7 ms·

How to Raise a Scientist in the Xbox Age

41 points by tokenadult 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
drallison 11y ago
Non-paywalled version: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwikuqzamOPJAhVH5GMKHVi1AM4QqQIIHTAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fhow-to-raise-a-scientist-in-the-xbox-age-1450137781&usg=AFQjCNHxMlufWbRKKNMcUl9xQEXT0gUJdA&sig2=1v9nQygIHlbdtvDzsHtyxQ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- richenglish 11y ago
  The quick suggestion at the end of buying your kid a mechanical clock and a screwdriver is great. Going shopping later today.
  - rustynails77 11y ago
    Pulling apart appliances is a great idea. I've had that in the back of my mind but pushed it back for too long. Thanks for the reminder. This article reflects some of my own views. I moderate my kids' access time to electronic games very tightly. We have frequent group discussions on things we've seen, done, learned, etc. The conversations are really amazing and are a good lead-in to bedtime. It shouldn't surprise me, but I often hear more intelligent conversation from my kids than I do from most media sources. In fact, we sometimes analyse places like The Verge for their prejudice as an exercise in critical thinking around flawed arguments and fallacies. We look at youtube for history, engineering and biology videos. We've developed board games, Rube Goldberg machines, flying craft, gone on bike hikes, looked at water safety... If you live in the suburbs and you look in your local area, there are many free educational community activities too. We've looked at construction, robotics, software and sports activities to name a few. We even make up our own learning activities. Eg. we went shopping together and discussed food priorities, food costs for equivalent items, set a budget, discussed buying local v/s imported food, etc. There are learning opportunities all around. I feel that education on computers is over-rated and critical thinking outside of a computer is underrated. It just takes a lot of time and energy. I usually put in a weekend of planning about a month before school holidays.
    - TrevorJ 11y ago
      It is a great idea, just do your homework first as there are some non-obvious dangers in some devices like old tube style tv's and microwaves.
    - lfowles 11y ago
      I don't know, I opened up (too) many toys and appliances as a kid and the only thing I learned was how to open things up. As far as I was concerned, the resistors in there were lined up in a pentagram to summon the proper amounts of electrical current. Guided disassembly would have been much less frustrating for me (in terms of learning) and my parents (in terms of me not being able to reassemble everything quite perfectly... or playing bomb defuser)
  - radiorental 11y ago
    My boys (3 & 5) love wrenching on old lawnmower engines. The trick is not to find something for them to work on, it's leading by example. They will do what they see you doing, up to a certain age. I have a sheet of paper from daycare, pride of place in my office, that reads "What do you want to learn this year? I want to learn about making projects" It never fails to warm my heart
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Hint: there's a link just under the title labelled "web" that does the same thing.
chc4 11y ago
Anecdotal maybe, but I got interested in computer science because of video games. I learned programming from messing around with the online game Roblox, which is essentially a game engine with Lua scripting support. I played lots of games, wanted to learn how to make the same thing myself, and discovered the wonderful world of programming. A majority of the programmers I am friends with I met through Roblox, and have been friends with ever since, and all of them got into programming the same way.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Same here. My first attempts at programming were using basic to make a Zork-like game and then also, a failed, attempt at making a BBS from scratch. Ten year olds shouldn't be writing login authentications btw. Clear-text passwords in a bunch of IF statements are probably a bad idea. I don't think most people appreciate how much kids want to not only emulate people in their lives, but also build things in their lives. I love that its so easy to google help for making things. Want to make a longboard or a full-size R2D2 model? There's so much documentation out there. If anything, we're in the golden age of DIY and things like videogames and other "distractions" are actually motivators for creative kids.
- tribune 11y ago
  Ditto. My curiosity grew out of the computer games I was playing, and my first "game" was "Guess the Number" written in TI-BASIC for my TI-83 calculator.
- eecks 11y ago
  My interest in CS/programming came from the Internet but my interest in the Internet came as a direct result of gaming.
  - fokinsean 11y ago
    Me too. I played tons of xbox in high school (Halo 2/3 CoD 4), but when I went to college my gaming time went essentially to zero. However I decided to pick up CS because I thought it would be really cool to understand how computers and game systems worked. I just recently graduated and picked up the new xbox since I have some free time now. I ran into an issue playing Halo 5 where I kept getting disconnected from the game, and it turns out it is a bug in the networking software in combination with the "instant on" feature that was causing it. My networks class gave me a decent enough background where I can actually understand the bug is. I thought that was pretty cool! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438 http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438
bluedino 11y ago
