mastodon.online is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A newer server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Server stats:

11K
active users

In this interesting and extremely unscientific poll from @darklyadapted:
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/

standev

@inthehands I have a narrower view (“20 year old people who joined the US military”), and Society seems less interested in military folks than college students, but *even within my peers* I see some bizarre “kids these days” takes.

@standev
Huh, it occurs to me only now reading your post just how much society is fascinated with college students as “kids these days” harbingers of generation change, but views young soldiers essentially as faceless adults even when they’re at the same point as n their lives and represent the same generation.

@inthehands a pretty significant part of the job is teaching people “how to adult” — navigating buying a car, paying bills, avoiding debt traps (if they listen), etc.

I suspect the difference in interest is largely an issue of class: people who go to college out of high school tend to come from a different socio-economic situation than those who join the military shortly out of high school.

@standev
Yeah, and also “how to adult“ as in taking care of yourself, being kind to others, making good decisions about how you think and how you act, etc.

I’m always saying of my students, “no kids here, just very inexperienced adults.“

@inthehands there are some differences, but the Mindset List and similar products are useful for me too.