15 ms·

Kids can't use computers (2013)

181 points by jjuhl 10y ago

jmnicolas 10y ago
So he shames people that are clueless with a computer but at the end admits he's the same with his car. The truth is nobody can master everything so there's no reason to feel superior to someone that is clueless in your domain.
- zeehr0 10y ago
  You gotta be fucking kidding me! Did you skip the fucking Cameron section? Or the fucking "technologies that shape our future"? This is not some new-age crap. We are talking about things which are leading our lives. We are teaching our kids to be puppets of "tech savy masters". Worst of all, people who legislate about it know shit about computers, and they're probably repeating everything a corporate cocksucker told them to say. So, it's not shaming people about "you're no master at this field", it's about "you sold your fucking life for a few commodities". And sorry about the fucking vote up in your comment, I'm drunk as hell, couldn't click the fucking right button.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  You bring up a good point. What is the social expectation of competence in these areas? In the USA it is assumed a man can change a tire, do basic handyman stuff, etc. But is there a social equivelent in tech? At what point are techs just keyboard moneys to the masses like mechanics are now? Its odd, as the two share much. The average modern mechanic now knows hex, rom flashing, checksums, and some basic networking, in addition to metalurgy, gas/vapor flow, and customer service. The complexity has increased dramatically, but social respect has not.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I expect people to be able to connect devices, since the ports are labeled and shape matched. (And often color coded, too.) I expect people to be able to perform slightly-nontrivial Google searches ('site:' and similar tags; Boolean operators). I expect people to have the equivalent of "electrons flow in copper" (electricity) or "explosions push the pistons" (ICEs) level of understanding of what's in a computer and what it does, what the internet is and how traffic flows across it. Now, the reasons some of these don't happen is poor teaching materials, but I think we need to get to that point -- where everyone knows at least those things -- before we can sanely discuss technology as a society. Democracy will break down -- is breaking down -- because most of the electorate refuses to know even the basics of one of the major social forces.
  - awfgylbcxhrey 10y ago
    But is there a social equivelent in tech? If anything, in tech, "anyone who doesn't know exactly what I know is an idiot" send to be the dominant attitude. And management generally sees anyone in tech as a socially stunted weirdo who is overhead rather than an investment. like mechanics are now? Where are you that mechanics are so disrespected?
- tritosomal 10y ago
  Did he "shame" people, or write an article about the vapidity of common computer use? At this point people who remain willfully clueless will suffer serious disadvantages, as computers start to make decisions for them, before they decide for themselves. We pretend that machine learning has only good intentions and is pure of heart. It may seem like that now, but it won't last forever. Not every artificial learning system will play nice.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    It's not even true now. Facebook has psychologists on staff seeking to manipulate your emotions for Facebook's benefit using ML and other tech.
  - tps5 10y ago
    Explain to me how this line of reasoning doesn't apply to your car. Or flying in an airplane. Or doing your taxes. Or a million other things. By living in a "modern society," we're trusting in so many things that we do not thoroughly understand. In some way, this is the principle that makes human "progress" possible. If every individual had to be competent in a given area in order to benefit from/take part in that area then things would move much more slowly. Of course there are clear disadvantages to taking part in activities that we do not fully understand. We will make sub-optimal decisions because of our ignorance. But in sum, this isn't a problem. In sum, we gain a lot by organizing things this way. Ignorance isn't good. It isn't ideal. But it's a necessary feature of human societies, and articles like this just come off as nasty and mean spirited.
    - tritosomal 10y ago
      I think "this time it's different" for reasons that aren't clear yet, but for technical people, has been an ominous fear for some decades. It comes to this: Computer Systems aren't simply inert turing machines we can pull the plug on anymore. We are letting them off the leash and they are moving on their own out in the world, and they are making decisions to interact as peers or better within our social structures. The car analogy [0] doesn't work anymore because cars are starting to drive themselves. If you put this into an ecological premise, consider that we've been at the top of the food chain, above all other animals, and we have dominated the biosphere for a million or more years. Now we are introducing machines as peers and they may soon dominate us, if we're not careful. Look at the examples in the article, and consider that malfunctioning wi-fi might illustrate how poorly equipped most people are, to confront machines that don't act in their best interests. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_analogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_analogy
- badsock 10y ago
  Cars are vastly less important than computers.
  - badsock 10y ago
    To clarify: we're talking about being able to operate things. If you had to choose between being banned from using any computer for the next 20 years, or being banned from operating motor vehicles for the same time period, which do you think would disrupt a typical person's life more? I mean, how would you even apply to anything other than an entry level job without being able to submit your CV online, or use a word processor? Think of all the professions you couldn't do at all: doctor, accountant, etc. Even in places like sub-sarahan Africa, losing access to the computer-that's-a-phone would be a major impediment. In contrast, there's lots of people who haven't driven a car in the last year that are perfectly well integrated into society.
    - recursive 10y ago
      There are also lots of people that don't use computers in the last year that are perfectly well integrated into society. I think you're overestimating the necessity of computers. I can't understand why a doctor would be required to use a computer.
      - aplummer 10y ago
        I don't know about your doctor but mine uses his computer to see my medical records, including before I moved to the city. Also he prints prescriptions.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      No, we're talking about being to maintain things. If you can use your computer but don't know how to fix things when they break, then you pay someone to fix it for you. That's what this article is complaining about: people who don't know how to fix issues with their computer, or don't use it in the most 'optimal' way.
blakesterz 10y ago
So that's a long read... some good points buried in there, I guess it's good to provoke conversation in this area. Worth a read at least, much to agree with, much to disagree with. >> Mobile has killed technical competence. Yeah, maybe, probably? So many sweeping generalizations throughout. It's hard to pick out everything that feels wrong, but I don't know about this... >>Not really knowing how to use a computer is deemed acceptable if you're twenty-five or over. I've not thought this to be true for a couple of decades now. Anyone* over 40 has been using computers for most of their life at this point. * Yes, not literally anyone, maybe "Anyone reading this" is more accurate.
- samirillian 10y ago
  Well, his first inaccuracy is claiming that cats don't make the internet better.
- uiri 10y ago
  "Anyone reading this" isn't in the population of people who don't know how to use a computer. Contrary to the beliefs of many people over the age of 40, being born around the time that the personal computer or the Internet or mobile phones were invented and took off does not make one any better with computers. The general population under 30 is just as clueless as, if not even more clueless than, the generations before them when it comes to computers.
- api 10y ago
  Mobile supplied an acceptable device for doing most things a non technical person wants to do with a computer. This killed the advancement of technical competence but I'm not sure it set it back much. There have never been that many people who really get computers beyond the UI. Most people don't know how to fix a car either. That being said, I do hate on mobile often for being closed and locked. PCs could provide a friendly UI that led people gently into more tech savvy levels, while mobile seems to lead nowhere.
dang 10y ago
Big discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730.
jccalhoun 10y ago
The author is correct when he writes, "The truth is, kids can't use general purpose computers, and neither can most of the adults I know" but he goes much further than I think is really necessary or even realistic. I teach at a liberal arts college and in most of my classes I devote a day or two to researching and evaluating sources. I ask them "How can to determine if a web site is credible?" and in every class I get a significant number of students say "If it is a .org, .gov, or .edu" Who is telling these kids this? This week I had one class take an online survey and gave them a bit.ly link. I just cut and pasted it from bit.ly into notepad to make the font large enough that they could read it on the screen. In a class of ~35 I had 3-4 that were having problems. They were putting the url into google. At least one was typing in the "http://" http://" that I had just cut and pasted. Of course it was on his phone so he had to find the punctuation. THen ther are the students who submit .gdoc or .pages files and when I tell them to export the files to .docx or .rtf they say they don't have word. First off, you can download MS Office for free from the university. Secondly, you can export from google docs and pages to word files. Of course this is not the majority of students but it is easily 1 in 10. So whenever I see something about "digital natives" I roll my eyes. Until I have a colleague freak out about having to use the online gradebook the university is now making us use instead of a paper one because that person doesn't know how to do it.