Scientists were raised in the 'Nintendo age'. Scientists were raised in the 'TV' age. Scientists were raised in whatever kids wasted their time doing before TV.
- rubidium 11y ago
  This scientist was raised in the Nintendo/ TV age, but with parents who limited my time at such activities. Spending time outside was mandatory. Boredom followed by inventing games/tearing stuff apart was frequent. There's certainly no 100% foolproof method to raising a scientist (and I think that'd be a terrible parenting goal :), but there may be things to learn here. It would be fascinating to have a study of current 25-35 year olds occupations and parenting rules. Perhaps it's been done? (a few rules that could be asked about "limited screen time", punishment (e.g. spanking, timeout), being sent "outside", etc...).
  - tlarkworthy 11y ago
    My father would not get me a Nintendo and instead gave me something programmable (a BBC). He said I was free to buy a Nintendo though which I obviously could not afford. So I programmed until I was old enough to get a weekend job at 15, and I bought and sold games a lot. Good moves Father! The value of money and a programming career.
- tokenadult 11y ago
  My childhood best friend, after whom my oldest son is named, is a scientist. (At one time his job title was "senior scientist" at the manufacturing corporation where he then worked. Now he uses his training as an electrical engineer to do research on critical safety issues for a consulting firm that advises the thriving medical device industry here in the Twin Cities.) He and I grew up in the Boob Tube age of TV. But he watched a LOT less TV than I did while growing up, because when he was three years old, the family TV set broke, and his dad, who was a mechanic for a manufacturing company in town, decided that watching TV was a waste of time, so he didn't fix the TV. Instead, my friend grew up building things at home, including an electronic organ (which is one of several musical instruments he can play) and one of the first home-built microcomputers. (His older brother met Bill Gates at a computer-building convention a long time ago, and could have been a Microsoft employee with a single-digit employee number. Oh well.) Simply put, I think as a parent of four children that active avoidance of time-wasting activities is helpful for children's development. Children need time for thinking and daydreaming and reverie, but too much entertainment can take time away from those valuable activities. Richard Rusczyk, a founder of the Art of Problem Solving Foundation, comments that if video games were commonplace during his childhood, he probably would not have learned as much about problem-solving as he did while growing up. Part of a parent's job is making sure that children don't gorge themselves on candy or on nondevelopmental personal activities. Those things need to be experienced in moderation. P.S. I recently worked as a math teacher in a private middle school. Don't even get me started on pervasive use of iPads in school classrooms.
tribune 11y ago
> Modern children are also deprived of another key ingredient that has powered many a young person down the road to a career in science: boredom, and lots of it. I've always had a little pet theory that boredom is actually a major driver behind a lot of innovations, and doesn't just matter in children.
- radiorental 11y ago
  Agreed. Boredom is a motivator, the issue is how it's relieved. The easy fix is gaming, it's like junk food for boredom hunger. Take away the junk food and you get reading/tinkering/creative play etc etc.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I disagree about it; I'd say gaming is actually a great way to exercise creativity and to progress to more... practical stuff. There is, on the other hand, one "easy fix" that most kids end up taking - it is spending time with people. Hanging out. It's an infinite time sink. You can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best at inventing something new to do or experience. Except if all the kids do is hanging out with each other, they aren't exactly learning much. So I guess it depends on who you want your kid to become. If you're aiming for a "people person", then by all means, cut out computer time. But if you want an engineer, I'd personally stick with video games.
    - lfowles 11y ago
      > You can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best at inventing something new to do or experience. That sounds like a driver of innovation too! Maybe the real issue is that kids should be taught motivational skills to make hanging out "productive".
mydpy 11y ago
Bah. Paywall. And yeah, I still play video games. And I'm a scientist. Actually, video games probably helped develop my scientific mind. I wish video games wouldn't be equivalent to drivel in the eyes of casual observers. There is so much more to gaming.
michaelbuddy 11y ago
I think of long ago when people would put in countless hours on projects because they had less distractions. But I've also found people will still put in countless hours on projects. Including grinding on xbox games, but also electronic and web / digital / app building feats. Even if we have less scientist types and more distracted types, we have a way to instantly connect the ground breaking scientist / builders so that their work can be modified by us less gifted distracted losers.
ohblahitsme 11y ago
Man this article screams "kids today blah blah blah" and is totally ill founded. I was born in 1993 and grew up with video games and now I'm a scientist (anecdotal I know, but this article isn't scientific either). Being a scientist is about asking questions that intrigue you and finding the answer to them. People who want to do this will do this regardless of whether or not they play video games (or do any other leisurely activity like Netflix bingeing).
