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.

TrueStoryBob , 5 months ago

So... based on this headline... studies from the NFT craze a year and a half ago are finally coming out.

NigelFrobisher , 5 months ago

King of obvious really by the sheer volume of manosphere, crypto, etc grift content out there.

Socsa , 5 months ago

They are also falling for right wing trolls wrapped thinly in progressive language

risencode , 5 months ago

Well yeah, there's a lot more of them on the internet.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

If there's one thing I've noticed about Gen Z purely from interacting with them online it's that they're incredibly, remarkably gullible. Like, broadly resistant to the concept of facetiousness, sarcasm, or that they might be being taken for a ride. They take everything at face value. I once made the joke on reddit that the greatest Disney villain of all time was Cobra Bubbles from Lilo and Stitch because his backstory was that he used to work for the CIA before becoming a social worker, which meant there was a non-zero percent chance he helped train Osama Bin Laden in insurgency tactics in the 1980s and was therefore indirectly responsible for 9/11. The zoomers were both confused and outraged because they believed me entirely at face value. I would imagine them applying a similar degree of online literacy to your average dark pattern scam that said "click here for free V Bucks." There are no V Bucks, dog. There's never any V Bucks.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

I'm not sure that is any different than any other generation. Hell, I doubt you know the age of all the people you're talking about.

If you ask my grandparents the whole US is being destroyed by immigrants despite their day-to-day being the same for decades.

All I gotta do is point out Newsmax and Fox News viewership to counter this stupid Zoomer vs Boomer shit. Just because they are less terminally online doesn't mean they are less gullible.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

*Person criticizes Zoomers*

Random Zoomer: "Yeah, well, THE BOOMERS ARE WORSE."

Chriswild , 5 months ago

I'm not even a zoomer. I'm just trying to not be sensationalist like the source.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

By the source I assume you mean me, and not the article. Because I'm not being sensationalist. I'm being unfair and judgmental. Very different things.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

No I mean the source. You're just being anecdotal and that's ok.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

Vox is being charitable to the Zoomers, though, observing that "Gen Z simply uses technology more than any other generation and is therefore more likely to be scammed via that technology." The original study is also in a peer reviewed journal. It's not making judgment calls about Zoomers. It's aggregating statistical data. You can read the article here: https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=ijcic

From the discussion of findings at the end of the article, the researchers observed that

"It is reasonable to assume that the safer practices the older group self-reported is accompanied by greater knowledge of information security simply because of the additional years of being engaged in a digital-technology world. Specifically, it was hypothesized that Generation Y would rank higher than Generation Z adults on the OSBBQ Cybersecurity Awareness subscale, and significant differences were observed for half of the items included in the analysis."

And also that

"From a developmental perspective, it is possible that the normal adaptations that occur throughout one’s life impacted how individuals in this study perceived the literal meaning of the items. This could be due to cultural differences inherent to their generational cohort and the individual experiences that occur over time with age. For example, people tend to lose their sense of invulnerability as hey age (Denscombe & Drucquer, 1999) and generation Y adults grew up in a world where adapting to privacy and cybersecurity threats were first becoming more commonplace. These individuals are now at an age where the realities of (online) risk have become part of their conscious awareness as it relates to their lack of invulnerability."

Like, this formal study is incredibly generous in its discussion of why Gen. Z might be shown to be more statistically likely to fall for online scams than other cohorts. It also goes into great detail to explain its own limitations as a study.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

That study seems to be a survey of college students knowledge of cyber security not anything to do with what you were claiming before as there are no boomers in question.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

Yes, they acknowledge that as well when they discuss the sample population. Baby Boomers are literally not a part of it. The title of the Vox article is just drawn from a Deloitte industry survey. Which has no real context or judgment around it - it's purely a reporting of aggregate statistics. The Vox article just attempts to explain why Zoomers, a generational cohort that grew up with the internet, might be more statistically prevalent for succumbing to those scams compared to Baby Boomers, who were fully adult when the internet became widespread. The superficial presumption is that you would expect the opposite - the older generations have little to no familiarity with modern technology and are more easily victimized by it. That presumption is all the Vox article is discussing, really, and why it's probably not correct.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

So you agree the article is sensationalist? Why link me a study that is irrelevant for no reason?

