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Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career
jcatcw writes "Young people aren't choosing computer science majors because they take technology for granted — it's something to use not something to make a career. "By and large, this generation is very fluent with technology and with a networked world," according to James Ware, executive producer at The Work Design Collaborative LLC, a Berkeley, Calif., consortium exploring workplace values and the future of the workforce. That future may be in managing technology, which requires skills today's college students don't have: writing, critical thinking, hard work and just plain showing up. One of their primary concerns is a flexible schedule and healthy work/life balance."
good. If this bears out then those of us out of college can charge more and more to keep everything running.
If it's too difficult, I can't understand it !
Is plainly not taught anymore. Most people don't even remember how logic was taught for the past 2000 years.... geometry.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yep, seems like pretty much every "new" generation gets the slam from the ones who came before. Us Gen X'ers were cast off as a bunch of slackers IIRC. In ten years we'll have some snotty Gen Y writer blasting the lazy post-college Gen Z's and ranting how the greedy Gen X'ers will consume the last remaining Social Security resources. Definitely nothing new to see here.
I work with Generation Y'ers and they aren't so "fluent with technology" that they don't need to get a CS education. Most of them still don't know the difference between RAM and a HD. They don't even know the units used to calculate the amount of RAM or the speed of a computer. Obviously, there are exceptions, but it's been my experience in a middle-class community of Gen Y kids that they don't know jack about a computer. Can they use an IPod? sure... but so can my 60 year old mom, big deal. That's like saying my Grandma used to be "fluent with technology" because she could use a typewriter back in the day. Having the ability to use it and having the ability to make it are two totally different things.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Remember when people would go around saying "I work with computers" when asked what their job was?
Now that would sound like "I work with paper."
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
These stories simply reflect the fact that, for any value of N, people in generation N-1 generally do not understand technology that became available during the childhood of generation N. This does not make generation N more technically savvy than generation N-1; by the time generation N+1 comes around, generation N will not understand the stuff they have. This was just as true for the baby boomers using remote controls and VCRs that their parents couldn't understand as it is for me using computers that the boomers have trouble with. It didn't mean that the boomers were geniuses because they could use a VCR.
Probably sort of like how my mom can't figure out the internet really well, which I think is rather simple; on the other hand, I can't understand the compulsion 'them darned kids' have for constantly text messaging each other.
Just because you can use mass-market electronic goods does not make one 'technically savvy'.
Of course, this idea is nothing new. Every generation goes through a very similar idealistic phase. Generation Y is now entering its early 20's, and it's likely that this is the phase they're beginning to go through right now. So it's hardly surprising that they're rejecting formal instruction in a field that they already feel very comfortable in (as self-taught learners). Just part of them "finding their way."
Just a thought.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I was on the bus the other day and there were some high school bimbos (let's not waste words here) and they were all a twitter about the goings on of their MySpace accounts. On and on they yammered about which boys they liked and who's on what list and then they started talking about CSS, that is to say Cascading Style Sheets.
There is a point in your life when you realize that the world has changed, that "nerdy" topics aren't so nerdy anymore, especially now that they are in the mainstream.
Generation Y (ugh!) is undeniably using the tools around them to get things done, just as my generation did a decade ago with more primitive technology. But suffice to say, the reason to get a job in the tech industry is not because you want to play with what you're already using but because you want to create something new. This is not for everyone and I think regardless of the "tech level" society seems to achieve there will always be a minority of tech-career oriented people.
crazy dynamite monkey
There is a video professor ad where a woman laughs that her four year old is often more comfortable with a computer than she is. A lot of older people just don't realize that **comfort** is not a particularly big deal. Yes, most middle and upper class people in Gen Y are "comfortable with a computer" and other gadgets. So what? When I was in college two years ago, it didn't stop many of them from making many of the same mistakes that their equally **computer illiterate** parents made like not updating their software and trusting everything that came into their inbox that didn't look automatically like spam.
So you can plug your iPod in and sync up your media collection with it. How is that a practical use of your computer, the sort of thing that drives the economy?
I have to wonder... were there ever articles like this talking about basic skills like driving? "Younger generation more comfortable with horseless carriage?" Being able to use a computer? BFD. Who cares. Being able to write software, integrate components and mess with hardware are the skills that stand out.
Familiarity with Facebook and Bittorrent is different than choosing a career as a programmer or network administrator. Familiarity is not maintenance and/or development. The number of people familiar with using automobiles is a little larger than the number who choose a career as a mechanic.
Unlike how we grew up....many of today's kids don't play outside much. They don't get out and meet and interact with the kids in the neighborhood, which teaches some good people skills.