- qp9384btv_2e 11y ago
  21, 22 year old scientist?
  - ohblahitsme 11y ago
    Yep, 22!
    - gmtgmt 11y ago
      happy to hear that, it proves my hunch on the matter
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > hunch Isn't it what we called "basic arithmetics" back in the day? :).
- coldpie 11y ago
  Things are different from they were when I grew up, therefore things are bad!
FussyZeus 11y ago
"Kids these days weren't as $X as my generation, they should do $Y instead of $Z because that's what I did." I'm pretty sure you could find variants of this scrawled into a cave wall in the cradle of civilization if you looked hard enough.
- ghostDancer 11y ago
  The famous Socrates quote : https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-love-luxury-they-have-bad-manners-contempt https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-love...
socket0 11y ago
> Try taking apart a modern cellphone or a laptop computer. > Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the > inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside. I remember taking apart old radios as a child in the 70s, marvelling at the colourful transistors and resistors. But I had no way of knowing what exactly these were, and even less of a clue as to how it all worked. So sure, it's hard to intuit how a smartphone or a computer works just by looking at the insides. But today's budding scientists have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, and will be able to find diagrams and schematics for a lot of devices, and a large number of sites explaining what every component is and how it works. You don't raise scientists, you give them interesting toys to play with, and they simply raise themselves.
- adaml_623 11y ago
  I disagree a little bit with you. One clock radio I pulled apart had a mechanical time display and while the radio was indeed an inscrutable PCB covered in components it matched the level of complexity I expected to see. Nowadays the complexity is hidden under a smooth patch of black plastic that can have smart phone levels of complexity internally and no hint at the that from the outside. Obviously it's swings and roundabouts since you can indeed find a wealth of information online about any of these subjects but sometimes it feels like it's harder to kindle the initial fire of curiosity.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    ICs are literal magic black boxes. The same-looking square can be the brain of a device, a stone that knows where it is, a full-blown radar[0], or just two capacitors and an op amp. And you can't tell by just looking at it; the only visual difference is in the magic runes written on the dark stone. [0] - https://www.google.com/atap/project-soli/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-soli/
- xorcist 11y ago
  That's partially true. One important difference is that a lot of electronics had schematics available. I know for a fact our TV had one, taped to the inside of the chassis. I was deeply fascinated by the intricate schematics at the time. I could spend hours designing my own, copying from the symbol language, but putting them together in ways I thought was beautiful.
cryoshon 11y ago
As a scientist, I was amused by a simplistic representation of what the "scientist" class of people need to be happy in the game Anno 2205. In order for the scientists to be happy, they need (aside from subsistence food, water, and lowbrow entertainment): luxury food, stimulants, computers, replicators, and secrecy. In my experience, all of the above (save for replicators, which are slated to be essential but not yet developed) are critical to being a scientist. But, how do we produce scientists? By fostering open minded curiosity and its cousin, wonder, then introducing critical thought as a guide once the former two have been established firmly. The path of curiosity inevitably leads toward uncharted territory, and, instead of cautioning against the unknown for fear of failure, we should encourage the young to forge ahead-- this is something that most parents will not do, because the unknown is frightening. To raise a scientist, I assume it might also be helpful (but not ethical) to have a complex series of lies / unprovable or counterfactual stories to tell to the child as though they were truth, so that they may have practice in combating poor thought or ignorance, another critical task that scientists must perform at all times to the best of their ability. In short: first cultivate a hunger for knowledge, and then a hunger for facts, and finally a hunger for truth.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think the biggest obstacle to raising scientists and engineers is... parents. Especially if they are overcaucious and subscribe to the popular belief that technology is evil and kids should play football outside. Kids are naturally curious, and it takes effort to screw that up. Also, there are tried and true methods of increasing chances that a kid will grow up with interest in science and engineering. Unfortunately, they are very uncomfortable to the mainstream views. Some examples: - let kids have free time, instead of structuring their every waking minute - give kids lots of unsupervised computer time - you can't do anything but play stupid games if you only have strict time limits, but if they are not worried about using up their weekly allowance, they may start doing some creative stuff (including discovering programming) - don't mind kids learning how to break stuff, or literally blow shit up - maybe even encourage them; that especially includes pyrotechnics - let them read the book past midnight - don't obsess too much about grades - realize that doing science often literally looks like being less social than peers and involves not going out to play football every evening And above all, - be patient