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

So you agree the article is sensationalist?

The article is not sensationalist. Please quote me a part of the article that you feel is and I can address the statements that make you feel that way.

Why link me a study that is irrelevant for no reason?

Because that study is referenced as one of the primary sources the article uses to provide evidence for the phenomenon it discusses. The link to that research paper is literally in the article. It's critical to the article.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

You just broke it down on how it sensationalized some completely bs data because boomers aren't online as much as zoomers. You've gotta be trolling with this

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

You can say the title is clickbait, but that doesn't make it sensationalist. I feel like either you and I have totally different definitions of sensationalist, or you think the article is doing something it's not. The article does the following

1. Introduce a surprising fact: Zoomers fall for online scams more than Boomers do. This is surprising because a) Zoomers are online so much and would be expected to be innately familiar with such things and b) online scammers famously target the elderly, so much so that Boomers are almost stereotyped as being the victims of internet scams.
2. Add supporting details and discuss the source of the facts being discussed - specifically it introduces the Deloitte study, a 2023 report by Social Catfish, and the academic article I linked in my previous comment. These all help provide the concrete, factual basis for the article.
3. Highlights important findings from these sources that explains this phenomenon, including the centrality of mobile devices to the lives of Zoomers, how many popular apps have no real safeguards against predatory users or advertisers, and cultural or societal trends that might influence how Zoomers perceive their interactions with others on the internet.
4. Discusses how Zoomers can better protect themselves online and how, one can infer from the article, an adult or guardian could help Zoomers stay safe on the internet - such as by enabling safer settings or utilizing alternative browsers and ad blockers (things Zoomers might not innately think to do or know about), while also addressing some of the failures of large corporations and app developers to safeguard their users.

I'd like to know what part of that is sensationalist to you, because in my mind that is a remarkably by the numbers tech article.

Also, the data itself is not "BS" - it's something that is accurate, but has to be understood within a specific context. That's literally what the article is doing - contextualizing the information. You are saying it's sensationalizing the data. It's not. If anything it's doing the opposite. It's making the data more mundane by providing logical explanations for it.

Chriswild , 5 months ago

Sensationalism- the use of exciting or shocking stories or language at the expense of accuracy.

You clearly grasp it is surprising or shocking and you clearly grasp that a higher percentage of Z are online in their generation than the percentage of boomers online.

You've got to be trolling at this point.

cashews_best_nut , 5 months ago

I have no evidence of who's falling for my 'trolling' online but it's very similar to what you describe. I'll make some absurd, nonsense claim or insult them using flowery nonsense language that can't possibly be taken seriously - but they do!

I suggested that Java devs (programmers) are the reason we'll never have FTL engines. They took me seriously!

Yet there's other times you'll get obviously younger people screaming in comments under videos "FAKE!" because they can't conceive that the video'd thing could happen.

In that instance I can understand it to a degree because they don't have the lived years experience to compare what they're seeing on screen. You'll get them claiming "that would never happen" or "people don't do that and if you think it's real go touch grass" and I'm thinking - "hang on that's happened to me at least 3 times".

I understand it's probably just the arrogance of youth but it's quite shocking at times just how confident they can be of their own ignorance.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

I know people who teach high school and they say that Gen Z has both an extreme degree of personal esteem and that they won't take shit from anyone who disparages who they fundamentally are as people (like people giving shit for them being from immigrant families, being POCs, being LGBT, etc.), which is fantastic - no one should ever put up with shit like that. But they also seem to have a very hard time organizing their thoughts and making logical conclusions from structured evidence. Like they can't write a paper making an argument for something and providing evidence for why something is a certain way. It's all stream of consciousness. I think that as a generational cohort they might be more inclined towards "unstructured thought" or perhaps "stream of consciousness" than other generations. As old as I might sound because of this opinion, I do think that the fact that they interact with information almost entirely through mobile devices is a potential component of that. The mechanisms and mediums by which you consume information arguably shape how you process information.

otp , 5 months ago

When you grow up around something being easy to use, you lose the intricate understanding that used to be necessary.