- kenning 10y ago
  The other day I bought a backpack at a skateboard shop and a girl working there said she didn't own a laptop -- just a smartphone. I can absolutely see this becoming common in the near future as phones become even more useful. With a chromecast you can even watch netflix without a laptop, which takes away the main use I have for one aside from coding.
  - Wofiel 10y ago
    Or the Netflix app on their smart TV, things like that will only get more common.
  - dkersten 10y ago
    I already do everything except for programming on an iPad and iPhone. I can program on the iPad (by sshing into a digital ocean droplet) but it's not quite good enough for me to use exclusively. I'd happily give up using a laptop if I could make programming work comfortably for me. If you don't need specialised tools, I personally think a tablet is much nicer than a laptop. A phone is basically just a smaller tablet.
gjkood 10y ago
I think we have to recognize that the use of the computer has changed over time. It's no longer the "computing" device that the users of yore recognize. Before the late seventies, the use of computers were restricted to those who absolutely needed them and could afford them. In the late seventies and early eighties the computers started entering the homes of ordinary people and where primarily used by the 'nerdy' kids. These were the kids that actually used the computers to program things and even program their own games (or copy/import other freely available game source code) and played them. Come the nineties and we see the proliferation of high end games and the 'non-nerdy' users focused on using the computer as a game console. This was also the advent of the web browser and now the whole new world of the internet became accessible to the normal folks. The audience today considers the computer as nothing but a commodity device just like a phone or an MP3 player. Now babies and toddlers are as comfortable with them as their grandparents are still confused with them. You can't blame the kids of today for not knowing what the computer was originally used for. We read email, browse the web, play games and occasionally use it for the odd assignments which require a Word processor of some sort.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  I don't think anyone is blaming the kids, they're blaming those PR/marketing people who go on talking about "digital natives".
CoryG89 10y ago
How can we expect our kids to be able to use computers when their schools are censoring the word "proxy" from their web searches? And really? No YouTube? Give me a break. The difference between a prison and a grade school? Prisoners have rights.
- philamonster 10y ago
  FWIW safe-guarding YouTube and Google searches can be quite a challenge. Using restricted mode and DNS config may not be an option if anyone in district uses Live Stream as any "streamed" content will be blocked by default as there is no active way to determine what the stream is. So if you choose not use these methods of filtering within YouTube you are left with video suggestions that could be less than appropriate for a myriad of reasons as well as the content readily available with normal YouTube search. And even if Google searches are filtered using methods recommended by Google in the browser there are image searches done within their various services, Slides for example, that are either not filtered or not filtered the same way forcesafesearch and nosslsearch work. Not to mention Microsoft's DNAME functionality in W2K12+ breaking if any non-security update is installed rendering anything done to leverage DNS+forcesafesearch (using MS only) moot.
  - fredsted 10y ago
    Maybe don't safe guard at all. My school sure didn't (back in early 2000s). I turned out fine. Anyways, most kids can just jump on their 4G connection and browse anything from there, right?
    - philamonster 10y ago
      As far as I know there aren't many K-3 students with cell phones. And cell signal in a lot of the schools I've been is less than desirable but I do see your point. Not all schools allow students to carry a cell phone either. There are multiple levels of restriction with YouTube that are geared towards primary and secondary age groups.
- Retr0spectrum 10y ago
johnchristopher 10y ago
I don't know. I read it before and I agree. Heck, I've defended that point of view on the net in the past. But I have spent most of the last 2 days surfing the net looking for information on which models of lightbulbs and washer pump I should buy for my car. Eventually I managed to track down and figure out the manufacturer serial number patterns and I was able to order the things (hoping the washer pump manufacturer I randomly chose delivers quality products) but I haven't yet found how to safely disconnect the battery of my - specific - car so I can perform the maintenance operation (which I am told is fairly easy). So that is going to take me 2 days (at best) to fix my washer pump and change a lightbulb (how many HNers does it take ?). Any mechanic `geek` could fix it in 30 minutes. But I decided I am not going to shell out $120 to have that done. Yeah me and the hacker ethos. My point is: I never had any proper mechanical courses in high school so I can see why today's kids can't find files or drivers or proxy settings (which reminds me of the f* proxy at work that is still getting on my nerves sometimes) or how to sort columns in excel even with the internet at their fingertips.
- Kluny 10y ago
  I see the parallel, but I don't think it's all that parallel. I'm in a similar situation right now with a motorcycle battery. My bike stopped working last Friday - 8 days and counting now. It took 2 days before I had time to go out and have a look at it. Then I had to come inside and look up a video to find the non-obvious location of the battery. I used a multimeter to check the charge on the battery, but I don't have a real tester to tell me the health of the battery. The multimeter seemed to be telling me it's fine. It took it to a local auto parts store to be sure, but the kid at the counter was even less sure than I was. So I took it into work the next day and walked to a motorcycle dealership to have it tested there. Yes, the battery is dead, no they don't have one... There are several more episodes in this story (which hasn't ended yet), but the point is that this would have been a 30 minute job if I had a SHOP and TOOLS and LIGHTS and the ability to work on it uninterrupted for a little while. The fact that it's taken 8 days is almost entirely down to the fact that I live in an apartment building and my tools are in storage right now. But the beauty of computers is that everything you need is contained on the device, and you can work from anywhere. If only more people would take advantage of it!
lucb1e 10y ago
TL;DR (239 words, 1 minute reading) I told a colleague, whom isn't tech savvy, that contrary to her belief, most kids aren't digital natives. They all can't use computers. Examples of people who can't use computers are mostly the obvious (plug in the ethernet cable; turn on the display; turn on the wireless switch in an OS of your choice); one is a bit harder (reinstall Windows). Parents did it all wrong, fixing everything for their children without teaching them how to do it themselves. The UK asked the industry what should be taught and Microsoft told them Microsoft Office, so now that's what they know. People aren't used to a command line anymore. Why should we care? Tomorrow's people are going to be creating laws regarding computers, enforcing laws regarding computers, educating the youth about computers, reporting in the media about computers and lobbying politicians about computers. All while not being able to use a computer. How to fix it? Stop fixing things for your kids. Schools should teach not to install malware instead of locking down machines. Teach how to stay safe on-line. Adopt a responsible disclosure model instead of punishing kids in school for hacking things. At least play around with Linux and powershell and stuff. I've owned a car for most of my adult life yet I wouldn't know how to fix one. It's a recurring problem with computers. Yet I want to build a generation of hackers. Who's with me? --- End of TLDR. --- That took the author 4165 words in story mode (and me about 30 minutes to read, including this summary). This, author, is why you were probably asked for a TLDR in the past and why you write "gtfo you stupid fuck" as a TLDR on top: it takes forever like this. And be honest, author, did I miss anything? Other than clipped sentences, should anything more be included to get that message across? Now as for my own commentary, I more or less agreed up to the "Why" part. I mean, yeah, digital self defense is important but not for everyone. If a subset of the population in every country knows it, we're good right? You even admit to not knowing how to fix your own car, yet without explaining how this is different you expect us to understand that it is different somehow? I'd like to see people be a little bit more tech savvy, but not as much as you seem to think is necessary before not calling someone computer illiterate anymore.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Thank you for the public service tl;dr version. Should be compulsory on any article this long. I experience this 'digital natives' lie first hand from my younger family members, it's really disheartening but unlike the author I don't think it's all that important. Compared to social media induced passivity being tech illiterate is inconsequential.
