People born after the mid-2000s grew up in a world with a boom in end-user technology.
By the 2010s, mobile phones and personal computers were standard, satellite TV was in every home, and there was less stigma in using these techs for extended periods. This resulted from a massive shift across the economy, access to technology, and the people’s mindset.
For the younger generation, accessible technology meant access to information with just a click. This means high-end games, streaming videos, and access to almost anything.
Back in the day (I say it like it was years ago, but I mean the 2000s), when computers weren’t ubiquitous in India, kids like me had to hack through games and software.
Even if we had the money to buy licensed software and computer games, there was no way to do so. Downloading games through Steam wasn’t a thing. We did not even have internet. Getting games meant writing the game onto a CD/DVD and copying it to your PC.
My earliest experience in programming was probably by adding patches to games to make them work without license keys. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was making things work. I was solving a problem.
Solving problems is the key to becoming an engineer. If you grow up trying to solve problems, you are more likely to be a successful engineer.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time figuring out things on my computer. And I see a lot of direct impact on my engineering career from having that exposure.
But what if you are never presented with that opportunity. What if things just work?
You don’t have to create hacky solutions to make things work; it just works.
So, my point is that even though the younger generation may seem to know it all when using technology, they might be behind in understanding how it works.
This may not be the case for a lot of young folks. I see a lot of high schoolers writing better code and building better software than most professional engineers I know.
But, assuming the tech-savvy generation would be sound engineers might not be correct.