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Do your children a favor and get them a "real" computer with keyboard and mouse, instead of a tablet. I've found it helps with several things. For one, I've se

Do your children a favor and get them a "real" computer with keyboard and mouse, instead of a tablet. I've found it helps with several things. For one, I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Also, learning to use a keyboard while learning the alphabet seems like a virtuous cycle, at least in my personal experiences. And it may sound old fashioned, but making things too easy for kids makes them less independent and less willing to put in the effort required for learning. Compare for example searching for animal pictures using voice search versus going to the search engine, typing out the term, clicking on "images"... The first is much easier and teaches instant gratification, while the second teaches perseverance and comes with a greater sense of accomplishment. Disclaimer: purely anecdotal, take the preceding with a salt shaker...

21 8y ago
> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Why do you think this is a bad think? This is how kids learn how the world works, by trying the same thing in different contexts, like how small children put everything in their mouth. We don't criticize that, it's part of learning. > Compare for example searching for animal pictures using voice search versus going to the search engine, typing out the term, clicking on "images" I don't know, when I was a kid I was searching for animal pictures by opening an atlas picture book. Was it better, did I became smarter because I did this this instead of using Google or a voice search? I don't think that making information access easier is ever a bad think.
- codingdave 8y ago
  It depends on the age of the child. A toddler who is still exploring the world is one thing. A 14 year old who swipes at a book is a problem. (I don't know the age of the children from these anecdotes.) On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there.
  - 21 8y ago
    > On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there. You are making quite an assumption here. People of many centuries ago would also say that we raise our kids in a wrong way, because we don't teach them how to survive in the wild or how to work a potato field.
    - curuinor 8y ago
      A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use, unlike anything someone who survives in the wild or farms would do. Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers. This is unacceptable.
      - 21 8y ago
        > A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use A funny thing to say, given that today a lot of content requires computers to produce, even abstract art. > Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers How is that different from people who voraciously read countless books, or watch countless movies, yet never produce anything at all, in whatever domain. Not everybody wants to be a producer. Some people are perfectly happy just consuming, or partying all day.
        andybak 8y ago
        I've had similar disagreements with people bemoaning VR for being isolating and non-social compared to other interactive media. Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        >Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group. // Never heard the term "bookworm", it's a mild pejorative leveled at people who read books a lot.
- victorvation 8y ago
  I find this type of neo-Luddism to be a strange form of gatekeeping for technologists. "Back-in-my-day"-ism for Google and manpages and the computer mouse.
  - dev_north_east 8y ago
    I know plenty of parents who let their 3/4 year olds "play" away with tablets. Like really, they give toddlers internet connected devices and let's be honest they're not always supervised. Or even most of the time from what I've seen. It's the modern pacifier. When some of the kids come over to ours to play, their withdrawl from the devices becomes very bad. I won't let my kids near tablets/smart-phones. When they're a bit older, they can start their journey on a family desktop in the sitting room. Call me a neo-Luddite all you want, I have a feeling all other things being equal my kids will have a better chance at life than the ones left to explore Youtube on their own before mastering how to cycle a bike.
- userbinator 8y ago
  I don't think that making information access easier is ever a bad think. Except when it decreases learning and perseverance, and deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. The term 'spoonfeeding' is very relevant here.
  - 21 8y ago
    The way you view personal responsibility is also important here. Spoonfeeding kinds of assumes no human agency. If you let yourself be a leaf in the wind, yes, you'll arrive wherever the currents take you.
  - pharrington 8y ago
    > deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. This may be a bit of a tangent, but that reminds me of what is, by my guess, a core flaw of the US Constitution - it is deliberately written in a difficult to follow style (most notably, double inversions are slammed in everywhere). Even if the intent is to cause people to more carefully consider the subject matter, in the hopes that they come to a more accurate understanding, the literal effect of making information harder to access is that more energy is spent trying to access that information. In turn, the likelihood of errors in the course of accessing that information increases. addendum: It's good to make things less error-prone.
