For most people born before the 90's, a "3 1/2 inch floppy" was once a crucial part of their technological lives; securing and transporting important files and data. Of course nowadays, the 1.44 MB storage space is far from adequate and no new computers come equipped with an appropriate drive for the disks. Little surprise then that the majority of children today have no idea what one is (despite the fact that ubiquitous software such as Word and Excel still use a floppy disk symbol for their 'save' buttons).
As a recent survey by YouGov has shown, 67 percent of the 6 to 18 year olds in the UK don't know what a floppy disk is. Other essentially obsolete tech such as overhead projectors (once present in almost every classroom), and pagers were recognised even less.
They also never heard of 8tracks! Who gives a shit! This aint news!
Sage
Daniel Reyes
Floppy discs were irrelevant before those 13 year olds were even born. I got my first computer in 2001 and it lacked a floppy drive. Who funded this waste of a study?
Jonathan Ramirez
Why would they? 13 is young for such trivial knowledge to be widespread, and public schools teach enough useless history as it is. Personally I have no idea what a cotton gin looks like.
Kevin Edwards
Alright how many baby boomers know how to clean a slate?
Isaiah Wright
I am fairly sure the projector is the only one noted that is still in common use.
William Smith
Good for them !!
Technology sucks, and it's the reason why none of you ever get laid
Oliver Ortiz
It's fucking nothing. Also, boomers still don't understand "the old tech", so it's really neither here nor there.
Yes, but I create all my posts using a crystal radio and a mule powered Casio wristwatch
Jonathan Evans
Pot meet kettle
Caleb Foster
my school still had floopy drives since our school district is under funded
hated the things, they broke so easily as often as we used them and it was a pain to carry. thank god for thumb drives
Jaxon Brown
It doesn't matter if kids don't know what a piece of tech is so long as it's obsolete.
Jonathan Thomas
Well in all fairness, it's a little confusing that floppy disks aren't actually floppy. Also, I bet these same kids know what a vinyl record is. The fact is, floppy disks were terrible devices prone to corruption at a rate worse than any other medium I've ever encountered. I cannot tell you how many times I lost data or had to repurchase an application in the 90's due to these horrible little bastards. In my opinion, they cannot be forgotten fast enough.
Hudson Jenkins
It was fucked up when it was revealed that like 70% of UK university students can't read analog clocks and so they want them removed from study halls so they don't stress kids during exams.
But let's be real here. Nobody needs to know what a fucking floppy disk is. They aren't coming back. There's nothing particularly important about them culturally. They were the physical storage medium you had to use before CDs and dvds and usb drives. Their biggest lasting cultural impact is just being the icon used for saving shit on a lot of programs.
Robert Nelson
Really? Because I'm 15 and I'm certain most people over 12 know what it is and most people under 12 know what record players are.
the study mentions it questioned 6 to 18 year old's,without knowing exactly the numbers for each age how can you make the claim that "70% of 13 year olds don't know what a floppy disk is"?
Ethan Taylor
They can tell you which way is Mecca
Henry Collins
This. Almost nobody knew what a floppy disk at any point in time. Computers weren't popular enough until floppy disks were more or less obsolete. Fucking retards make their living writing this utter shit.
Grayson Barnes
is yor old disc floppy?
Hudson Adams
I usually hang around with a lot of 13 year old girls between shifts at my kebab shop. I'll ask them next time one of their mouths isn't full.
Adrian Robinson
Oh, well, this survey has a larger representative sample size.
You'd be surprised how often you find old technology still in use. Our 911 authority center uses tapes still to record the audio from calls and then convert it into a digital format.
Gabriel Murphy
And it's good that people don't know what these things are, because they were all fucking terrible technologies that deserved to die. ASCII art on your TV and having to look at finger-smeared, blurry, hand-written slides…. what a joke.
The claim that one should know about these things, except as a historical curiosity, is as legitimate as saying that one ought to know about BCD, or vacuum tubes, or liquid-based circuits, or Frege's logic notation, or any other nonsense none of y'all here have heard about.