How is this unlike how we grew up?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
There are three kinds of "technology "fluent": To use the old car analogy
1) Can drive a car, knows all about car companies and which models have leather seats and what "anti-skid brakes" do
2) can fix a car. Can figure out what part is broken and do a "remove and replace" repair
3) Can design a car. Knows how to design body sheet metal so that it absorbs energy in an impact. Can model flame propagation inside a combustion chamber,
With cars e have drivers, mechanics and engineers. With computers it is users, service techs and engineers. So what the article says is that even though many kids are computer users few want to become engineers. Well "good" the ratio of users to engineers should be about 100,000 to one or maybe 500K to 1. It only take 10 guys to set up a cool web site that a million people can use.
"Children today are lazy, lack respect and have no faith" - Rough translation of Mesopotamian saying.
What really goads me lately is this massive latching on by the current mainstream press that Work/Life balance is some evil concept. It's as though striving to have a life outside your work simply isn't tolerable. Don't these tools who feed this party line when writing the articles want a life as well?
We are entering a time of extreme excess for the bulk of humanity in 1st world nations, it's okay if we all want to slow down some and enjoy this new world we have. Frankly if we all really worked as hard as people did thirty or fourty years ago we'd either run out of work or resources quickly. This is why we need to continue to push an information economy because its central resource is people something we still have plenty of (for now).
I'm amazed when talking to people on the East Coast and they mock West Coast things like Work/Life balance with derision and a wave of the hand. Unless you *really* enjoy your job above all else, what's wrong with wanting it to have less importance in your life? For most of us, work, is a means to an end. This is your only life, enjoy it! Take a vacation! Get drunk/high! Have sex! Do whatever makes you happy as long as it doesn't directly impede the joy of others.
--- I do not moderate.
Indeed, children these days are clearly lacking in theology and geometry. Their lack of logic and materialistic endeavors casts doubt upon their very souls! I would regale you with some astute philosophical musings from Boethius, however Lady Fortuna's wheel has spun me downwards and my closed valve is causing me to bloat. To the lavatory I go to seek respite!
Other's have already pointed out the 9-5 situation (people being there when they need to interact together), but, there is a more general point I'd like to address. This sense of entitlement, that the world needs to adjust to 'my' lifestyle and needs. Unless you are going to own and run your own business, that ain't gonna happen. Maybe this attitude comes from parent who start themselves jumping through hoops anytime the kids wants something or has to be somewhere (all activities structured and scheduled). Parents quit saying "NO". Unless you can employ yourself, and control your destiny....your expected to meet the requirements of the place of employment you choose. The world is not out there to conform to your lifestyle. That pretty much is a thing of the past after you leave college. Hey, if you can find a job that allows shift work like you mentioned...choose that one, but, they are few between, and most I know of.....don't earn that much and are largely janitorial.
With age and work experience...and years of accomplishments, comes increased position and pay. I'm not saying it is always justified, there will always be jackasses that make it to the top, but, then again...I never say someone is overpaid. Obviously someone is willing to pay those people that much, and frankly, I want to be one of them. I really, really like the things money allows me to do....and rather than try to customize the system around my wants, I try to figure out how to use it to make my gains.
Unless you can either learn to work the system, or work for yourself....you're gonna be left behind, and while it may be sad, the world really doesn't care about it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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That's funny, I do run my own business. I like to call it Me, Inc. I provide a service (my time and skills) to the highest bidder the market. Currently, the highest bidder is my employer and part of the price they pay for my services is a mutually negotiated and agreed upon balance between my time spent with them and the time I spend elsewhere.
I don't understand why, when 2 parties negotiate conditions in a relationship (contract, purchase, service, etc), if both of the parties are businesses, it's just a part of doing decent, respectable business, enlightened self-interest, free-market economics, etc. But when one of the negotiating parties is a business and the other is a worker/employee, then the worker's enlightened self-interest is characterized as entitlement (or socialism, if they do it collectively).
Why is it so hard to conceive of individuals as little self-owned businesses with valuable services to provide to employers at mutually negotiated prices? And let the market decide which way the prices go. After all, capitalism is all about free markets, right? And labor is another market. Regulated, like most markets, but still a market, nonetheless. I have seen many business people who tout free market economics when it benefits them and then with straight faces denounce the workings of the labor market when it swings in favor of the worker.
Employees demanding more is hardly new. People wanting more is what drives a capitalistic world. Just because the most recent generation value certain things (freedom of lifestyle) and demand those from employers does not make it any less of a demand than, say, demanding a higher salary or benefits for family members, etc.
This idea that people are "entitled" is nonsense. Everyone wants as much as they can have and more. Employers want hard-working employees for cheap. Employees want to work less for more pay (or other types of compensation). A compromise is reached. That's how it's *supposed* to work. Attitudes like "be grateful for what they give you" only cause one side to gain an advantage and speaks of a subservient mentality.