tech knowledge has vanished and I don't blame them, they have had no need to solve the same problems and haven't grown with technology, it's been already established and they have had no need to concern themselves with it.

Problem is the working world still heavily needs PC skills and basic analytical ability so there needs to be more focus on those old "computer driving license" style courses so people can certify they know how to find a file and end task when something hangs.

[–] double_quack@lemm.ee 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)
pdftk input.pdf cat 1-endright output output.pdf
[–] rice@lemmy.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

convert -rotate 90 in.pdf out.pdf

[–] double_quack@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Doesn't convert rasterize the pdf? (I don't remember)

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[–] rice@lemmy.org 3 points 5 days ago

Yep I've noticed that too. I get questions like "what is the difference between downloading and installing" from people that are over 18 years old and under 30.

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago

Farts unhappily

[–] wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I'm not a kid (see my other replies in this thread lol), but I've never had to use PDFs for much at all. The closest I've ever been to editing one is clicking a box to draw a signature or check a checkbox.

So I've gotta ask. Why would one need to rotate a PDF? They would be made on a computer, and naturally default to the correct orientation, no? I can't imagine why one would ever be sideways.

[–] Boy_of_Soy@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Pdfs are not always made on computers. In most office environments you are going to run into scanned documents. Scanners like to do funny things and people dont always put all the pages in the correct orientation.

[–] Blemgo@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Scanners like to do funny things

I know it's not very relevant, but that reminds me of a talk held during a CCC (Chaos Computer Club) convention.

It's in German, but I'll try to summarize it: Someone noticed the numbers on a scanned page didn't match the original, so they hired an expert to find out what happened. Turns out that the printer they were using had a feature that would detect symbols that looked the same and basically copypasted ome cutout of the symbol onto the other to save space on the final PDF. Due to the print/copy quality, this substitution sometimes malfunctioned, substituting similar looking symbols, such as 8 and 0.

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[–] JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago

People are going to start asking AI to rotate PDFs for them, just like people started asking ChatGPT to do math; it’s a terrible idea but will probably work 80% of the time, and that’ll be good enough for most people.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Is there a ghostscript way to rotate pdf?

[–] rice@lemmy.org 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yes. (not sure if you wanted it actually posted the GS way is kinda long) there are a good 10+ different tools to do it on command line though. Even imagemagick's "convert" command that does virtually every image format can also rotate a pdf. qpdf, pdftk are very popular too.

I actually found a thread that lists all the tools I did and even the "gs" command lol https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/394065/command-line-how-do-you-rotate-a-pdf-file-90-degrees

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can confirm, imagemagick is bad with PDF quality.

[–] rice@lemmy.org 3 points 5 days ago

You have to set the quality to 100 and density to something high (150 or 300) because it'll set it to 72ppi and it also has to become before the input file name. It's like GS and wants virtually every parameter set by you and the defaults are like bare minimum it doesn't take them from the actual file.

That being said just use qpdf or pdftk lmao

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