ashread123 10y ago
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stcredzero 10y ago
In the 80's, the local arcade owner in a podunk rural town could put up a random arcade machine from Japan, and the local kids would figure out how to play it. (Then lose interest, because it was some stupid movie tie-in thing.) In the 80's, kids would run out of games on their dad's personal computer, then start typing in source code for additional games from paper magazines, and accidentally teach themselves how to program. I know this. I was one of those kids. Necessity is the mother of invention. Boredom is a fantastic motivator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=135s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=135s
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Those machines generally had instructions on the attract screen and the ones that were too hard to figure out didn't get played. (Source: I was one of those kids too)
- smilbandit 10y ago
  my first adventure in programming was changing a snake program to use different ascii characters. then that got boring so i taught myself a little bit of basic so i could make it put random letters on the screen so i could move the snake around and eat letters to spell out bad words in the snake.
  - gvurrdon 10y ago
    Mine was altering a BASIC space shooter so that one's laser beams would fire directly at the location of the target without having to manoeuvre so it was in one's crosshairs. The hacking was more fun than the game became after my modification.
- pitaj 10y ago
  This sounds like confirmation bias. I'm sure that this happened, but I doubt it resulted in any more kids being interested in and competent with computers. After all, I have similar anecdotes, and I grew up in the 2000s. I know several friends who that would also apply to. Generationally, I think the number of people able to accomplish intermediate computer maintenance as described in the article is probably about the same across the board. This article has one good point in my eyes: if you want people to learn, make them do it themselves. When my younger brother asks me, "how do I do [thing I know about], I tell him to Google it, first. Then I'll help him work the kinks out after he's at least tried to do something himself.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Speaking as a kid who does know how to use computers, this phenomenon infuriates me. There is a special place in hell for people who claim to be "1337 h4x0rs", but have less skills than the average script kiddie. Especially if they spew BS to make themselves look good to their peers.
dri_ft 10y ago
> To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She'd be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs and snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can't display her PowerPoint on the IWB she'll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with. > I've heard this sentence so many times now from students and staff, that I have a stock reaction. Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD. This is an emergency.... Hello, Mister President, I'm afraid I have some bad news. I've just been informed that The Internet is not working.' Yes, it's a mystery how anyone could form the preconception that computer geeks don't socialize well.
- Kluny 10y ago
  It's a funny joke if you pick the right audience. The woman in this story wasn't the right audience, so he had the sense to contain himself. Doesn't seem that bad.
- brachi 10y ago
  > that I have a stock reaction "It's the email that's stupid, not you, right?" 'Nick Burns' from SNL in real life. https://vimeo.com/148822564 https://vimeo.com/148822564
imdsm 10y ago
And there I was compiling Gentoo at 13 because I liked the colours.
aeturnum 10y ago
I think this article is one big categorical error. The author is not talking about people using computers, everyone he describes as not being able to use a computer is obviously using one. He needs another word to describe what they can't do. I would suggest the people in the article cannot "maintain" a computer. I can use a car, but I cannot maintain one. I can use a watch but I can't maintain one (unless it's quite large and easy to disassemble). It's troubling that people can't maintain something that's a big part of their lives, but society has made do with maintenance services for plenty of other things. I think nerds and geeks (let's call them computer mechanics) scoff at groups like geek squad (for reasons I agree with), but they take their cars to car mechanics like everyone else and don't think twice. I think it's common for computer mechanics to suggest that someone who wants help should learn to help themselves, but I know I would be taken aback if my car mechanic finished a visit by handing me a maintenance manual and a catalog for in-home lifts and told me that, really, I should learn to do this myself.
- Asooka 10y ago
  The difference is, with the amount of knowledge you need to learn to be a really good computer maintainer, you can be a well-paid devops maintaining a few dozen servers. If you have any aptitude for working with computers, it's likely you'll be at that level at around the time you hit 20 and just doing user maintenance will be severely below your skill and pay level. Plus, a lot of these people are asking for help for the equivalent of filling up their tank when it runs out of gas. Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas. I get the sentiment, but there are enough specific factors at play that make the situation work out differently.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    > If you have any aptitude for working with computers It's difficult for people to estimate their aptitude for something before dumping a lot of time and energy into it, unless they have to do it or derive enjoyment from it. > Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas. It's not his customers' fault that he's in that situation, it's his own fault for either investing in a skill that has no local demand, or failing to market his skills effectively. I could learn to be the best widget-maker in the whole world, but it nobody wants widgets and I can't convince anyone that they should pay me to make widgets, it seems stupid to blame the world for this.
ghoshbishakh 10y ago
60% of Computer Science students also do not know how to use a computer. (At least in elite institutes in India). The problem is they learn theory of computation and operating systems and all, but cannot reinstll their OS. And building a wifi driver from source in Linux is just wizardry.
- nxc18 10y ago
  Are they really learning it then? Memorizing facts without the practical understanding to back that up is pointless, especially nowadays with reference (Google) being instant and cheap. I have not been impressed with the overall grad population in my CS department, which just happens to be dominated by Indian students. I tutor students who passed presumably difficult and comprehensive exams that can't get through the bridge courses, equivalent to the undergrad intro sequence. Yesterday I worked with a student who was incredibly flustered by the prospect of splitting a string in Java, even after I wrote out the functions to look at, how they worked, input and output examples, etc. There's also an annual cheating scandal whereby ~90% of new grad students are caught cheating on the first assignment, and we explain that strike 2 involves losing their scholarships. I can almost have sympathy. Skating through college without any practical understanding and then suddenly being expected to think is probably frustrating. I suspect there is some large structural defect in the educational system causing this situation. My institution probably doesn't attract students from the most elite universities, but you'd expect a higher quality floor for a group passing rigorous testing and, y'know, getting a diploma.
  - recursive 10y ago
    Building a wifi driver from source requires memorization of facts. Fundamentals of theoretical computer science doesn't seem that way to me.
  - ghoshbishakh 10y ago
    I think the problem is with that people in India and other developing countries get into Computer Science not because they have interest in the machine but only because they want some sort of job. They are very fast learners but do not care to learn how to use computers.
matthewhall 10y ago
I pride myself as being one of the few teens who know how to use computer.
spenrose 10y ago
This is a good anecdotal piece. Here's a structured study of what computer skills people actually have: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768
nxc18 10y ago
There's a pretty strong tension between creating a great product and creating a product that encourages learning. Great products we love make it so that we need to learn as little as possible to be successful (intuitive = didn't need to learn). Windows just works, macOS just works, and Linux gets closer every day. The author recommends switching to Linux, but I think he underestimates the Linux dev community. They're taking their sweet time, but they will eventually get to 'just works', and students raised on Ubuntu will be just as alienated from the command line as Windows users are. I would never have learned so much or gotten any sort of limited understanding of computers if Windows 98 just worked. That is scary because we've been in 'just works' territory across the board for years. I'm not sure what the solution is, but asking people to fix their own problems is probably a good first step.
