With the increase in iPhone usage, everyone “knows” that younger users are more technically literate than their ancestors. Flash: They aren’t. Using an iPhone has nothing to do with being technically literate. In this article, we’ll explore the differences between iPhone slavery and technical literacy. And we’ll show how most of these iPhone “experts” will continue to make peppermint mocha’s for a living for the rest of their lives.
Technical literacy is the ability to comprehend and use devices and processes to solve problems and accomplish tasks. This is an essential skill in the digital age. Every aspect of our lives is intertwined with technology. Technical literacy lets individuals understand, engage with, and innovate in the digital world. Unfortunately, ninety-five percent of iPhone users are completely unable to do any single one of these things.
Being technically literate has nothing to do with shooting the perfect selfie of your duck face. iPhone experts can give excellent advice on how to insert an emoji eating its own snot into a misspelled text message. But they are sure to lack the technical skills to to diagnose even the simplest real-life technical problems. In other words, the kinds of jobs that don’t involve hamburgers. You know, the jobs that people actually get paid living wages to do.
iPhone users are proficient with Emoji’s. Playing inane Tik Tok videos in restaurants with the volume turned up to eleven. Waving iPhones in front of your face for two hours at the Broadway production of The Lion King that cost you $250 a ticket. These “skills” represent the highest technical levels most iPhone users will ever achieve.
iPhones are designed for usability and convenience. They’re built to be accessible to a wide range of users. No matter how stupid they are. Apple made billions building up the low-self-esteem of it’s customers by crowing about their supposed technical chops. Using an iPhone 24 hours a day may make you more proficient at fumbling through Apple’s crappy menu structure. But that never translates to useful (that means ‘paying’) technical literacy skills.
iPhone users are experts in using “What’s Your Nickname” to give themselves cool monikers. They know all about playing with springy digital doorstop apps (they make a ‘sproinging’ noise!). But no one will pay actual hard cash to a screen-locked phone twerp to troubleshoot that flaky PHP on the DNS server. The only good news for most iPhone users is that welfare benefits, selfish GoFundMe scams, and the government’s fake disability programs get more lucrative every year.
iPhone users who think they are so smart should consider that their forebears had to build their own computers back in the 1980’s. Then invent assembly language to program their creations. You had no idea your mom created Excel from scratch, just to get a grocery list going to keep your ass from starving. Or that your grandad got bored and invented Call Of Duty. Just because he needed something to run on the computer he built from discarded lawn mower parts. Meanwhile, other dads were hammering out the first Pentium processors in their basements. Others soldered up the internet that you later ruined. All this invention happened when Dad wasn’t busting his ass on the night shift screwing wheels on over at GM. Dad didn’t need the “iPhone Blower” to squelch the candles on his birthday cake. He blew them out with his highly-developed masculine lungs.
Our forefathers had true technical literacy. They didn’t while away their hours swiping right to get a ninety-to-one shot at the chance of contracting a new STD in their parents’ basement. They lived the real guts of the American Dream. They invented Game Boys and boom boxes, and made a shit-ton of money. They couldn’t see any sense in spending it on you. So, they invested in sex, and the sex back then was a lot better in the swinging bachelor pads Dad bought as soon as he could get the hell out of his own dad’s house.
The fact is, our know-nothing Boomer parents actually were technically literate. Most still are. They’re just too busy counting their money to give a shit about which emoji best captures the flowing fountains of their inner being.
You think you are more technical than your ancestors because you can multitask Daddy Yankee’s latest moronic travesty while playing with “Zips” on your iPhone. If your technically illiterate old man needed to actually unzip some clothing on an actual curvaceous human being, he didn’t need an iPhone to do it. And, he got a hell of a lot more practice at unzipping real zippers than you ever will.
Being technically literate involves learning the basics of technology. You are unlikely to have learned any basics, since you spent your teen years making fun of “nerds” while pretending to suck on an “iBeer” in class. Now those same nerds are knocking off $650,000 a year designing robotic sex dolls over at General Dynamics. You? Never mind.
Now the Pakistanis and Indians have arrived packing their PhD’s in advanced number theory and their astronomical-value GPU-design skills. The problem for today’s iPhone “experts” is that these ‘newcomers’ are willing to sell their high-priced skills in America for $48k a year. And they’re more than happy to cram fifteen of themselves into a two-bedroom apartment to maximize their profit. These foreign dudes were troubleshooting flaky PNP junctions and swatting the bugs out of quantum computers while you were checking your iPhone to see if it was dark outside Mom’s basement.
The Feds have finally recognized that under-educated American punks need more STEM degrees to compete with high-SAT immigrants. Unfortunately, most American kids can’t hack actual honest-to-God STEM programs. To keep the taxpayer moola flowing and guarantee equality of outcome, government socialists are pushing to make iPhone Plunking the newest “STEM” field.
In conclusion, using an iPhone is not the same as having technical literacy skills. Technology continues to evolve, so it’s essential to develop technical literacy skills that are real. If you are among the five percent who can do this, the world is your oyster.