If you have a desktop like the one in the photo, you may be one of those who don’t usually organize your files in different folders. In the past, we users used this concept to bring order out of chaos, but new generations seem to go beyond this philosophy: they don’t need folders because they don’t need folders. Windows Search Y spotlight to find them all.

This is what emerges from the testimonies of at least a few teachers who realized that their students didn’t use folders to organize everything. Windows, macOS (and Linux) search engines decode voting.

binding? What is a folder?

As The Verge pointed out, the same thing happened to Catherine Garland, an astrophysicist teaching engineering in 2017. After asking his students to do an exercise on the computer, several people called him with a question: the program could not find the files it needed.

The teacher asked these students where they had saved the project file, and most of them answered in the same way. “What are you talking about?”. Not only did they not know where they saved that file, they also did not understand the question.

The same was experienced by other teachers who discovered that students did not assimilate the concept of files or folders because simply, they were not used. They kept these files in default folders assigned by the application they were using, and they didn’t have to think about it.

Why? Why? Because their computer has already done that for them. It doesn’t matter if there are hundreds of icons on the desktop or not. Files of all kinds spread out in folders that are confusing and unintuitive, as the Windows or macOS search engine takes care of it all. For Windows Search or Spotlight on MacOS, knowing the filename was enough to find the document they wanted to access.

It turns out that search engines do the work (but not so much to put things on your side)

For someone like me with a pretty strict folder and file regime – I’m sure that applies to many of our readers as well – leaving the file I’m working on anywhere worries me.

It’s like losing control of the way you work and leaving everything in the middle. You’re thinking of leaving your house and anything around, and you’re probably worried about the dilemma of having to find your keys or, I don’t know, your socks.

But of course there is no Windows Search or Spotlight (there are many alternatives on Linux) at home that does this job. And it turns out that these tools do that really well.: I’ve verified this myself in the last few hours by testing the Windows 11 search engine and entering search terms that actually resulted in the files I was looking for.

At least, that’s what it does when looking at classic folders where files are usually stored on the system partition (“C:” in Windows). To complete the indexing, you must go to “Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Search Windows” and there select the “Advanced” option to expand the search to all drives and their folders.

This option can hurt battery life if you’re using a laptop, but if you actively enable it, these results will propagate to all local partitions on your system. It’s even possible to add network locations (like a NAS) to index them as well. We talked a long time ago about the so-called ‘Immersive Search’ in Windows 10, which goes a little further when it comes to acting like macOS Spotlight, which has always been a benchmark in such functionality.

Generational change in sight

It’s possible that all of this is indeed a clear indication of a generational shift in the way we understood computers in the forties (and I think thirties), and in the way new generations understood them.

Raise your hand if you frequently use the Files file explorer on your iPad.

As Saavik Ford, professor of astronomy at the Manhattan Community College District, says, “I grew up when you had to have a file and save it: you had to know where it was. There was no search functionality.” But among the students “there is no idea that the files live. They just look for it and find it there.”

This definitely happens on mobile: we rely on apps to take care of our files, and iOS and iPadOS added a file explorer that newer generations probably don’t use much because hey, Their iPhone or iPad already has a search engine.

While talking about files and folders, some of the teachers who had these problems started to work in this direction: it is useful to use a browser, but at the beginning of the lessons give some basic concepts what is the basic directory structure and what are files and folders.

This idea is not very intuitive for many students, but considering that the concept is still a core part of the operating systems we use every day (although we insist on mobile phones, it remains in the background), it seems. It is important to remind students of new generations.

For myself (at least for now) I will continue to organize my music or personal photos with folders. The browser works great, yes, but I’m not ready to give up old habits. arg.

Picture: Tim Gouw