Basic things younger people don't know.

I ask my younger grandson for help with tech, and if he can't sort it out he asks his older brother.

I'm at the bottom of the pile in terms of tech savvy.

What about the things they know but we don’t! I’d be lost without my granddaughter when it comes to sorting out my phone or I pad. We also have enlightening conversations about current fashion and beauty treatments ?

That's what it was like for us.

Our other colleagues knew what the tutor was talking about, but we had no clue.

I'm also left handed, and of course, the computers were all set up with the mouse on the right.

I’ve had experiences just like that Calendargirl. So much so that I had a sort of phobia of IT. It came to a head when I did teacher training a while back.
I was that close to packing it in because of it.
All I needed was a decent teacher.

When I was sent on a beginners computer course from work, years ago, I fell at the first hurdle. No idea how to switch the damn thing on!

The (young) instructor was more concerned with sitting on the side of the desk swinging her legs than helping an old f..t like me. I think I was the oldest person there, but only in my 40’s.

Everyone else seemed to know what to do. Awful day, went home and cried.

???

So true MissA
No one would ever believe me when I said I could not use a computer. It used to drive me mad.
They’d lost me with ‘log on’

This reminds me of being sent, through work, on a beginner's computer training course.
"Right click"

What on earth does that mean to someone who has never used a computer before?

"Click on the icon"

What's an icon?
My colleague said she thought it was someone like Marilyn Monroe.

Double click?

Click what??

happycatholicwife
I’m sure that Jane can easily imagine such a scenario, yes.

I don’t agree with ‘when in Rome’.
Wherever I was I would ask for a knife and fork, unless it was someone’s home and it might offend. I’m sure I’d be able to judge the situation.

I haven’t been taught how to eat with my hands; I’m sure that it involves special techniques and etiquette.

Like wise I can’t use chop sticks, so wouldn’t even try to in public.
I’d look ridiculous and make my hosts uncomfortable.

It’s a lot easier all round to accept other’s differences, it’s not a big deal.

Sorry, Jane Judge, but I can't do eating with hands or bad table manners. When in Rome. They won't get far in the west eating with their hands. Can you imagine a doctor, an IT specialist, a teacher sitting down to eat food with other professionals using their hands? If I were in a country where people mostly eat with their hands, I would do likewise.

I sat down with my 2 Grandaughters aged 9 They are twins at the shopping mall
I asked them where the bench we were sitting on came from? They said a shop ! Had no idea it was wooden & came from trees
Same with glass window Metal counter Floor tiles Their clothes etc etc
Simply no idea of where the source materials came from
I was shocked !

DS and I were watching the contestants on Pointless trying to answer some science questions. We agreed that the lack of knowledge that so many people seem to have about science subjects probably explains the spread of conspiracy theories.

Grammarreto
Delia Smith wrote a book called, How to boil an egg.
Lots of people laughed at the idea, but if you don’t know, you don’t know.

A young man recently told me he hasn't a clue how to write a cheque and a friend was amused when her GD got a cheque in a birthday card and looked completely puzzled and had to ask what to do with it

Maps? I have tried to up-date mine, they are hard to find because everyone uses their phones, except me.

I was ashamed to find out in August, my DD 32 had thrown out the apples that had been sitting in the fruit bowl for a week. She thought that, although unblemished nor soft, they must be off. I had to explain that, they had probably been picked last autumn and there was no date limit.

One sixth former was asked in remedial maths what 7 x 231 was. He wrote the long number down 7 times and added up.

He was furious when he found there was an easier way. Not his fault and don't know how it had happened.

Calendargirl

My GS, when about 14, didn’t know how to get a bar of soap to ‘lather’.

I started using bar soap in Covid, and up to then, he had only used liquid soap.

He looked gone out when he said how useless the soap was, and I said he needed it to ‘lather’.

?

this reminds me of the toothpaste that used to come in a flat tin and you had to wet your toothbrush and rub it on the solid block of pink toothpaste.
then the squeeze out of tube kind came in, and displaced the original. a bit like liquid soap.
someone who had only used squeezy tube toothpaste wouldn't know what to do with the solid block.
i found Mentadent P had the same kind of taste and colour, maybe it's made by the same people.
i like to get it for old time's sake, but haven't seen it for a while.

My DM was born in Burma in the early 1900s. They had servants and she never learned how to cook.
As a student in London in the 1930s she had to cook for herself. She didn't know how to boil an egg. She didn't know you had to put it in water.
Cookery books don't explain basic things like that even now.

Esspee

I gave a neighbour a housewarming gift of a pineapple plant with small pineapple attached. She thought pineapples hung down from trees like pears rather than like a spider plant’s babies.

that's what i would have assumed too.
i have no idea how pineapples grow, never seen them, never thought about it, never needed to.

growstuff

Shelflife

I notice young people don't hold / use a knife and fork in a way I consider proper. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but knives and forks are designed to be held in a certain way. No big deal I recognize that but I wonder why?

Maybe because their parents didn't teach them.

and that was maybe because their parents didn't hold fork and knife in the way you consider proper.
but we'd better not derail this interesting thread...

Norah

volver

Maybe they should all get a second job, I hope they are not expecting to have the weekend off.

Indeed.

If a second job, and or weekend work is needed to pay bills rather than relying on the government stepping in with top ups.

When I first moved to London and flat sharing I invariably spent my month's salary within a week of being paid. (having paid my rent etc) So I had a series of evening jobs for a couple of years. I also worked during my summer holidays for 2 years. Once as a tea lady for a large architects' practice and once helping a girl who cooked directors' lunches.
Things changed after I met my future husband because we used to hang out with friends in different flats.

In the fifties my father worked a couple evenings a week for a friendly society.

It is different now with wages staying low whilst everything else goes up in price.

'No they don't! They may do so in the UK, but I have not been in any European country that has fuses in the plugs! There may be one or two that do, I haven't been in every country,
We have fuse boxes - the new ones you only need to pull a handle back down from the off position which is up when a fuse blows to "mend" it. The older fuse boxes had fuses that you unscrewed and replaced with a new one when the fuse went.'
Every appliance has a fuse in the plug, and the fuse box is back-up, in case there's a power surge.

Do think Google maps has meant a loss of ability to navigate without a gadget in hand.

My daughter thought Al Pacino was a coffee. At the age of 17.

You mean it’s not?

paddyann54

They dont need to remember stuff...they carry wee computers around with them in the shape of mobile phones .They can find out about anything at the push of a button .
My daughters ex SIL made us howl with laughter when she bought a cheese plant ,because she thought she could grow cheese cheaper than buying it ! She also didn't know chips were made from potatoes She was 30 ish at the time .So people who dont know things isn't new

All very well paddyann54, but what happens when the power is out and batteries can’t be charged?