- HiLo 11y ago
  I think this is generally great advice, not just for raising scientists.
- optimuspaul 11y ago
  That's great advice until you realize that your kids are just spending all that computer time watching stupid YouTube videos and not actually learning anything at all except "What are those?" Time will tell though... I know I wasted a lot of time as a kid, but that was pre-internet, I had to read books to learn things.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    You have to accept that kids will spend a lot of time doing stupid shit. That's the part of learning experience. But at some point there may come a moment when a kid starts to wonder how to make stupid shit like what they saw, and there is the opportunity for them to learn creative/technical stuff. But they won't get that chance with hard, strict limits - then there's only time to watch. BTW. I personally wouldn't discount even the educational value of stupid YouTube videos. Kids pull a lot more out of media than adults do. We see just a funny clip, but for a kid it's a way to learn a new language, learn new phrases of the native language, learn some culture, etc.
stillsut 11y ago
The big difference today is how ruthless the competition is to position yourself for a rewarding career in science. Even at a young age, you need to be setting yourself apart with accomplishments not just curiosity. If you were to read the the autobiography of many of today's top scientists like E.O. Wilson [0], they explicitly say that they wouldn't be accepted into hard science program today with a childhood spent collecting bugs. So the "scary" part of little Johnny going through an Xbox phase for a few years is that even if he comes out the other side curious about the natural world, little Suzy has already entered the Intel Science Fair, made connections at a research university, etc. [0]: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-Wilson/dp/1491525908 http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-Wilson/...
- stuxnet79 11y ago
  This is essentially the issue. Having a head start matters. A lot. I went through a phase where I played a lot of video games. I don't regret any of it, but I feel like if I was in a more rigorous high school and had exposure to advanced material I would have benefited from it.
metasean 11y ago
I'd like to offer Robert Scherrer, the author of this article, some cheese with his whine. > But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids in my own refrigerator. I was a student in a mostly remote, freshman college science class. Other than our one week on campus, all of our chemistry "experiments" were done with things we had in our house or that could be bought at any corner store. There are plenty of people who do this for a variety of reasons - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp (And since he seems to think that getting in trouble is important, I feel the need to point out that you can still get in trouble with chemicals found around the house - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches . Tangent, many years ago I had a friend who did not know this – until he landed in the ER after mixing way too many and varied household cleaners.) > Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside. Not if you have a minimally knowledgeable mentor (i.e. knowledgeable enough to know how to lookup what you find online). If you have a kid and aren't able to be their knowledgeable mentor, you and your kid/s really should check out your closest makerspace/s. >Yet how can we expect junior scientists to daydream, when they can be playing computer games instead? Give them games with scientific content, e.g. - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx - http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-educational-games/ http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-edu... In fact, there's an emerging field of education focused on Game-Based Learning: - http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-works-and-where-its-going.html http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-w... - http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html And look, there's even some hyper-relevant research Becoming Chemists through Game-Based Inquiry Learning: The Case of "Legends of Alkhimia" - http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 / http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 that shows... >Two evaluation criteria were used: (1) effectiveness of separation, and (2) demonstration of conceptual understanding of chemistry. We found that the Alkhimia students significantly outperformed the control students when assessed on the extent to which effective separation was achieved in the students' proposed solution (t75 = 2.56, p = 0.026) and when assessed with respect to conceptual understanding of chemistry in the separation task (t75 = 3.41, p = 0.002).
sliverstorm 11y ago
In my case, the simple lack of money was my teacher. (That, and the internet) I couldn't afford a computer, but I wanted one badly. I learned used Xboxes ($100) could run Linux with some elbow grease. So I put together every dime I had and bought one. A week later the hard drive died, so I had to learn to replace that (found an e-waste spindle, learned to hack the Xbox to accept unlocked drives). And it turns out the VGA adapter had to be hand-made with parts from DigiKey. Then old corroded traces started failing. Debacle after debacle, I killed that thing and resurrected it, again and again. Viola, I began to learn tremendous amounts about things that had before been utter black boxes. Probably the single biggest impetuous to me working in technology.