- dmoo 10y ago
  Personally I think the raspberryPi is a great place for kids to start. In particular look at what the Kano guys are doing. https://kano.me/ https://kano.me/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
matthewaveryusa 10y ago
I find this argument by Alan Kay to be the most eloquent one yet on this subject: https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099 https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099 The whole talk it good
halfnibble 10y ago
Dear Author, Your explanation of the Ubuntu Touch solution saddened me. I know the OS has improved a lot since this article was written, but I still don't think there is a 4G LTE option. I therefore recommend BlackBerry 10 as a mobile OS for serious "users." Root is locked down, but the brilliant community has devised ways to install GCC and other software development tools, so you really can write, compile, and execute applications on your mobile. I use Helium Code Editor, Term48 terminal emulator, and you can google how to compile and install GCC on BB10. It also comes with a Python 3.2 interpreter.
mattbee 10y ago
This piece tells me more about the author than it does any of his unfortunate users & students. He lacks any understanding of his users' needs and sneers at them rather than try to improve their understanding. No wonder he's surrounded by people who struggle with IT.
monksy 10y ago
She showed a clear lack of respect for him after helping him many times. He shouldn't taken that, gaven her laptop back and said: "Go to the it help" for the uni. There was no reason to pull out a 3g hotspot to rip a youtube video.
SQL2219 10y ago
The real issue is that people do not have the patience to try and figure stuff out. They've got google and youtube, but would rather ask someone for the answer.
- dyim 10y ago
  100% yes - and I am guilty of this myself. I've always found CSS miserable, so I'd just Stack Overflow things to "just make it work" ASAP. Yesterday I took the time to read the specs for the flexbox feature. Spent an extra hour or two to build a cogent mental model of how to lay out various components, and voila - it's fun now; it's a brain-teaser and a game.
type0 10y ago
Digital natives can use MS Office, play pokemon go and other games, use social media snapchats and bully each other online. They don't care about privacy online because they have nothing to hide (unless they are being bullied), they don't know how internet works but have strong opinions about it. They can not replace RAM, sometimes they have the luxury to through away the whole PC because they can't figure out that it's just graphics card that's dead and since parents can buy new anyway. Digital natives don't know how programs are made, they don't control the checksums of their software and if they see a recognizable logo they would think that it's totaly legit thing even though the utility isn't signed and they downloaded it from some dodgy forums.
redleggedfrog 10y ago
It has always been this way. Even back in the heyday of personal computers, people stayed on simple happy paths to make sure didn't get lost. If they got lost, and a restart didn't help, they were at the mercy of the closest technical person. That person would be exasperated at the simpleton who wouldn't put in the effort to learn the tool they were using. The truth: Those people can't, or won't, learn, and now, they don't have to. Being that technical person, I eventually got to the point of saying to myself, "These people will never learn, and they obviously don't appreciate the joy that comes with computer proficiency. They don't deserve to have a computer." I dreamed of the day that they wouldn't have computers. I actually started to design a operating system (no code, just UI, concepts) that I code-named MoronOS out of sheer bitterness. No file system, no window manager, no cut-n-paste, little or no configuration, like that. I never needed implement it because Apple did it for me. It's iOS. And now Android. These are perfect for people. Rarely do people as me technical questions about their phones. Kudos to the people who design those OS's. The fact you can't even do 5% of what you can do on a general purpose computer is fine, cause they never used that other 95% anyway. Now computers are for the people who will put in the time to learn them, to harness that power, and dare I say it, rule the future. Everyone else can enjoy their phones (really, what I think of as the real "personal computers"). More better for those of us with keyboards.
- tomdell 10y ago
  Not everyone has to learn about computers to a high level of proficiency - there are many other things in the world for people to do with their time - and everyone learning the ins and outs of their machines probably wouldn't make the world a better place. Why are you so disdainful of these people?
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    High level of proficiency? No. But maybe enough to apply critical thinking skills to them, I work in IT and the number of people in IT POSITIONS that can't just dive in and ATTEMPT to diagnose an application they are unfamiliar with boggles my mind. It extends far beyond the desk workers who can't be assed to make a 30 second google search before calling the helpdesk.
bitxbitxbitcoin 10y ago
I can't imagine being a kid today. But if genetic me were reborn today, I suppose he would adapt as all humans do.
ggggtez 10y ago
>some faceless, keyboard tapping, socially inept, sexually inexperienced network monkey >she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with >Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD. I think her initial reaction was spot-on based on this... Am I supposed to route for this protagonist?
- daotoad 10y ago
  He's got his routing handled. You may wish to 'root' for him, however.
jimmaswell 10y ago
I think the capacity for computer proficiency is simply something you're either born with or not. Some people can be introduced to an unfamiliar system like a computer and actually make an attempt to make sense of it, figuring it out as they go, learning what does what such as actually reading the words on the buttons to make educated guesses on how to accomplish what they're trying to do and gaining an intuitive feeling for the filesystem/window management system, while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never will. These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant print button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone with the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own to figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just select email instead of messaging, and so on. I've had extensive experience with these kinds of people and my only conclusion is that they are unteachable and you have to be born with "computer genes" for lack of a better term.
- imchillyb 10y ago
  > while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never will. These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant print button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone with the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own to figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just select email instead of messaging, and so on. @jimmaswell We call those folk: LAZY. They're too lazy to think for themselves, and want everyone else to do the lifting for them. This isn't new. This isn't some computer only or tech only thing. It's just plain lazy. Lazy has been around for thousands of years. It's just more noticeable now that everything is meme'd and shared online. TL;DR - They're lazy.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Laziness is the motivator to get a computer to do something, rather than by hand.
pumblechook 10y ago
Am I the only one who is as tired of the 'kids can't use computers' meme as the 'digital natives' meme? The vast majority of people have never been able to 'use' a computer like the author describes because the vast majority of people don't understand computing. And that's ok - I would consider it a triumph that we've been able to create such effective illusions in the form of UI that people who have no interest in computing can share in the incredible power that it enables. But at the same time, it is a mistake to assume that mastery of the illusion equals mastery of the thing is abstracts. This is why the digital native meme is so misguided - kids don't know any more about computers than their parents did, they just know the walled gardens that sprang up around them.
- javajosh 10y ago
  Aren't we just masters of different illusions? Our illusions are lower-level, consisting of "file systems" and "kernels", "processes" and "TCP/IP", and "drawing calls". (And indeed, being able to upgrade a hard-drive and reinstall an OS hardly denotes mastery of anything, and never did. It denotes being able to follow directions.)
Too 10y ago
Knowing how to work around weird quirks caused by bad UI design != Knowing how to use a computer. The wifi-switch on the side of laptop is a classic one (or even worse: fn+F7). While i personally do appreciate having a physical switch for it, how is an average user supposed to know that my laptop has a magic switch that can turn on or off the internet when the only error message they get is "Connection error". This is the type of error that can have so many fault sources that it should have a checklist that the average user can easily go through themselves. Now if such a list exists and the user doesn't have the attention span to read it - then they don't know how to use a computer. Simply using linux doesn't teach you how to use a computer. Unless you are interested in knowing why certain things work and can troubleshoot yourself, using linux will simply teach you how to use linux.
antfarm 10y ago
https://www.howacarworks.com/ https://www.howacarworks.com/

