Why are Millennials and Gen Z so good at technology? We tend to be the go-to for our families when they’re baffled by their smartphones, iPads, and computers. Despite the many articles bemoaning the detrimental impacts of this technology on younger generations who overuse it, tech skills are often invaluable, and sometimes even expected for young people in the job market. Those skills can actually give Millennials an edge over Baby Boomers looking to re-enter the job market.
But that still doesn’t answer the question: Why is our generation so good with technology? Obviously, one of the biggest reasons is that most of us, at least in middle to upper class families, grew up with technology at our fingertips, in our schools and homes. Many of us have managed to remain in close contact with that tech as we moved through school and entered the job market, learning new skills on our PCs and MacBooks because we had to.
But I would suggest that there’s another, less direct reason we’re so much better at technology than many members of the older generations. The rapid, exponential modernization of technology in the last fifteen to twenty years has made us not only familiar with tech in a way that older generations are not, but also taught us to think differently about that technology.
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When we run into something that we don’t know how to do in programs for word processing, photo editing, or spreadsheet organizing, we don’t panic. We play around with the program until we get the desired results. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve done something really simple for my older employer, or my grandparents, and had them say in amazed admiration “I wouldn’t even have thought of that.” Messing around in Microsoft Paint, PowerPoint, and Excel for an hour a week in computer class when I was a kid didn’t just teach me how the basic functions of those programs. It also taught me how to explore my options until I find an answer. When our employers say they need something done, a spreadsheet created, a photo edited, or a presentation formatted, we figure it out.
Or, if we can’t figure it out, we turn to Google. Even if we don’t know how to do it, somebody does, and they’ve probably written about it online somewhere. Usually, a solution can be found via some internet browsing within a very reasonable amount of time. I look up how to perform functions in Adobe Photoshop all the time. A few correctly-worded searches can turn up plenty of step-by-step directions that will help me complete the task.
It’s absolutely true that growing up with technology is a huge part of why it comes easier to younger generations; it’s familiar. But technology is also constantly, rapidly changing. Younger generations, like Millennials and Gen Z, often seem to be better at adapting to these changes, perhaps because we have a flexibility that older generations don’t when it comes to the way we think about technology. Will this be enough to keep us in touch with technology in ten, twenty, or thirty years? I guess only time will tell.