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In this interesting and extremely unscientific poll from @darklyadapted@zirk.us:
86% of ppl under 30 can touch type
75% of ppl over 30 can touch type

zirk.us/@darklyadapted/1118011

I’ve heard a few old-man-yells-at-cloud grumbles about The Decline of Typing Classes and how Kids These Days Only Know Phones and etc. Apparently, as usual, the reality is subtler than the cranky grumblings.

Why do I mention this?
1/

zirkusMadame Decadent Sneezy-Bottom (@darklyadapted@zirk.us)Can you touch type in other words type using all your fingers and thumbs on the correct keys without looking at the keyboard? #poll Please #boost [ ] yes and I'm over 30 [ ] yes and I'm under 30 [ ] no and I'm over 30 [ ] no and I'm under 30

My teaching job has given me a 13-year-and-counting longitudinal slice of the lives of people around 20 years old: their personalities, abilities, interests, struggles, worries, hopes…. And the longer that slice gets, the more keenly I notice (1) how obsessed the world at large is with these young people, and (2) how grossly the public discourse becomes detached from reality.

It’s a general lesson: your (and my) hot take about people you don’t know is probably embarrassingly ignorant.

2/

To the question of the OP, as a simple example: my students definitely know how to type, certainly no less than they used to. There is perhaps a subtle phone-driven shift in students’ awareness of the existence of a computer’s hierarchical filesystem (i.e. files live in folder/directories, which you choose when you save the file and can use to organize the files).

It’s not that the generational shifts aren’t there, but they aren’t always what we assume.

3/

“Nice, Paul, who cares?! shut up already”

I mention the above because the outlook and behavior of college students have (once again) become a politically motivated lever people to use to try to counter young people’s pushback against racism, transphobia, and fascism in general. “Oh, these intolerant kids and their safe spaces blah blah!”

Yeah. The lived reality of that situation on campus is so far removed from all the popular press wankery I don’t even know where to start.

4/

Paul Cantrell

The typing question is a vaguely interesting digression. This larger category of question — What is actually a generational shift, and what is in fact a change in the •observer•? — has major society-level implications.

Actually listening to people, understanding them, and getting to know them is anti-fascist. Young people included.

/end

@inthehands

Thanks for this grounded and sane commentary.

@chargrille
Thanks for the encouraging word!