For Gen X and Millennials, it's probably cars and/or electronics.

Busted light switch cover? Better call an electrician "just in case".

Need to replace an air filter? Better take it to the shop.

Not sure where the line is, but I had a Gen X woman tell me that she needs to take the car to the dealership to get her air pressure adjusted. When I showed her how to take off the cap on the tire's air pressure valve, she looked at me as if I had just pried off her steering wheel, lol

Not sure where the line is drawn, and there are definitely some people in those generations who know those things. But I'd bet Boomers and earlier generations had a better understanding on average.

erwan , 5 months ago

To be fair, cars are becoming less and less serviceable.

I had a light bulb that died on my car, and tried to change it myself. How hard could that be?

Turns out the light bulb is so buried under the engine I ended up giving up and bringing it to the shop. And often even independent shops can no longer service cars, you have to bring it to your maker's dealership because only they have the proprietary tooling to fix it.

Godnroc , 5 months ago

That feels like it should be illegal.

RockstarSunglasses , 5 months ago

As a car enthusiast and backyard mechanic, this is precisely why I prefer to own older vehicles. If something goes wrong with my '06, I can handle that. My friends/family members with newer cars, by and large, can't even handle their own basic maintenance because of the way things are designed now. It's worse than planned obsolescence, it's engineered difficulty.

baldingpudenda , 5 months ago

Want to change the oil? Good luck! the filter is behind the engine and right next to the exhaust cause fuck you. At this point I'll look at getting a roller and doing an EV swap.

yesman , 5 months ago

I tried to replace my sister's serpentine belt a couple summers ago. Simple, basic maintenance, right? Turns out, the only way to turn the tensioner, was from underneath the car. I'm still mad about it.

ikidd , 5 months ago

I think they're way more used to just giving information away without thinking about it. "They have everything already, why fight it" just plays into the hands of scammers.

dangblingus , 5 months ago

Boomers fall for online scams because they aren't aware of how powerful the internet can make bad actors.

Zoomers fall for online scams because they're younger and simply inexperienced dealing with scam artists.

Millennials fall for online scams because we're lonely and really want the friendly Indian guy we're talking to to get their itunes gift card.

ShaggySnacks , 5 months ago

Gen X would love to fall for online scams however everyone keeps forgetting them.

reverendsteveii , 5 months ago

in fairness, it's because y'all answer every question with "Yeah, totally..." and no one has any idea whether you're being sarcastic

stoly , 5 months ago

Radical dude.

ExfilBravo , 5 months ago

Yeah, totally…

stringere , 5 months ago

Word

werefreeatlast , 5 months ago

But these are sophisticated scams where the scammer sounds exactly like Uncle John and he wants you to help him out with some chips and a Costco gift card for Amazon. That's pretty normal because your uncle doesn't like going to the mall.

It's not like the boomers sending all their money because a prince is going to invest it in recovery his kingdumb or something like that and then pay it back tenfold.

jubilationtcornpone , 5 months ago

Exposure to technology does not automatically breed expertise. I have a 15 year old. Smart phones have existed for her entire life. She knows how to use Snapchat and take goofy selfies. That's where her expertise ends. Any time anything is wrong, she sounds like her grandma complaining "mY mOdEm DoEsNt WoRk!" It's not a modem grandma! That's your computer! Most of her friends are the same way.

lepinkainen , 5 months ago

And "WiFi" is synonymous for "Interenet connection" to them.

Yea, kiddo, the WiFi is working just fine, but the ISP crapped its pants and you can't connect to anything past this house.

otp , 5 months ago

My partner is a millennial who grew up with computers, but never got too technical with them. She was confused when I told her that our WiFi was down at the router, but we still had an internet connection.

"If we have internet, why can't I connect?"

Because the WiFi isn't working.

"But you said we still have an internet connection."

Well, I do, and so would you if you'd let me run an ethernet cable to your office, too!"

"...but if there's no WiFi, why does the cable work?"