41 points by tokenadult 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Non-paywalled version: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwikuqzamOPJAhVH5GMKHVi1AM4QqQIIHTAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fhow-to-raise-a-scientist-in-the-xbox-age-1450137781&usg=AFQjCNHxMlufWbRKKNMcUl9xQEXT0gUJdA&sig2=1v9nQygIHlbdtvDzsHtyxQ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

richenglish 11y ago
The quick suggestion at the end of buying your kid a mechanical clock and a screwdriver is great. Going shopping later today.
- rustynails77 11y ago
  Pulling apart appliances is a great idea. I've had that in the back of my mind but pushed it back for too long. Thanks for the reminder. This article reflects some of my own views. I moderate my kids' access time to electronic games very tightly. We have frequent group discussions on things we've seen, done, learned, etc. The conversations are really amazing and are a good lead-in to bedtime. It shouldn't surprise me, but I often hear more intelligent conversation from my kids than I do from most media sources. In fact, we sometimes analyse places like The Verge for their prejudice as an exercise in critical thinking around flawed arguments and fallacies. We look at youtube for history, engineering and biology videos. We've developed board games, Rube Goldberg machines, flying craft, gone on bike hikes, looked at water safety... If you live in the suburbs and you look in your local area, there are many free educational community activities too. We've looked at construction, robotics, software and sports activities to name a few. We even make up our own learning activities. Eg. we went shopping together and discussed food priorities, food costs for equivalent items, set a budget, discussed buying local v/s imported food, etc. There are learning opportunities all around. I feel that education on computers is over-rated and critical thinking outside of a computer is underrated. It just takes a lot of time and energy. I usually put in a weekend of planning about a month before school holidays.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    It is a great idea, just do your homework first as there are some non-obvious dangers in some devices like old tube style tv's and microwaves.
  - lfowles 11y ago
    I don't know, I opened up (too) many toys and appliances as a kid and the only thing I learned was how to open things up. As far as I was concerned, the resistors in there were lined up in a pentagram to summon the proper amounts of electrical current. Guided disassembly would have been much less frustrating for me (in terms of learning) and my parents (in terms of me not being able to reassemble everything quite perfectly... or playing bomb defuser)
- radiorental 11y ago
  My boys (3 & 5) love wrenching on old lawnmower engines. The trick is not to find something for them to work on, it's leading by example. They will do what they see you doing, up to a certain age. I have a sheet of paper from daycare, pride of place in my office, that reads "What do you want to learn this year? I want to learn about making projects" It never fails to warm my heart
bryanlarsen 11y ago
Hint: there's a link just under the title labelled "web" that does the same thing.

chc4 11y ago

Anecdotal maybe, but I got interested in computer science because of video games. I learned programming from messing around with the online game Roblox, which is essentially a game engine with Lua scripting support. I played lots of games, wanted to learn how to make the same thing myself, and discovered the wonderful world of programming. A majority of the programmers I am friends with I met through Roblox, and have been friends with ever since, and all of them got into programming the same way.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Same here. My first attempts at programming were using basic to make a Zork-like game and then also, a failed, attempt at making a BBS from scratch. Ten year olds shouldn't be writing login authentications btw. Clear-text passwords in a bunch of IF statements are probably a bad idea. I don't think most people appreciate how much kids want to not only emulate people in their lives, but also build things in their lives. I love that its so easy to google help for making things. Want to make a longboard or a full-size R2D2 model? There's so much documentation out there. If anything, we're in the golden age of DIY and things like videogames and other "distractions" are actually motivators for creative kids.
tribune 11y ago
Ditto. My curiosity grew out of the computer games I was playing, and my first "game" was "Guess the Number" written in TI-BASIC for my TI-83 calculator.
eecks 11y ago
My interest in CS/programming came from the Internet but my interest in the Internet came as a direct result of gaming.
- fokinsean 11y ago
  Me too. I played tons of xbox in high school (Halo 2/3 CoD 4), but when I went to college my gaming time went essentially to zero. However I decided to pick up CS because I thought it would be really cool to understand how computers and game systems worked. I just recently graduated and picked up the new xbox since I have some free time now. I ran into an issue playing Halo 5 where I kept getting disconnected from the game, and it turns out it is a bug in the networking software in combination with the "instant on" feature that was causing it. My networks class gave me a decent enough background where I can actually understand the bug is. I thought that was pretty cool! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438 http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438

bluedino 11y ago

Scientists were raised in the 'Nintendo age'. Scientists were raised in the 'TV' age. Scientists were raised in whatever kids wasted their time doing before TV.

