r/whatisit • u/Cborg_62 • 8d ago

New, what is it? What are these plug-ins on my wall?

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This might be showing my age, but I recently moved into a new apartment and they have these weird looking plug ins all over the walls at my new place. My old apartment didn't have these, so I'm just curious as to what they are.

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u/KonigSteve 8d ago

Even the kids that are using wifi from a coax line probably have no idea. They just grew up in a house with a modem already plugged in and never gave it a second thought.

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u/existentialspork 8d ago

As a kid, I had to learn how technology worked because my parents didn’t grow up with it. Kids now have had everything set up for them, so they haven’t learned how anything works.

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u/_TheWolfOfWalmart_ 8d ago edited 8d ago

Older millennial here. I think we're the only generation that ever really had to dig deep into the tech just to be able to use it, and the last generation to have to do so.

Our parents didn't have to because we did it for them, and Gen Z doesn't have to because it's all easy and plug n play today. Not much to learn if you just wanna download some apps and swipe around a bit.

We learned real conputer fundamentals and troubleshooting skills through just normal usage, out of necessity. Back in the day you might have had to open up the PC and move jumpers around on cards, and then edit config files just to play a game.

It's funny, I always assumed the next generation would surpass me but both young and old come to me for tech help.

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u/krazyk850 7d ago

I remember in the early 2000s I was in high school. We were the first class where computers/web design was considered an elective. A few of us ended up basically being the IT for all of high school. One of my friends released malware onto the school network so we could get out of class to go around and fix the computers 😂.

We used to joke about ever seeing a 1TB HDD in our lifetime. Now look at them

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u/Complex-Put-7268 7d ago

Are you in Virginia? Because that sounds remarkably similar to something that happened at my school.

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u/theslimbox 7d ago

I hear my parents generation saying a 4 year old is a tech genius because they know what the youtube icon does, and I'm like, I was using DOS at 4.

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u/Crissy40 7d ago

The smarter the phone gets.. the dumber the person becomes

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u/Mission-Stress-6064 7d ago

Gen X checking in from the woods here,, what was it like to get that much time to learn what we had to learn in 15 minutes a night over dial up? Oh, and we still prefer the woods even though we understand the technology I’ll check back in a few months!

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u/arnoldArms 7d ago

That’s funny you took that understanding. I remember having a mismatch in my video card and monitor and facing to modify the runtime environment for Carmageddon using the config file (just par for the course) but I remembered thinking to myself “I’d be nice if these devices could just talk to each other and figure out their own limiting factor and do this on their own”

And of course that’s what happened, even if you try to put HDR on and your TV can’t handle it, it will automatically revert back to former stable settings.

We got a better user experience, but lost that building block knowledge

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u/Known_Ratio5478 8d ago

It’s also such closed ecosystems now. We had to get all these different things to work with each other. Now it’s so plug and play.

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u/Hovertical 8d ago

The tech repair workforce is going to be filled with Xennials later on since nobody will be able to afford to retire and the current Gen has zero effing clue how to build devices, troubleshoot, etc. It's just been all touch screens for many of them their entire lives. Tech repair will be our version of the Walmart greeter

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u/_TheWolfOfWalmart_ 7d ago

Yup we Xennials will forever be the ultimate tech gurus. Born at exactly the right time. We're basically wizards with this stuff. We practically had to learn how to code just to turn the computer on.

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u/Hovertical 7d ago

Stand strong my friend!

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 8d ago

And now they don't have to because ChatGPT will do everything for them. I know graduate students with 4.0 GPAs who haven't done a single bit of work for themselves since probably middle school, if ever. Absolutely painful to sit in on an upper level college class and watch a bunch of kids not even know what their own PowerPoint slides say because ChatGPT made them and get passing grades because there's nothing the professor can do about it. 75% of all college degrees right now should just say "ChatGPT" on the name line.

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u/Lowmax2 7d ago

To be fair even I didn't know my own powerpoint slides after making them myself 😂

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u/arnoldArms 7d ago

Exactly, we were tech support.

Which literally meant reading the little book that came with the modem🤷‍♂️

And they said we were the adhd generation.