Lol

NarrativeBear , 5 months ago

Not to mention most ISP marketing is pretty loose in its terminology. Most if not all radio or tv ads these days seem to interchange internet and wifi as if they are one and the same on a daily basis.

ie. All ads stating something along the lines of "subscribe to whole home wifi for a low monthly fee."

I have too many conversations on both sides of the age gap trying to explain the difference between supplying your own router with its own wifi capabilities as opposed to a ISP modem/router combo.

Mikina , 5 months ago

I've had this conversation so many times with my partner. She's on an older laptop in a room that's directly through a pretty thick wall from the router, but its still a short distance to bring an Ethernet over, and she's always using her laptop only at her desk there anyway.

She's always yelling at me (who have my desk right next to the router, and everything I use has Ethernet ) that the internet is down again and that she really needs it right now, because work.

But no, getting angry at me that I should do something about it is fine, but that something apparently shouldn't mean the most feasible solution.

I'm not dealing with a WiFi extender for a spot that's literally like 8 meters from the router, for her 100mbs WiFi card.

But it's her loss, at least I have the remaining 900mbps for myself from our plan...

otp , 5 months ago

Here, you can plug this into your laptop whenever the WiFi goes down and you need internet RIGHT AWAY. If you don't need it urgently, then you don't have to plug it in.

"But wires are ugly!"

Not if you keep them organized!

"No, they're just ugly! Just fix the wifi so this doesn't happen anymore!"

...yes dear

skeeter_dave , 5 months ago

They never played Runescape and it shows

bionicjoey , 5 months ago

One does not simply buying gf

WolfhoundRO , 5 months ago

They never heard of Theresa Fidalgo and it shows

feedum_sneedson , 5 months ago

They can't use computers! Sorry to generalise, but I was called a genius for using the task manager and just basic Word formatting. The thing is, we do have our 10,000 hours, maybe I am the equivalent of a chess grandmaster in Word. It's just jarring to hear from a university student.

jerrythegenius , 5 months ago

As a gen z, I agree-- I once used a terminal in front of one of my friends and he (unironically) asked if I was programming it myself.

feedum_sneedson , 5 months ago

From what I can see, it's because "screens" got so much easier to use there's been no need for countless nights of screaming at the laptop until you figure something out. I mean, it was not easy becoming fluent.

jerrythegenius , 5 months ago

I mean, there was that one time that I tried alpine linux w/sway and then spent ~30 minutes connecting to my friends wifi (this was when he asked if I was programming it myself).

feedum_sneedson , 5 months ago

Right, Linux printer drivers. I am the only person on the internet that solved the issue, as far as I can tell.

jvrava9 , 5 months ago

I am scared to see what will happen when iPad kids grow up and something doesn't work, their understanding of an app is an icon with a label that you click so it opens. No troubleshooting skills whatsoever, even googling a problem isn't an option for them.

jvrava9 , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Same here, I have the nickname "hacker" at school just because I use an android and am tech savy. I have seen people that didn't know what a folder was, thx apple, and thought I was hacking the school or smth when I updated some stuff in termux.

TopRamenBinLaden , 5 months ago

That's wild to me that people consider using an android device to be technical in anyway. It's literally designed to be user friendly enough for grandmas and grandpas to use. iPhones have really rotted some people's brains.

TheBat , 5 months ago

It's them blue message bubbles causing weird things to their brains.

jvrava9 , 5 months ago

Same here, I have the nickname "hacker" at school just because I use an android and am somewhat tech savy. I have seen people that didn't know what a folder was, thx apple, and thought I was hacking smth when doing an update in Artix...

random_character_a , 5 months ago

I think that generalization is acceptable.

Most avoid computers. My parents use'em and click everything they come across with. Decade ago I installed Linux in their shitty old computer, just so I can remove everything they can use to screw up the OS.

Everything was fine for few years till my father bought a new shitty low end computer from the black friday with all kinds of support and additional warranty BS that needed Windows with VNC that they really didn't understand.