rubidium 11y ago
This scientist was raised in the Nintendo/ TV age, but with parents who limited my time at such activities. Spending time outside was mandatory. Boredom followed by inventing games/tearing stuff apart was frequent. There's certainly no 100% foolproof method to raising a scientist (and I think that'd be a terrible parenting goal :), but there may be things to learn here. It would be fascinating to have a study of current 25-35 year olds occupations and parenting rules. Perhaps it's been done? (a few rules that could be asked about "limited screen time", punishment (e.g. spanking, timeout), being sent "outside", etc...).
- tlarkworthy 11y ago
  My father would not get me a Nintendo and instead gave me something programmable (a BBC). He said I was free to buy a Nintendo though which I obviously could not afford. So I programmed until I was old enough to get a weekend job at 15, and I bought and sold games a lot. Good moves Father! The value of money and a programming career.
tokenadult 11y ago
My childhood best friend, after whom my oldest son is named, is a scientist. (At one time his job title was "senior scientist" at the manufacturing corporation where he then worked. Now he uses his training as an electrical engineer to do research on critical safety issues for a consulting firm that advises the thriving medical device industry here in the Twin Cities.) He and I grew up in the Boob Tube age of TV. But he watched a LOT less TV than I did while growing up, because when he was three years old, the family TV set broke, and his dad, who was a mechanic for a manufacturing company in town, decided that watching TV was a waste of time, so he didn't fix the TV. Instead, my friend grew up building things at home, including an electronic organ (which is one of several musical instruments he can play) and one of the first home-built microcomputers. (His older brother met Bill Gates at a computer-building convention a long time ago, and could have been a Microsoft employee with a single-digit employee number. Oh well.) Simply put, I think as a parent of four children that active avoidance of time-wasting activities is helpful for children's development. Children need time for thinking and daydreaming and reverie, but too much entertainment can take time away from those valuable activities. Richard Rusczyk, a founder of the Art of Problem Solving Foundation, comments that if video games were commonplace during his childhood, he probably would not have learned as much about problem-solving as he did while growing up. Part of a parent's job is making sure that children don't gorge themselves on candy or on nondevelopmental personal activities. Those things need to be experienced in moderation. P.S. I recently worked as a math teacher in a private middle school. Don't even get me started on pervasive use of iPads in school classrooms.

tribune 11y ago

> Modern children are also deprived of another key ingredient that has powered many a young person down the road to a career in science: boredom, and lots of it. I've always had a little pet theory that boredom is actually a major driver behind a lot of innovations, and doesn't just matter in children.

radiorental 11y ago
Agreed. Boredom is a motivator, the issue is how it's relieved. The easy fix is gaming, it's like junk food for boredom hunger. Take away the junk food and you get reading/tinkering/creative play etc etc.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I disagree about it; I'd say gaming is actually a great way to exercise creativity and to progress to more... practical stuff. There is, on the other hand, one "easy fix" that most kids end up taking - it is spending time with people. Hanging out. It's an infinite time sink. You can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best at inventing something new to do or experience. Except if all the kids do is hanging out with each other, they aren't exactly learning much. So I guess it depends on who you want your kid to become. If you're aiming for a "people person", then by all means, cut out computer time. But if you want an engineer, I'd personally stick with video games.
  - lfowles 11y ago
    > You can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best at inventing something new to do or experience. That sounds like a driver of innovation too! Maybe the real issue is that kids should be taught motivational skills to make hanging out "productive".

mydpy 11y ago

Bah. Paywall. And yeah, I still play video games. And I'm a scientist. Actually, video games probably helped develop my scientific mind. I wish video games wouldn't be equivalent to drivel in the eyes of casual observers. There is so much more to gaming.

michaelbuddy 11y ago

I think of long ago when people would put in countless hours on projects because they had less distractions. But I've also found people will still put in countless hours on projects. Including grinding on xbox games, but also electronic and web / digital / app building feats. Even if we have less scientist types and more distracted types, we have a way to instantly connect the ground breaking scientist / builders so that their work can be modified by us less gifted distracted losers.

