The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.

Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do::The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.

  • AccidentalLemming@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1112·
    1 year ago

    I’m generally skeptical of articles making broad judgments about entire age groups. Remember those “millennials are ruining [insert thing]” articles?

    • tb_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      253·
      1 year ago

      One thing about this particular phenomenon that the article doesn’t take into account is that Gen Z is a lot more online than boomers are, hence they are exposed more often to the various dangers.

      • Sethayy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        101·
        1 year ago

        And not even entirely by choice, a boomer - fairly well off financially - can reasonably spend years without touching the internet if they don’t work.

        Imma fail my classes if I don’t sign on once a day, and depressed as fuck in my apartment if I can’t even watch Netflix lmao

      • wowbagger@lemm.eeEnglish
        42·
        1 year ago

        Did you even bother to skim the article? That’s literally the first reason they give:

        There are a few theories that seem to come up again and again. First, Gen Z simply uses technology more than any other generation and is therefore more likely to be scammed via that technology.

    • 1984@lemmy.todayEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      It’s what media does - focuses on the differences between people instead of what’s common.

    • glockenspiel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      Skepticism is good. However, there is a lot of evidence that Gen Z is quite tech illiterate in general, but especially compared to the Millennial cohort. Colleges and universities have had to force Gen Z students into basically remedial computing courses just to teach them how file systems work and other simple-yet-taken-for-granted concepts work. Drop rates for CS degrees are climbing as Gen Z moves into higher education and hits a very difficult wall for them.

      And, in the end, that last bit was definitely another scam targeting their relative ignorance in the space. That is why so many “influencers”/scam artists target/targeted them with “career guides” or code boot camps or whatever. And I think that disillusionment is also part of the backlash against devs in general as “tech bros” despite very few devs actually working in the Valley for those companies under those conditions.

    • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I would love to see their sample group. Do their subjects share other aspects in common too, or do they just share a generation? Do they all have similar income? Do they all have similar access to the internet? Do they all have the same educational background? Do they use technology equally? Were the actual poll questions biased? What defines “scam” in this scenario? Who paid what as a result of these scams? Are they of the same political background? Are disabilities and minorities represented fairly across age groups? Were any profits gained as a result from this poll? Do the participants live similar lifestyles at home?

      I’m always suspicious when they don’t list these things. It can be very easy to create biased results.

      They list these things, but education for example, is just overall rated by the country. If we’re making statements about age groups, I think the individual age groups should have equal representation. This would help avoid cherry picking. Otherwise, they could just pick a Gen Z who has poor education and compare them with a Gen X who has a good education. You wouldn’t see it, because they’re from the same country.