So, the result of that study is BS. One reason is that people selling old people expensive shit they don't need is not considered a scam.

feedum_sneedson , 5 months ago

Boomer mother using Samsung flagship device to use WhatsApp and literally nothing else? That contract is absolutely a scam.

lepinkainen , 5 months ago

80yo grandma with a ultrafast 5G data plan bigger than mine. And her daily phone is a Doro that doesn't even do text messages.

stoly , 5 months ago

Late Gen X to early Millennial was the sweet spot between needing to know how a computer works and having a computer that just works. People before and after don’t have that experience.

HopFlop , 5 months ago

There is a split in gen Z: The ones who didnt use a computer growing up and those that did have one (and also the time to mess around with it). But I feel like you cant group them together.

feedum_sneedson , 5 months ago

That'll be a very pronounced split in Millenials and Gen X as well.

cashews_best_nut , 5 months ago

When I spoke to my younger half-brother a few years back I was stunned to find out he only had an Xbox and phone. No PC. I think he's doing well academically but how the fuck he lived without a proper PC I'll never know.

I think my dad and his mum refused to get him one to protect him cos they didn't let him play GTAV either. It was too violent.

I shudder to think WTF he'll do when AI comes along.

No1 , 5 months ago

I had a work colleague who had a spreadsheet with one column calculating something to do with a particular date. They didn't have any formulas at all. For any calculations. They would go in each day and manually calculate and then type in the values. In every cell.

I put in an input cell date, and simplest of formulas in 3 cells, and they looked at me like I was some kind of wizard.

I returned to my desk, put my head in my hands in sheer shock. I still don't understand what they thought a spreadsheet was for....It made.nice columns?

Anyways, when I recovered, I finished my resignation letter,.and that was the best thing I ever did in that particular cesspool 😁

Rob200 , 5 months ago

I disagree partially with this article. While not every gen z tech consumer is a Linux user. Not all of them fall for scams. It's rather, the people who are so invested in certain franchise like Fortnight, and trying to get free robux or vbucks. Or trying to get free gift cards to get free curency to buy games on console storefronts. There a some that are gen z the do exersize common sense. Being a gen z myself, I would say I am one of those that do exersize common sense guarding form scams.

jerrythegenius , 5 months ago

It made you sound really old when you said "fortnight" and not "fortnite"

Angry_Maple , 5 months ago

Not to mention some of Gen Z is still only around 12 years old.

the_q , 5 months ago

Gen Z is also less tech savvy even though they've only known devices and screens since they were born so this isn't surprising.

Plopp , 5 months ago

Even though? I don't think it's a correct assumption that "devices" would or should make you tech savvy. Smartphones and tablets makes you less tech savvy I'd say. Proper desktop OS computers is where it's at.

Benaaasaaas , 5 months ago

It doesn't matter if it's smartphone or desktop it's the not quite working part is what got millennials tinkering and understanding technology

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

Fuck desktop OS computers. You can be completely tech illiterate if you use MacOS and Windows only. Hell, even a lot of modern Linux distros are basically "Linux with training wheels." You want to get really tech literate? Do what I did and use nothing but vanilla Arch for around 3 years, constantly installing new things that broke my install and having to fix it or just reinstall at least once every two months. The greatest teacher isn't necessity. It's frustration. The second greatest is the arch linux wiki.

DavLemmyHav , 5 months ago

“i use arch btw”

TheBat , 5 months ago

I literally can't tell if this is supposed to be a serious comment or a shitpost copypasta.

rwhitisissle , 5 months ago

Little bit of both.

HopFlop , 5 months ago

I dont think this is the case. I feel like there just is a much wider gap because some people grow up without a computer (they may have one but not see the use of it) and others do. I bet you'd be surprised both at how non-tech-savvy and at how tech-savvy some genZ-ers are.

I have had people asking me for help because their "keyboard was capitalizing everything" (caps lock was on) or being amazed by touch typing.
But there are also many people who are (at least somewhat) tech-savvy and it's not so few people either.

QuadratureSurfer , 5 months ago

What I've heard, and what makes sense, is that Millenials had to learn technology and troubleshoot all the issues for their parents.

Now that they're grown up, they continue to troubleshoot issues for their kids and fix any issues.

So their kids don't get that same experience.