ohblahitsme 11y ago

Man this article screams "kids today blah blah blah" and is totally ill founded. I was born in 1993 and grew up with video games and now I'm a scientist (anecdotal I know, but this article isn't scientific either). Being a scientist is about asking questions that intrigue you and finding the answer to them. People who want to do this will do this regardless of whether or not they play video games (or do any other leisurely activity like Netflix bingeing).

qp9384btv_2e 11y ago
21, 22 year old scientist?
- ohblahitsme 11y ago
  Yep, 22!
  - gmtgmt 11y ago
    happy to hear that, it proves my hunch on the matter
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > hunch Isn't it what we called "basic arithmetics" back in the day? :).
coldpie 11y ago
Things are different from they were when I grew up, therefore things are bad!

FussyZeus 11y ago

"Kids these days weren't as $X as my generation, they should do $Y instead of $Z because that's what I did." I'm pretty sure you could find variants of this scrawled into a cave wall in the cradle of civilization if you looked hard enough.

ghostDancer 11y ago
The famous Socrates quote : https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-love-luxury-they-have-bad-manners-contempt https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-love...

socket0 11y ago

> Try taking apart a modern cellphone or a laptop computer. > Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the > inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside. I remember taking apart old radios as a child in the 70s, marvelling at the colourful transistors and resistors. But I had no way of knowing what exactly these were, and even less of a clue as to how it all worked. So sure, it's hard to intuit how a smartphone or a computer works just by looking at the insides. But today's budding scientists have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, and will be able to find diagrams and schematics for a lot of devices, and a large number of sites explaining what every component is and how it works. You don't raise scientists, you give them interesting toys to play with, and they simply raise themselves.

adaml_623 11y ago
I disagree a little bit with you. One clock radio I pulled apart had a mechanical time display and while the radio was indeed an inscrutable PCB covered in components it matched the level of complexity I expected to see. Nowadays the complexity is hidden under a smooth patch of black plastic that can have smart phone levels of complexity internally and no hint at the that from the outside. Obviously it's swings and roundabouts since you can indeed find a wealth of information online about any of these subjects but sometimes it feels like it's harder to kindle the initial fire of curiosity.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  ICs are literal magic black boxes. The same-looking square can be the brain of a device, a stone that knows where it is, a full-blown radar[0], or just two capacitors and an op amp. And you can't tell by just looking at it; the only visual difference is in the magic runes written on the dark stone. [0] - https://www.google.com/atap/project-soli/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-soli/
xorcist 11y ago
That's partially true. One important difference is that a lot of electronics had schematics available. I know for a fact our TV had one, taped to the inside of the chassis. I was deeply fascinated by the intricate schematics at the time. I could spend hours designing my own, copying from the symbol language, but putting them together in ways I thought was beautiful.

cryoshon 11y ago

As a scientist, I was amused by a simplistic representation of what the "scientist" class of people need to be happy in the game Anno 2205. In order for the scientists to be happy, they need (aside from subsistence food, water, and lowbrow entertainment): luxury food, stimulants, computers, replicators, and secrecy. In my experience, all of the above (save for replicators, which are slated to be essential but not yet developed) are critical to being a scientist. But, how do we produce scientists? By fostering open minded curiosity and its cousin, wonder, then introducing critical thought as a guide once the former two have been established firmly. The path of curiosity inevitably leads toward uncharted territory, and, instead of cautioning against the unknown for fear of failure, we should encourage the young to forge ahead-- this is something that most parents will not do, because the unknown is frightening. To raise a scientist, I assume it might also be helpful (but not ethical) to have a complex series of lies / unprovable or counterfactual stories to tell to the child as though they were truth, so that they may have practice in combating poor thought or ignorance, another critical task that scientists must perform at all times to the best of their ability. In short: first cultivate a hunger for knowledge, and then a hunger for facts, and finally a hunger for truth.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I think the biggest obstacle to raising scientists and engineers is... parents. Especially if they are overcaucious and subscribe to the popular belief that technology is evil and kids should play football outside. Kids are naturally curious, and it takes effort to screw that up. Also, there are tried and true methods of increasing chances that a kid will grow up with interest in science and engineering. Unfortunately, they are very uncomfortable to the mainstream views. Some examples: - let kids have free time, instead of structuring their every waking minute - give kids lots of unsupervised computer time - you can't do anything but play stupid games if you only have strict time limits, but if they are not worried about using up their weekly allowance, they may start doing some creative stuff (including discovering programming) - don't mind kids learning how to break stuff, or literally blow shit up - maybe even encourage them; that especially includes pyrotechnics - let them read the book past midnight - don't obsess too much about grades - realize that doing science often literally looks like being less social than peers and involves not going out to play football every evening And above all, - be patient

