Educating in the Shortcut Era

This is an opinion piece — without academic basis, but full of everyday observations. I'm not from the education field, but as a father and technology professional, I've been thinking a lot about how we're educating our children and the kind of future that awaits them.

The generation born ready — but doesn't understand how it works

I've been observing a curious phenomenon: much of the new generation uses technology all the time, but without understanding what happens behind the screens.

I saw a study showing that many young people don't even understand the concept of folders and files — and it makes sense.

They grew up with smartphones, where everything is just a tap away. Convenience has erased the notion of structure, logic, and digital organization.

Lack of curiosity and tutorial addiction

Another point that worries me is the dependency on tutorials. Without a step-by-step guide, many simply freeze. In my time, they showed us where the code was and said "figure it out." And we went after it.

Today I see an enormous laziness in truly studying something, diving into the guts of things and understanding why. Just understanding the basics and they already feel like experts — ready to debate with confidence, but without depth.

This mentality creates another problem: immediacy. If it's not easy, they give up. But what's "easy" is easy for everyone — and when something is too easy, it loses value.

The market, technology, and real life don't work that way. Anyone who works in IT knows: every day a problem appears without a perfect tutorial to follow. And when one exists, most people copy it. Few think about improving, adapting, or going beyond what was shown.

Following a tutorial is the starting point — not the end result. The real differentiator is in understanding the why behind each step and making something better than the original.

So... where's the desire to solve and improve the problem?

The scarcity of those who actually do

Look around: it's increasingly difficult to find young people who roll up their sleeves. Where are the new electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons, mechanics, electronics technicians, welders, or painters who truly master what they do?

Today, when something breaks, most prefer to buy another one — not for comfort, but for lack of someone to fix it.

And when we find someone, it's almost always an older professional. This scarcity doesn't seem just technical to me — it's cultural. People are unlearning the value of solving, experimenting, trying.

There's a lack of curiosity, lack of grit, lack of commitment.

Immediacy and superficiality

Remember that time when people read the newspaper in five minutes and thought they knew everything just from the headlines? That mentality hasn't ended — it's just changed format.

Today, it lives on social media, in short videos and shallow texts that promise to teach everything in 30 seconds. We live in the era of "summary of the summary," where anyone has an opinion on everything, without basis, without context, and without time to reflect.

Haste has become a virtue — and the result is a flood of superficial and disposable information.

What I see most out there is garbage content being pushed to young people. It doesn't matter if it teaches something useful — what matters is generating clicks, likes, and views. Consequence: lots of information, little knowledge.

Knows everything, but knows nothing.

And this immediacy is shaping the way we learn. People want results without effort, answers without study, and shortcuts for everything.

But real learning requires time, repetition, and patience — exactly what the new generation is unlearning to have.

What am I trying to do?

My oldest daughter is in the literacy phase. I always do homework with her, but I've adopted a clear stance: first, she needs to try on her own — even if she makes mistakes.

I want her to have confidence in trying, without depending on my presence all the time. Afterwards, we review together, and I explain where she went wrong and why.

It's a daily struggle — she wants me to stay by her side, watching. But I know that if I do that, I'll create a dependent person, incapable of moving without support.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking if I'm being too harsh, after all she's just a child. But, from my experience, if I don't teach "do it yourself" from an early age, dependency comes easily.

I believe schools could also be more challenging a bit further ahead. For example: homework could all be in English. Learn the theory in one language, but apply it in another — the hard way. It's difficult, yes, but life is like that.

In college, the professor could teach one programming language in class, but require that assignments be done in another. And if the student complained — "but you didn't teach that!" — the answer would be simple: figure it out.

We need to toughen up a bit with the generation that's coming. Otherwise, we risk creating a fragile society — and with artificial intelligence making everything easier, this risk is even greater.

Conclusion: the risk of having no replacements

Yes, I'm worried. Because, if it continues like this, this new generation won't replace the current one — neither in technical quality nor in mentality.

Educating for the future isn't about giving tablets, it's about teaching attitude.

It's about forming people who know how to think, solve, and learn on their own — even when there's no tutorial, even when the answer isn't on Google.

Technology will evolve, but without people capable of doing, it's worthless.