[nkassis]

I have a hypothesis that the proportion of really nerdy kids that take to technology hasn't changed and it was always a subset of society. People with affinity for understanding their computer and that find technical concepts natural may just be the oddballs.

My son has found his way to it from watching youtube videos on history of computer viruses. I think it's the path from Minecraft, Minecraft hacks, Minecraft mods....

He recently asked me if we could install windows xp on virtual box like one of the youtuber he watches did. So we set that up. He has been watching youtube about secret features, testing them out and found out what happens when you delete random file in system32. He doesn't get why none of his friends understand anything he says to them about this stuff. In his mind he wonder why aren't they all watching this stuff? I had to explain he's got some pretty niche hobbies even by my standards.

[orthoxerox]

I agree, the proportion of really nerdy kids is the same, it's the proportion of really nerdy junior hires that has changed. There are both more jobs and more people trying to earn good money in tech, so you can no longer assume that your devs are nerds that are happy to go beyond their skillset to squash a puzzling bug.

[chneu]

Oo fun idea.

I'd expand on that and say that we're forcing computers onto people who don't understand them in the first place, which aligns with what you're saying.

The same number of people are interested in tech/computers and want to have a deeper understanding, but because tech has become so required, we're seeing people who are only going to do the bare minimum.

Interesting idea.