I don't think the problem is curiosity around computers. Back in the day, computers were just a novelty and weren't yet essential to most jobs. It's fine if people didn't care then.

Nowadays however most white-collar jobs and daily life tasks involve computers at some point, and knowing how to use & program them would make these tasks more efficient - almost too efficient, to the point where it goes against corporate interests (turns out society normalized and encourages business models that bank on artificially created or maintained inefficiency) which is partly why general-purpose computing is on the decline now.