181 points by jjuhl 10y ago

So he shames people that are clueless with a computer but at the end admits he's the same with his car. The truth is nobody can master everything so there's no reason to feel superior to someone that is clueless in your domain.

zeehr0 10y ago
You gotta be fucking kidding me! Did you skip the fucking Cameron section? Or the fucking "technologies that shape our future"? This is not some new-age crap. We are talking about things which are leading our lives. We are teaching our kids to be puppets of "tech savy masters". Worst of all, people who legislate about it know shit about computers, and they're probably repeating everything a corporate cocksucker told them to say. So, it's not shaming people about "you're no master at this field", it's about "you sold your fucking life for a few commodities". And sorry about the fucking vote up in your comment, I'm drunk as hell, couldn't click the fucking right button.
Neliquat 10y ago
You bring up a good point. What is the social expectation of competence in these areas? In the USA it is assumed a man can change a tire, do basic handyman stuff, etc. But is there a social equivelent in tech? At what point are techs just keyboard moneys to the masses like mechanics are now? Its odd, as the two share much. The average modern mechanic now knows hex, rom flashing, checksums, and some basic networking, in addition to metalurgy, gas/vapor flow, and customer service. The complexity has increased dramatically, but social respect has not.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I expect people to be able to connect devices, since the ports are labeled and shape matched. (And often color coded, too.) I expect people to be able to perform slightly-nontrivial Google searches ('site:' and similar tags; Boolean operators). I expect people to have the equivalent of "electrons flow in copper" (electricity) or "explosions push the pistons" (ICEs) level of understanding of what's in a computer and what it does, what the internet is and how traffic flows across it. Now, the reasons some of these don't happen is poor teaching materials, but I think we need to get to that point -- where everyone knows at least those things -- before we can sanely discuss technology as a society. Democracy will break down -- is breaking down -- because most of the electorate refuses to know even the basics of one of the major social forces.
- awfgylbcxhrey 10y ago
  But is there a social equivelent in tech? If anything, in tech, "anyone who doesn't know exactly what I know is an idiot" send to be the dominant attitude. And management generally sees anyone in tech as a socially stunted weirdo who is overhead rather than an investment. like mechanics are now? Where are you that mechanics are so disrespected?
tritosomal 10y ago
Did he "shame" people, or write an article about the vapidity of common computer use? At this point people who remain willfully clueless will suffer serious disadvantages, as computers start to make decisions for them, before they decide for themselves. We pretend that machine learning has only good intentions and is pure of heart. It may seem like that now, but it won't last forever. Not every artificial learning system will play nice.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  It's not even true now. Facebook has psychologists on staff seeking to manipulate your emotions for Facebook's benefit using ML and other tech.
- tps5 10y ago
  Explain to me how this line of reasoning doesn't apply to your car. Or flying in an airplane. Or doing your taxes. Or a million other things. By living in a "modern society," we're trusting in so many things that we do not thoroughly understand. In some way, this is the principle that makes human "progress" possible. If every individual had to be competent in a given area in order to benefit from/take part in that area then things would move much more slowly. Of course there are clear disadvantages to taking part in activities that we do not fully understand. We will make sub-optimal decisions because of our ignorance. But in sum, this isn't a problem. In sum, we gain a lot by organizing things this way. Ignorance isn't good. It isn't ideal. But it's a necessary feature of human societies, and articles like this just come off as nasty and mean spirited.
  - tritosomal 10y ago
    I think "this time it's different" for reasons that aren't clear yet, but for technical people, has been an ominous fear for some decades. It comes to this: Computer Systems aren't simply inert turing machines we can pull the plug on anymore. We are letting them off the leash and they are moving on their own out in the world, and they are making decisions to interact as peers or better within our social structures. The car analogy [0] doesn't work anymore because cars are starting to drive themselves. If you put this into an ecological premise, consider that we've been at the top of the food chain, above all other animals, and we have dominated the biosphere for a million or more years. Now we are introducing machines as peers and they may soon dominate us, if we're not careful. Look at the examples in the article, and consider that malfunctioning wi-fi might illustrate how poorly equipped most people are, to confront machines that don't act in their best interests. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_analogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_analogy
badsock 10y ago
Cars are vastly less important than computers.
- badsock 10y ago
  To clarify: we're talking about being able to operate things. If you had to choose between being banned from using any computer for the next 20 years, or being banned from operating motor vehicles for the same time period, which do you think would disrupt a typical person's life more? I mean, how would you even apply to anything other than an entry level job without being able to submit your CV online, or use a word processor? Think of all the professions you couldn't do at all: doctor, accountant, etc. Even in places like sub-sarahan Africa, losing access to the computer-that's-a-phone would be a major impediment. In contrast, there's lots of people who haven't driven a car in the last year that are perfectly well integrated into society.
  - recursive 10y ago
    There are also lots of people that don't use computers in the last year that are perfectly well integrated into society. I think you're overestimating the necessity of computers. I can't understand why a doctor would be required to use a computer.
    - aplummer 10y ago
      I don't know about your doctor but mine uses his computer to see my medical records, including before I moved to the city. Also he prints prescriptions.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    No, we're talking about being to maintain things. If you can use your computer but don't know how to fix things when they break, then you pay someone to fix it for you. That's what this article is complaining about: people who don't know how to fix issues with their computer, or don't use it in the most 'optimal' way.

blakesterz 10y ago

So that's a long read... some good points buried in there, I guess it's good to provoke conversation in this area. Worth a read at least, much to agree with, much to disagree with. >> Mobile has killed technical competence. Yeah, maybe, probably? So many sweeping generalizations throughout. It's hard to pick out everything that feels wrong, but I don't know about this... >>Not really knowing how to use a computer is deemed acceptable if you're twenty-five or over. I've not thought this to be true for a couple of decades now. Anyone* over 40 has been using computers for most of their life at this point. * Yes, not literally anyone, maybe "Anyone reading this" is more accurate.

samirillian 10y ago
Well, his first inaccuracy is claiming that cats don't make the internet better.
uiri 10y ago
"Anyone reading this" isn't in the population of people who don't know how to use a computer. Contrary to the beliefs of many people over the age of 40, being born around the time that the personal computer or the Internet or mobile phones were invented and took off does not make one any better with computers. The general population under 30 is just as clueless as, if not even more clueless than, the generations before them when it comes to computers.
api 10y ago
Mobile supplied an acceptable device for doing most things a non technical person wants to do with a computer. This killed the advancement of technical competence but I'm not sure it set it back much. There have never been that many people who really get computers beyond the UI. Most people don't know how to fix a car either. That being said, I do hate on mobile often for being closed and locked. PCs could provide a friendly UI that led people gently into more tech savvy levels, while mobile seems to lead nowhere.

dang 10y ago

Big discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730.

jccalhoun 10y ago

The author is correct when he writes, "The truth is, kids can't use general purpose computers, and neither can most of the adults I know" but he goes much further than I think is really necessary or even realistic. I teach at a liberal arts college and in most of my classes I devote a day or two to researching and evaluating sources. I ask them "How can to determine if a web site is credible?" and in every class I get a significant number of students say "If it is a .org, .gov, or .edu" Who is telling these kids this? This week I had one class take an online survey and gave them a bit.ly link. I just cut and pasted it from bit.ly into notepad to make the font large enough that they could read it on the screen. In a class of ~35 I had 3-4 that were having problems. They were putting the url into google. At least one was typing in the "http://" http://" that I had just cut and pasted. Of course it was on his phone so he had to find the punctuation. THen ther are the students who submit .gdoc or .pages files and when I tell them to export the files to .docx or .rtf they say they don't have word. First off, you can download MS Office for free from the university. Secondly, you can export from google docs and pages to word files. Of course this is not the majority of students but it is easily 1 in 10. So whenever I see something about "digital natives" I roll my eyes. Until I have a colleague freak out about having to use the online gradebook the university is now making us use instead of a paper one because that person doesn't know how to do it.