This is more of a generalization of course, there are absolutely genZ-ers who are tech savvy.

Angry_Maple , 5 months ago

I think you raised a good point. A household where one or both parents is heavy into coding or missing would probably help them more than a household that only relies on 'smart' technology. Either of those options would be way more helpful for these skills than growing up without any technology, which is just reality for a lot of people.

I know someone from Gen Z who is horrible with computers. I also know someone from Gen Z who is fantastic with computers.

To be honest, I don't think any generation is immune to this, despite what some want to think.

My personal experience might be biased, but I've also seen a lot of millenials in their early to mid 30s who struggle with almost anything online. Too damn many. I've also seen some people from Gen X who are beyond tech illiterate. We don't really talk about those guys though.

There is still time to fix this problem with the younger Gen Z, but there's almost never any discussion about actually doing that either. "Gen Z" also includes kids who are around 12, but we often act like Gen Z all grew up into adults. Let's get some of that school funding back ffs! Kids have to learn from somewhere, and many of their parents seem to not care about teaching them any of this stuff.

Many of us were lucky enough to grow up when most of this technology was still developing. We HAD to troubleshoot things if we wanted them to work. Fewer things were locked behind "customer service" and crappy warranties. You could physically open things up to fix them without having such a high risk of breaking them in the process.

ShaggySnacks , 5 months ago

I’ve also seen some people from Gen X who are beyond tech illiterate. We don’t really talk about those guys though.

First rule of Gen X is that we don't talk about Gen X.

stoly , 5 months ago

It is the case. The generation that grew up with an iPad never had to learn to use a file system.

HopFlop , 5 months ago

Except gen Z didn't grow up with just an iPad, at least not the majority. A good amount of people had (or have) access to a laptop or family computer. Thats why I say that the gap has just gotten wider. Some people, eg. the ones that just had an iPad and all they ever did was social media and mobile games - sure, they know very little about computers. But the ones that did use computers (and thats not a small amount) do really know how to use it - which is not limited to the more or less office-focused skills of older generations.

bionicjoey , 5 months ago

They've only known devices which were built with such a curated UX that they never tried to troubleshoot problems for themselves. When I was a kid you had to be able to figure out how to edit config files and tweak registry keys to get your PC game to run. These days everything is so smooth and seamless. Oh sure, stuff still breaks. But the computers are pocket sized and run on a locked-down OS, so there's no point trying to troubleshoot them yourself.

AVincentInSpace , 5 months ago

The difference now is that in the olden days when something broke you could fix it if you had enough technical know how. For some reason that doubtless involves money that I do not care to learn, companies have invested a staggering amount of R&D into making fixing anything as close to impossible as they can make it unless you are an authorized service technician.

Pop the hood on a modern car, you can change the wiper fluid and that's about it. Apple is proud of their walled garden and parts pairing and is considering charging for the privilege of sideloading apps. Most applications nowadays don't even show crash report data to the user and error messages are getting less and less descriptive for fear of being confusing. The only thing you can really pop the hood on nowadays is webpages, and even then you'll often have to do at least an hour's worth of reverse engineering to get anywhere useful.

bionicjoey , 5 months ago

That's not the result of advancement, it's the result of obfuscation. It's a deliberate trend among companies to make us powerless to manage our own devices. They absolutely could make them in a way that is simple enough for an end-user to understand if they really wanted to.

AVincentInSpace , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Regardless of what caused it, the fact remains that people stopped learning how to fix their own crap because there's hardly anywhere they can apply those skills.

I'm in a particularly techy subset of gen Z. Every electronic device I own is either jailbroken or running a different operating system than the one it shipped with. I use Linux exclusively which is a fancy way of saying I'm used to having to fix things when they break without any instructions on how to do that. I have trouble with tech meant for normies. They hide so much complexity it makes them impossible to troubleshoot. How can I expect people who were raised on tech meant to be seamlesa to mend the inevitable seams when I don't know how?

It's not their fault, is what I'm saying. I agree that interfaces nowadays are too user friendly.

Brekky , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

I means if we're talking about things like ordering from wish/temu (which I absolutely would) then yeah I can totally see this.