People Are Sharing All The Ways Gen Z Is Tech Illiterate, And Wow, We Have Room To Improve
If you haven't yet experienced an online encounter with AI-generated slop, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Over the past year or so, social media sites such as Facebook have been overrun with AI-generated images.
briefly looked at my mom’s facebook and it’s all AI, like every single post, and she has no idea, it’s a complete wasteland pic.twitter.com/4XJ0nNHuFV
— Chris Alsikkan ™ (@AlsikkanTV) March 19, 2024
These images often depict children sitting next to impossibly intricate arts and crafts, disabled veterans begging in puddles, or surreal images of Jesus. It's engagement bait — and although baby boomers seem to be the demographic who engage with it most often, they're certainly not alone.
Nor are boomers unique in falling for internet tricks in general. While members of younger generations are often content to think of themselves as automatically "tech literate" because of their age, that assumption can be dangerous — or sometimes, just plain embarrassing.
so much going on there pic.twitter.com/1yP16tMjKy
— Insane Facebook AI slop (@FacebookAIslop) June 23, 2024
People of all ages should hold themselves to a high standard of criticism when engaging with any information online. To that end, I was intrigued when I saw a post from Reddit user u/loki8481 on the popular Ask Reddit page which asked, "What is the Gen Z equivalent of boomers being fooled by obviously fake AI images on Facebook?"
It was interesting to see different perspectives on ways Gen Z (and everyone else, too) can improve their tech literacy. So, here are some of the most popular responses to the question:
1."They think they're smart when it comes to cyber security, [but] they are statistically easier to scam than boomers."
2."Always believing the first results of Google search."
Apple
"I once had a Zoomer tell me she knew more than previous generations because she was great at researching stuff. To her, researching was typing in and clicking the first result that came up. And nothing further."
3."Being fooled by obviously scripted propaganda on TikTok."
4."Not knowing what LLM AIs like ChatGPT are exactly, or how they work."
"I think a lot [of people] treat it like an all-knowing magic 8-ball device that will answer any question you ask it, so they treat every answer without skepticism or fact-checking."
5."Taking a random TikTok content creator as a legitimate expert on a topic, especially health and fitness."
"It really annoys me when a conversation is ongoing and someone just pops in like, 'Here, watch my favorite creator explain my point,' and posts a video. No, I don't care what some creator I never heard of thinks, I'm asking YOU. That's why I'm here talking to YOU. Tell me what YOU think, don't just post a link to a 20-minute video. Nobody has time for that."
6."Speaking as a CPA, please never trust any of those tax TikToks."
7."My stepdaughter thought Mr. Beast was really just going to give her $100k if she opened up a crypto account on a shady website. That's something instinctively you know is bullshit, but she wouldn't believe me."
"Looked it up and it's a popular scam. She still wanted to try until her mother took her phone, lol."
8."I think there used to be a heavy push in schools to make sure you had [computer] skills, but nowadays everyone just assumes you'll pick it up at some point in your tech-infused lives."
Will & Deni Mcintyre / Getty Images, Valeriia Kuznetsova / Getty Images
9."Obviously fake nostalgia."
"You really think a single parent making minimum wage could buy a house in the '60s? Then why... did apartments exist? And rooming houses, and slums?"
10."It’s shocking how easily manipulated they are by memes."
11."Buying ridiculously expensive makeup and skin and hair products [they see on TikTok] and believing they have discovered some kind [of] health nirvana."
"[This stuff is] probably made with the cheapest chemicals and zero quality control in terrible labor conditions.
"My teen daughter is outside frying herself because TikTok convinced her sunscreen was giving her cancer. Jesus, just stop."
12."Equating likes to truth. If there are two posts contradicting each other it seems to me that Gen Z goes with the post with more engagement or comments. It may be the most boomer thing Gen Z does."
"I have had arguments with my nephew about how obviously wrong someone is and he doesn’t know how to process the idea that more people would upvote or like the wrong answer rather than the right one.
"I don’t know about all of Gen Z but that may be the most dangerous trend I’ve seen."
— deleted user
"To be honest, argument ad populum, [the idea that] so many people cannot be wrong, is as old as humanity."
13."Thinking they are a business entrepreneur world-shaker when they participate in gambling (bitcoin/cryptocurrency)."
14."I mean it's something ALL youth do (and far too many adults), but: taking shit they agree with at face value [and] using zero critical thinking, but then half turning [the critical thinking] on once [the topic] is something they disagree with."
"Critical thinking isn't about proving your opponent wrong, it's about checking to make sure you're not wrong yourself by being CRITICAL of your own opinions and beliefs — often.
"You're supposed to [say to] yourself, 'Hey, I've held this belief for x many years and I've never really examined WHY. How do I know I'm right?'
"That's the thought process you're supposed to have. The vast majority of people (youth and much older) actually almost never use critical thought, even college-educated people. I'm not perfect either, but it still happens sometimes. I truly believe that many people never do it at all."
15."Media literacy in general is just not something that's taught in society."
"People are just kinda expected to learn it, I guess. Which is shitty, because the media has a vested interest in you not questioning what they tell you."
16.Lots of people "[Trust] Tiktok the way that their parents trust Facebook."
"Just because your bullshit is fed to you by a young person in a 15-second video doesn't make it any more true than what your granny reads on the 'Conservative Moms for Jesus' news feed."
17."They're more susceptible to confirmation bias via social media than they like to admit."
"Your algorithm is based on previous searches [and] the data you share with websites, so yes, the articles suggested for you will have what you were looking for."
18."I don't think [many people] fully comprehend just how easy it is to manipulate the discourse of a story with editing."
19.And finally: "Honestly, just digital literacy in general. Millennials and Gen X had to deal with clunky but informative UIs that were JUST hard enough to navigate that we had to figure them out on our own."
"By the time Gen Z was using technology, so many of the edges were sanded off that about 90% of what you needed to do on a site or program was so readily available that they never learned to hunt for the other 10%.
"And according to my teacher friends, this is even worse with Gen Alpha and the iPad kids, who have exclusively interacted with 3-4 buttons their entire lives."
"My work goes to schools periodically for their resource fairs and whatnot. We bring computers to help kids sign up for some programs we run. An alarming number of kids don't even know how to use a keyboard, how to open a program, how to navigate a browser, like... just basic foundational stuff in our modern society."
There's a lot to consider here. I'd like to know what you all think; are people overreacting with "kids-these-days" type thinking, or do younger generations have room to improve? Let me know down below.
Note: Some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