kenning 10y ago
The other day I bought a backpack at a skateboard shop and a girl working there said she didn't own a laptop -- just a smartphone. I can absolutely see this becoming common in the near future as phones become even more useful. With a chromecast you can even watch netflix without a laptop, which takes away the main use I have for one aside from coding.
- Wofiel 10y ago
  Or the Netflix app on their smart TV, things like that will only get more common.
- dkersten 10y ago
  I already do everything except for programming on an iPad and iPhone. I can program on the iPad (by sshing into a digital ocean droplet) but it's not quite good enough for me to use exclusively. I'd happily give up using a laptop if I could make programming work comfortably for me. If you don't need specialised tools, I personally think a tablet is much nicer than a laptop. A phone is basically just a smaller tablet.

gjkood 10y ago

I think we have to recognize that the use of the computer has changed over time. It's no longer the "computing" device that the users of yore recognize. Before the late seventies, the use of computers were restricted to those who absolutely needed them and could afford them. In the late seventies and early eighties the computers started entering the homes of ordinary people and where primarily used by the 'nerdy' kids. These were the kids that actually used the computers to program things and even program their own games (or copy/import other freely available game source code) and played them. Come the nineties and we see the proliferation of high end games and the 'non-nerdy' users focused on using the computer as a game console. This was also the advent of the web browser and now the whole new world of the internet became accessible to the normal folks. The audience today considers the computer as nothing but a commodity device just like a phone or an MP3 player. Now babies and toddlers are as comfortable with them as their grandparents are still confused with them. You can't blame the kids of today for not knowing what the computer was originally used for. We read email, browse the web, play games and occasionally use it for the odd assignments which require a Word processor of some sort.

RodericDay 10y ago
I don't think anyone is blaming the kids, they're blaming those PR/marketing people who go on talking about "digital natives".

CoryG89 10y ago

How can we expect our kids to be able to use computers when their schools are censoring the word "proxy" from their web searches? And really? No YouTube? Give me a break. The difference between a prison and a grade school? Prisoners have rights.

philamonster 10y ago
FWIW safe-guarding YouTube and Google searches can be quite a challenge. Using restricted mode and DNS config may not be an option if anyone in district uses Live Stream as any "streamed" content will be blocked by default as there is no active way to determine what the stream is. So if you choose not use these methods of filtering within YouTube you are left with video suggestions that could be less than appropriate for a myriad of reasons as well as the content readily available with normal YouTube search. And even if Google searches are filtered using methods recommended by Google in the browser there are image searches done within their various services, Slides for example, that are either not filtered or not filtered the same way forcesafesearch and nosslsearch work. Not to mention Microsoft's DNAME functionality in W2K12+ breaking if any non-security update is installed rendering anything done to leverage DNS+forcesafesearch (using MS only) moot.
- fredsted 10y ago
  Maybe don't safe guard at all. My school sure didn't (back in early 2000s). I turned out fine. Anyways, most kids can just jump on their 4G connection and browse anything from there, right?
  - philamonster 10y ago
    As far as I know there aren't many K-3 students with cell phones. And cell signal in a lot of the schools I've been is less than desirable but I do see your point. Not all schools allow students to carry a cell phone either. There are multiple levels of restriction with YouTube that are geared towards primary and secondary age groups.
Retr0spectrum 10y ago

johnchristopher 10y ago

I don't know. I read it before and I agree. Heck, I've defended that point of view on the net in the past. But I have spent most of the last 2 days surfing the net looking for information on which models of lightbulbs and washer pump I should buy for my car. Eventually I managed to track down and figure out the manufacturer serial number patterns and I was able to order the things (hoping the washer pump manufacturer I randomly chose delivers quality products) but I haven't yet found how to safely disconnect the battery of my - specific - car so I can perform the maintenance operation (which I am told is fairly easy). So that is going to take me 2 days (at best) to fix my washer pump and change a lightbulb (how many HNers does it take ?). Any mechanic `geek` could fix it in 30 minutes. But I decided I am not going to shell out $120 to have that done. Yeah me and the hacker ethos. My point is: I never had any proper mechanical courses in high school so I can see why today's kids can't find files or drivers or proxy settings (which reminds me of the f* proxy at work that is still getting on my nerves sometimes) or how to sort columns in excel even with the internet at their fingertips.

Kluny 10y ago
I see the parallel, but I don't think it's all that parallel. I'm in a similar situation right now with a motorcycle battery. My bike stopped working last Friday - 8 days and counting now. It took 2 days before I had time to go out and have a look at it. Then I had to come inside and look up a video to find the non-obvious location of the battery. I used a multimeter to check the charge on the battery, but I don't have a real tester to tell me the health of the battery. The multimeter seemed to be telling me it's fine. It took it to a local auto parts store to be sure, but the kid at the counter was even less sure than I was. So I took it into work the next day and walked to a motorcycle dealership to have it tested there. Yes, the battery is dead, no they don't have one... There are several more episodes in this story (which hasn't ended yet), but the point is that this would have been a 30 minute job if I had a SHOP and TOOLS and LIGHTS and the ability to work on it uninterrupted for a little while. The fact that it's taken 8 days is almost entirely down to the fact that I live in an apartment building and my tools are in storage right now. But the beauty of computers is that everything you need is contained on the device, and you can work from anywhere. If only more people would take advantage of it!

lucb1e 10y ago

TL;DR (239 words, 1 minute reading) I told a colleague, whom isn't tech savvy, that contrary to her belief, most kids aren't digital natives. They all can't use computers. Examples of people who can't use computers are mostly the obvious (plug in the ethernet cable; turn on the display; turn on the wireless switch in an OS of your choice); one is a bit harder (reinstall Windows). Parents did it all wrong, fixing everything for their children without teaching them how to do it themselves. The UK asked the industry what should be taught and Microsoft told them Microsoft Office, so now that's what they know. People aren't used to a command line anymore. Why should we care? Tomorrow's people are going to be creating laws regarding computers, enforcing laws regarding computers, educating the youth about computers, reporting in the media about computers and lobbying politicians about computers. All while not being able to use a computer. How to fix it? Stop fixing things for your kids. Schools should teach not to install malware instead of locking down machines. Teach how to stay safe on-line. Adopt a responsible disclosure model instead of punishing kids in school for hacking things. At least play around with Linux and powershell and stuff. I've owned a car for most of my adult life yet I wouldn't know how to fix one. It's a recurring problem with computers. Yet I want to build a generation of hackers. Who's with me? --- End of TLDR. --- That took the author 4165 words in story mode (and me about 30 minutes to read, including this summary). This, author, is why you were probably asked for a TLDR in the past and why you write "gtfo you stupid fuck" as a TLDR on top: it takes forever like this. And be honest, author, did I miss anything? Other than clipped sentences, should anything more be included to get that message across? Now as for my own commentary, I more or less agreed up to the "Why" part. I mean, yeah, digital self defense is important but not for everyone. If a subset of the population in every country knows it, we're good right? You even admit to not knowing how to fix your own car, yet without explaining how this is different you expect us to understand that it is different somehow? I'd like to see people be a little bit more tech savvy, but not as much as you seem to think is necessary before not calling someone computer illiterate anymore.