HiLo 11y ago
I think this is generally great advice, not just for raising scientists.
optimuspaul 11y ago
That's great advice until you realize that your kids are just spending all that computer time watching stupid YouTube videos and not actually learning anything at all except "What are those?" Time will tell though... I know I wasted a lot of time as a kid, but that was pre-internet, I had to read books to learn things.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  You have to accept that kids will spend a lot of time doing stupid shit. That's the part of learning experience. But at some point there may come a moment when a kid starts to wonder how to make stupid shit like what they saw, and there is the opportunity for them to learn creative/technical stuff. But they won't get that chance with hard, strict limits - then there's only time to watch. BTW. I personally wouldn't discount even the educational value of stupid YouTube videos. Kids pull a lot more out of media than adults do. We see just a funny clip, but for a kid it's a way to learn a new language, learn new phrases of the native language, learn some culture, etc.

stillsut 11y ago

The big difference today is how ruthless the competition is to position yourself for a rewarding career in science. Even at a young age, you need to be setting yourself apart with accomplishments not just curiosity. If you were to read the the autobiography of many of today's top scientists like E.O. Wilson [0], they explicitly say that they wouldn't be accepted into hard science program today with a childhood spent collecting bugs. So the "scary" part of little Johnny going through an Xbox phase for a few years is that even if he comes out the other side curious about the natural world, little Suzy has already entered the Intel Science Fair, made connections at a research university, etc. [0]: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-Wilson/dp/1491525908 http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-Wilson/...

stuxnet79 11y ago
This is essentially the issue. Having a head start matters. A lot. I went through a phase where I played a lot of video games. I don't regret any of it, but I feel like if I was in a more rigorous high school and had exposure to advanced material I would have benefited from it.

metasean 11y ago

I'd like to offer Robert Scherrer, the author of this article, some cheese with his whine. > But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids in my own refrigerator. I was a student in a mostly remote, freshman college science class. Other than our one week on campus, all of our chemistry "experiments" were done with things we had in our house or that could be bought at any corner store. There are plenty of people who do this for a variety of reasons - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp (And since he seems to think that getting in trouble is important, I feel the need to point out that you can still get in trouble with chemicals found around the house - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches . Tangent, many years ago I had a friend who did not know this – until he landed in the ER after mixing way too many and varied household cleaners.) > Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside. Not if you have a minimally knowledgeable mentor (i.e. knowledgeable enough to know how to lookup what you find online). If you have a kid and aren't able to be their knowledgeable mentor, you and your kid/s really should check out your closest makerspace/s. >Yet how can we expect junior scientists to daydream, when they can be playing computer games instead? Give them games with scientific content, e.g. - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx - http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-educational-games/ http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-edu... In fact, there's an emerging field of education focused on Game-Based Learning: - http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-works-and-where-its-going.html http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-w... - http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html And look, there's even some hyper-relevant research Becoming Chemists through Game-Based Inquiry Learning: The Case of "Legends of Alkhimia" - http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 / http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 that shows... >Two evaluation criteria were used: (1) effectiveness of separation, and (2) demonstration of conceptual understanding of chemistry. We found that the Alkhimia students significantly outperformed the control students when assessed on the extent to which effective separation was achieved in the students' proposed solution (t75 = 2.56, p = 0.026) and when assessed with respect to conceptual understanding of chemistry in the separation task (t75 = 3.41, p = 0.002).

sliverstorm 11y ago

In my case, the simple lack of money was my teacher. (That, and the internet) I couldn't afford a computer, but I wanted one badly. I learned used Xboxes ($100) could run Linux with some elbow grease. So I put together every dime I had and bought one. A week later the hard drive died, so I had to learn to replace that (found an e-waste spindle, learned to hack the Xbox to accept unlocked drives). And it turns out the VGA adapter had to be hand-made with parts from DigiKey. Then old corroded traces started failing. Debacle after debacle, I killed that thing and resurrected it, again and again. Viola, I began to learn tremendous amounts about things that had before been utter black boxes. Probably the single biggest impetuous to me working in technology.