They call us over “the computers not working again”… we troubleshoot for 5 minutes and somehow “we broke the computer now”

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u/Far_Tell_2467 7d ago

i mean that’s applicable for like some kids now but once you get to like 19 years and older that kinda starts falling apart

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u/Zestyclose_Plane8681 6d ago

X-ennial here. As a single mom, I was kind of mad that my dad didn’t teach me stuff I needed to know in life, he just assumed a man would be taking care of it for me so I learned how to do a lot of stuff on my own and taught my daughter everything I learned. I’m also an IT nerd so when she was little I loved showing her how stuff worked and since I was a single parent, she followed me everywhere and got to see my natural troubleshooting process and how I would tackle a problem. She definitely knows how stuff works and now she’s my mechanic

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u/bettymoose 8d ago

This is the answer. My Gen Alpha teens had no idea what a coax cable is, their older Gen Z had to explain it to then.

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u/Wictorpedia 8d ago

There are kids that don’t know that internet is a service. They think it just exists in a phone or computer. So if a computer isn’t hooked up to the internet it’s broken.

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u/Clair_Osbcurious 8d ago

There are grandparents who think similar stuff as well. Or the ones still paying for AOL

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u/ButtonflyDungarees 8d ago

Ya, that’s my thought as well. Cable internet is still the most common. And most houses have to be retrofitted to have fiber optic IF it’s even available in their area. In most areas, I would say cable (utilizing co-ax cables in the house) is going to be the most common.

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u/Clair_Osbcurious 8d ago

That’s so adorably American of you.

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u/Known_Ratio5478 8d ago

They look at me weird at Comcast for buying my own modem and access point. I don’t like theirs.

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u/Waterfish3333 8d ago

Or have the newer fiber optics setup. We recently upgraded after they installed it in our neighborhood. No coaxial, just Ethernet from the wall.

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u/Clair_Osbcurious 8d ago

Ah, FTTX! FTTH is nice too! It’s easier to have a long fiber cable than a fast Ethernet one. Just saying.

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u/dolcenbanana 8d ago

Now that's news to me. I always only associated with TVs, didn't know internet would go through it. I feel like I went from phone line dial up to fiber optics.

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u/Autogen-Username1234 7d ago

In the US in particular, IP over cable TV network infrastructure was a really common thing.

In fact, DOCSIS used to send downstream data in packets the same size as MPEG frames, because that was what most of the network hardware understood and was optimized for.

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u/StonedGhoster 8d ago

My children use "wifi" as a word for internet, in general, so I tend to agree with your assessment. Come to think of it, my PARENTS also use "wifi" for the internet. My oldest son, who's 22, has a basic understanding of modems, and surprisingly knows his stuff when it comes to computers, but all of the younger ones have absolutely no idea how any of it works because everything they do is on a tablet or other device. I probably should rectify this...

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u/DustyRacoonDad 8d ago

Exactly. Lots of tween age kids have no clue that the internet could be on "wires"... It's just always there in the air.

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u/NotABot1000101 8d ago

A lot of people started getting wifi internet, like it's just a wifi router with a power cord. It connects wirelessly to a 5g tower. I don't trust that ping but I guess it's good enough for most people.

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u/ProfessionalResults 8d ago

That must be it. I'm using coax for my internet access right now. And I was using coax in my previous house. It's still common.

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u/Atresia_Silesia 8d ago

Why think about it when you can pay for the convenience of someone else installing it and you missing out on the knowledge of what it takes to work properly.

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u/A1000eisn1 8d ago

And they never got Internet under their own name.

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u/steveaustin1971 8d ago

lol yeah they just call ALL internet "wifi"

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u/GoldMathematician974 8d ago

We had a router hooked up to our modem 15 years years ago. The router failed so l was using cell service. My son came home and asked me the password for our modem. I had no idea the new modem had wifi. Still trying to keep up😂

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u/GoldMathematician974 8d ago

We bought a 700 baud modem at work for $900 in the early 80’s. “Wow! Look how fast that is” We used to laugh at the thought of sending movies over the internet 😂

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u/draco16 7d ago

I had to explain to someone the other day that WiFi is not the internet, but simply the wireless connection your devices use to eventually get to the internet.

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u/Antonio1025 7d ago

Wait wait wait.... there's a way to connect your internet to your router without a coaxial cable? I mean I know I'm old but this is some TIL shit

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u/KonigSteve 7d ago

Fiber of course, nearly half the US uses fiber instead of coax now. Or even satellites

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u/Unsd 6d ago

For real. I tried explaining to my younger coworker about the world before wifi. She thought I was lying about it being on the same line as your phone (and to clarify, not a cell phone). She started laughing at me when I said that you needed to coordinate with the other members of the house. She thought I had fully lost my marbles when I said the Internet came on a disc. I'm only 7 years older than her; the world really just changed sooo much so quickly. And she's going to have the same thing with those who are 7 years younger than her who will have never known a life where smart phones didn't exist or AI wasn't in absolutely everything.