Paul_S 10y ago
Thank you for the public service tl;dr version. Should be compulsory on any article this long. I experience this 'digital natives' lie first hand from my younger family members, it's really disheartening but unlike the author I don't think it's all that important. Compared to social media induced passivity being tech illiterate is inconsequential.

ashread123 10y ago

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stcredzero 10y ago

In the 80's, the local arcade owner in a podunk rural town could put up a random arcade machine from Japan, and the local kids would figure out how to play it. (Then lose interest, because it was some stupid movie tie-in thing.) In the 80's, kids would run out of games on their dad's personal computer, then start typing in source code for additional games from paper magazines, and accidentally teach themselves how to program. I know this. I was one of those kids. Necessity is the mother of invention. Boredom is a fantastic motivator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=135s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=135s

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Those machines generally had instructions on the attract screen and the ones that were too hard to figure out didn't get played. (Source: I was one of those kids too)
smilbandit 10y ago
my first adventure in programming was changing a snake program to use different ascii characters. then that got boring so i taught myself a little bit of basic so i could make it put random letters on the screen so i could move the snake around and eat letters to spell out bad words in the snake.
- gvurrdon 10y ago
  Mine was altering a BASIC space shooter so that one's laser beams would fire directly at the location of the target without having to manoeuvre so it was in one's crosshairs. The hacking was more fun than the game became after my modification.
pitaj 10y ago
This sounds like confirmation bias. I'm sure that this happened, but I doubt it resulted in any more kids being interested in and competent with computers. After all, I have similar anecdotes, and I grew up in the 2000s. I know several friends who that would also apply to. Generationally, I think the number of people able to accomplish intermediate computer maintenance as described in the article is probably about the same across the board. This article has one good point in my eyes: if you want people to learn, make them do it themselves. When my younger brother asks me, "how do I do [thing I know about], I tell him to Google it, first. Then I'll help him work the kinks out after he's at least tried to do something himself.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Speaking as a kid who does know how to use computers, this phenomenon infuriates me. There is a special place in hell for people who claim to be "1337 h4x0rs", but have less skills than the average script kiddie. Especially if they spew BS to make themselves look good to their peers.

dri_ft 10y ago

> To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She'd be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs and snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can't display her PowerPoint on the IWB she'll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with. > I've heard this sentence so many times now from students and staff, that I have a stock reaction. Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD. This is an emergency.... Hello, Mister President, I'm afraid I have some bad news. I've just been informed that The Internet is not working.' Yes, it's a mystery how anyone could form the preconception that computer geeks don't socialize well.

Kluny 10y ago
It's a funny joke if you pick the right audience. The woman in this story wasn't the right audience, so he had the sense to contain himself. Doesn't seem that bad.
brachi 10y ago
> that I have a stock reaction "It's the email that's stupid, not you, right?" 'Nick Burns' from SNL in real life. https://vimeo.com/148822564 https://vimeo.com/148822564

imdsm 10y ago

And there I was compiling Gentoo at 13 because I liked the colours.

aeturnum 10y ago

I think this article is one big categorical error. The author is not talking about people using computers, everyone he describes as not being able to use a computer is obviously using one. He needs another word to describe what they can't do. I would suggest the people in the article cannot "maintain" a computer. I can use a car, but I cannot maintain one. I can use a watch but I can't maintain one (unless it's quite large and easy to disassemble). It's troubling that people can't maintain something that's a big part of their lives, but society has made do with maintenance services for plenty of other things. I think nerds and geeks (let's call them computer mechanics) scoff at groups like geek squad (for reasons I agree with), but they take their cars to car mechanics like everyone else and don't think twice. I think it's common for computer mechanics to suggest that someone who wants help should learn to help themselves, but I know I would be taken aback if my car mechanic finished a visit by handing me a maintenance manual and a catalog for in-home lifts and told me that, really, I should learn to do this myself.

Asooka 10y ago
The difference is, with the amount of knowledge you need to learn to be a really good computer maintainer, you can be a well-paid devops maintaining a few dozen servers. If you have any aptitude for working with computers, it's likely you'll be at that level at around the time you hit 20 and just doing user maintenance will be severely below your skill and pay level. Plus, a lot of these people are asking for help for the equivalent of filling up their tank when it runs out of gas. Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas. I get the sentiment, but there are enough specific factors at play that make the situation work out differently.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  > If you have any aptitude for working with computers It's difficult for people to estimate their aptitude for something before dumping a lot of time and energy into it, unless they have to do it or derive enjoyment from it. > Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas. It's not his customers' fault that he's in that situation, it's his own fault for either investing in a skill that has no local demand, or failing to market his skills effectively. I could learn to be the best widget-maker in the whole world, but it nobody wants widgets and I can't convince anyone that they should pay me to make widgets, it seems stupid to blame the world for this.

ghoshbishakh 10y ago

60% of Computer Science students also do not know how to use a computer. (At least in elite institutes in India). The problem is they learn theory of computation and operating systems and all, but cannot reinstll their OS. And building a wifi driver from source in Linux is just wizardry.

nxc18 10y ago
Are they really learning it then? Memorizing facts without the practical understanding to back that up is pointless, especially nowadays with reference (Google) being instant and cheap. I have not been impressed with the overall grad population in my CS department, which just happens to be dominated by Indian students. I tutor students who passed presumably difficult and comprehensive exams that can't get through the bridge courses, equivalent to the undergrad intro sequence. Yesterday I worked with a student who was incredibly flustered by the prospect of splitting a string in Java, even after I wrote out the functions to look at, how they worked, input and output examples, etc. There's also an annual cheating scandal whereby ~90% of new grad students are caught cheating on the first assignment, and we explain that strike 2 involves losing their scholarships. I can almost have sympathy. Skating through college without any practical understanding and then suddenly being expected to think is probably frustrating. I suspect there is some large structural defect in the educational system causing this situation. My institution probably doesn't attract students from the most elite universities, but you'd expect a higher quality floor for a group passing rigorous testing and, y'know, getting a diploma.
- recursive 10y ago
  Building a wifi driver from source requires memorization of facts. Fundamentals of theoretical computer science doesn't seem that way to me.
- ghoshbishakh 10y ago
  I think the problem is with that people in India and other developing countries get into Computer Science not because they have interest in the machine but only because they want some sort of job. They are very fast learners but do not care to learn how to use computers.

matthewhall 10y ago

I pride myself as being one of the few teens who know how to use computer.

spenrose 10y ago

This is a good anecdotal piece. Here's a structured study of what computer skills people actually have: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768

nxc18 10y ago

There's a pretty strong tension between creating a great product and creating a product that encourages learning. Great products we love make it so that we need to learn as little as possible to be successful (intuitive = didn't need to learn). Windows just works, macOS just works, and Linux gets closer every day. The author recommends switching to Linux, but I think he underestimates the Linux dev community. They're taking their sweet time, but they will eventually get to 'just works', and students raised on Ubuntu will be just as alienated from the command line as Windows users are. I would never have learned so much or gotten any sort of limited understanding of computers if Windows 98 just worked. That is scary because we've been in 'just works' territory across the board for years. I'm not sure what the solution is, but asking people to fix their own problems is probably a good first step.

dmoo 10y ago
Personally I think the raspberryPi is a great place for kids to start. In particular look at what the Kano guys are doing. https://kano.me/ https://kano.me/
deleted 10y ago
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matthewaveryusa 10y ago

I find this argument by Alan Kay to be the most eloquent one yet on this subject: https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099 https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099 The whole talk it good

halfnibble 10y ago

Dear Author, Your explanation of the Ubuntu Touch solution saddened me. I know the OS has improved a lot since this article was written, but I still don't think there is a 4G LTE option. I therefore recommend BlackBerry 10 as a mobile OS for serious "users." Root is locked down, but the brilliant community has devised ways to install GCC and other software development tools, so you really can write, compile, and execute applications on your mobile. I use Helium Code Editor, Term48 terminal emulator, and you can google how to compile and install GCC on BB10. It also comes with a Python 3.2 interpreter.

mattbee 10y ago

This piece tells me more about the author than it does any of his unfortunate users & students. He lacks any understanding of his users' needs and sneers at them rather than try to improve their understanding. No wonder he's surrounded by people who struggle with IT.

monksy 10y ago

She showed a clear lack of respect for him after helping him many times. He shouldn't taken that, gaven her laptop back and said: "Go to the it help" for the uni. There was no reason to pull out a 3g hotspot to rip a youtube video.

SQL2219 10y ago

The real issue is that people do not have the patience to try and figure stuff out. They've got google and youtube, but would rather ask someone for the answer.

dyim 10y ago
100% yes - and I am guilty of this myself. I've always found CSS miserable, so I'd just Stack Overflow things to "just make it work" ASAP. Yesterday I took the time to read the specs for the flexbox feature. Spent an extra hour or two to build a cogent mental model of how to lay out various components, and voila - it's fun now; it's a brain-teaser and a game.

type0 10y ago

Digital natives can use MS Office, play pokemon go and other games, use social media snapchats and bully each other online. They don't care about privacy online because they have nothing to hide (unless they are being bullied), they don't know how internet works but have strong opinions about it. They can not replace RAM, sometimes they have the luxury to through away the whole PC because they can't figure out that it's just graphics card that's dead and since parents can buy new anyway. Digital natives don't know how programs are made, they don't control the checksums of their software and if they see a recognizable logo they would think that it's totaly legit thing even though the utility isn't signed and they downloaded it from some dodgy forums.

redleggedfrog 10y ago

It has always been this way. Even back in the heyday of personal computers, people stayed on simple happy paths to make sure didn't get lost. If they got lost, and a restart didn't help, they were at the mercy of the closest technical person. That person would be exasperated at the simpleton who wouldn't put in the effort to learn the tool they were using. The truth: Those people can't, or won't, learn, and now, they don't have to. Being that technical person, I eventually got to the point of saying to myself, "These people will never learn, and they obviously don't appreciate the joy that comes with computer proficiency. They don't deserve to have a computer." I dreamed of the day that they wouldn't have computers. I actually started to design a operating system (no code, just UI, concepts) that I code-named MoronOS out of sheer bitterness. No file system, no window manager, no cut-n-paste, little or no configuration, like that. I never needed implement it because Apple did it for me. It's iOS. And now Android. These are perfect for people. Rarely do people as me technical questions about their phones. Kudos to the people who design those OS's. The fact you can't even do 5% of what you can do on a general purpose computer is fine, cause they never used that other 95% anyway. Now computers are for the people who will put in the time to learn them, to harness that power, and dare I say it, rule the future. Everyone else can enjoy their phones (really, what I think of as the real "personal computers"). More better for those of us with keyboards.

tomdell 10y ago
Not everyone has to learn about computers to a high level of proficiency - there are many other things in the world for people to do with their time - and everyone learning the ins and outs of their machines probably wouldn't make the world a better place. Why are you so disdainful of these people?
- snuxoll 10y ago
  High level of proficiency? No. But maybe enough to apply critical thinking skills to them, I work in IT and the number of people in IT POSITIONS that can't just dive in and ATTEMPT to diagnose an application they are unfamiliar with boggles my mind. It extends far beyond the desk workers who can't be assed to make a 30 second google search before calling the helpdesk.

bitxbitxbitcoin 10y ago

I can't imagine being a kid today. But if genetic me were reborn today, I suppose he would adapt as all humans do.

ggggtez 10y ago

>some faceless, keyboard tapping, socially inept, sexually inexperienced network monkey >she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with >Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the office of the President of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD. I think her initial reaction was spot-on based on this... Am I supposed to route for this protagonist?

daotoad 10y ago
He's got his routing handled. You may wish to 'root' for him, however.

jimmaswell 10y ago

I think the capacity for computer proficiency is simply something you're either born with or not. Some people can be introduced to an unfamiliar system like a computer and actually make an attempt to make sense of it, figuring it out as they go, learning what does what such as actually reading the words on the buttons to make educated guesses on how to accomplish what they're trying to do and gaining an intuitive feeling for the filesystem/window management system, while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never will. These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant print button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone with the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own to figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just select email instead of messaging, and so on. I've had extensive experience with these kinds of people and my only conclusion is that they are unteachable and you have to be born with "computer genes" for lack of a better term.

imchillyb 10y ago
> while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never will. These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant print button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone with the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own to figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just select email instead of messaging, and so on. @jimmaswell We call those folk: LAZY. They're too lazy to think for themselves, and want everyone else to do the lifting for them. This isn't new. This isn't some computer only or tech only thing. It's just plain lazy. Lazy has been around for thousands of years. It's just more noticeable now that everything is meme'd and shared online. TL;DR - They're lazy.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  Laziness is the motivator to get a computer to do something, rather than by hand.

pumblechook 10y ago

Am I the only one who is as tired of the 'kids can't use computers' meme as the 'digital natives' meme? The vast majority of people have never been able to 'use' a computer like the author describes because the vast majority of people don't understand computing. And that's ok - I would consider it a triumph that we've been able to create such effective illusions in the form of UI that people who have no interest in computing can share in the incredible power that it enables. But at the same time, it is a mistake to assume that mastery of the illusion equals mastery of the thing is abstracts. This is why the digital native meme is so misguided - kids don't know any more about computers than their parents did, they just know the walled gardens that sprang up around them.

javajosh 10y ago
Aren't we just masters of different illusions? Our illusions are lower-level, consisting of "file systems" and "kernels", "processes" and "TCP/IP", and "drawing calls". (And indeed, being able to upgrade a hard-drive and reinstall an OS hardly denotes mastery of anything, and never did. It denotes being able to follow directions.)

Too 10y ago

Knowing how to work around weird quirks caused by bad UI design != Knowing how to use a computer. The wifi-switch on the side of laptop is a classic one (or even worse: fn+F7). While i personally do appreciate having a physical switch for it, how is an average user supposed to know that my laptop has a magic switch that can turn on or off the internet when the only error message they get is "Connection error". This is the type of error that can have so many fault sources that it should have a checklist that the average user can easily go through themselves. Now if such a list exists and the user doesn't have the attention span to read it - then they don't know how to use a computer. Simply using linux doesn't teach you how to use a computer. Unless you are interested in knowing why certain things work and can troubleshoot yourself, using linux will simply teach you how to use linux.

antfarm 10y ago

https://www.howacarworks.com/ https://www.howacarworks.com/