- nickserv 8y ago
  My worry with toddlers and touch interfaces is precisely because at that age they should be exploring the world, touching, tasting, smelling, feeling... By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not against tablets, just that they shouldn't be given to toddlers at all, and to older kids once they are able to use the basics of a keyboard and mouse interface. Like walking before running so to speak. Regarding looking things up in a book, it's a great skill to have, even from a purely enjoyment aspect, and I would certainly encourage kids to learn it. It doesn't mean not having access to the internet or voice search. Same way one can teach growing food or making fire with a bow, while still buying groceries every week and cooking on a convection range. It's important in my view for kids to know where we've come from, to better understand the world as it is today.
  - 2bitencryption 8y ago
    this is once of those things where I'm 90% confident it isn't actually harmful to a young child... ...and yet if I had a child, I wouldn't expose them to tablets at a young age, just because that 10% is scary.
    - Double_a_92 8y ago
      But I guess it's more because of the content, not because it will learn that certain surfaces are swipeable. E.g. it's probably quite bad to just let your kids watch random youtube playlists all the time.
  - kqr 8y ago
    > By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not friends with how you casually throw the word "wrong" in there, as if it was an unquestionable universal agreement. Transport yourself (by vessel of imagination) to a future where this toddler is 30 years old, and both you and this toddler-no-more are bidding for a project: a customer is going to write a neat piece of software dealing with technical spec sheets, but they need someone to do the interaction design for it. Of course, it's going to run on the next-next-next-next-next gen touch surfaces which is what is available at the time. You both present your solutions to the customer, and after a few weeks they call you up to say, "Please don't get us wrong. Your interface was really good. We decided to go with the ex-toddler anyway. They had similar ideas to yours, it's just that yours felt a bit tied to the Newtonian laws of physics. The toddler seemed to think more freely about the medium and used that for good. "We fear that, given your age, you have gotten a wrong first impression of digital interfaces. You seem to have problems distinguishing the difference between what we call a book these days, and one of those old objects made from dead trees." I'm not saying it's good either, I'm saying it's different. And while the toddler perspective may look wrong with your 20th century eyes, it could very well be that your perspective looks wrong with the toddlers 21st century eyes.
lfowles 8y ago
> For one, I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. I don't know, I have the urge to tap words in books to bring up definitions after using ereaders for the past ten years.
- tobyhinloopen 8y ago
  My urge: Let me CMD+F this -oh right, it's a physical book
api 8y ago
Even more important is the nature of PCs vs mobile devices. The mobile platform is designed to commoditize the user and create a stark division between users on one side and content and software creators on the other. You can't easily create anything of any substance on a mobile device and the ecosystem discourages it by e.g. treating user data as unimportant. PCs were designed to be devices for people to create things. Its largely a product of when the two platforms were created and the economic forces at play. I wonder what mobile devices designed to empower the user would be like?
- scarface74 8y ago
  PCs were designed to be devices for people to create things. I think you have an idealized view of how most people use PCs. Even during the first era of PCs in the 80s, most kids used them for playing games. By the mid 90s, it was all about games and “multimedia” on CDs. Then Facebook and social media games. The geeks that looked forward to InCider, Nybble, and whatever the offshoot computer mag from 3-2-1 Contact were and typed BASIC programs in were the minority.
  - titanix2 8y ago
    Of course, but having the technical possibility to create something on the machine make this minority exists in the first place. Now take the same demographic with a locked down class of devices and the basic programming crowd fall to 0%.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      With iOS 12, Apple will be integrating automation that lets you automate actions within other programs either visually or from what I’ve read JavaScript. Just imagine what kids can do when they can use their phone to automate smart home devices. There are also apps that let you program robots. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HK962VC/A/ubtech-jimu-robot-meebot-kit https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HK962VC/A/ubtech-jimu-rob... Amazon announced an easy way to program Alexa. https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-skill-python-tutorial https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-skill-py... There is also Swift Playgrounds. https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/
ximeng 8y ago
I've absentmindedly pinched to zoom on books and occasionally mentally ctrl+z when I screw up. Not a major problem.
- ThinkingGuy 8y ago
  I've never done that, but I sometimes will pick up a paper book, and instinctively want to press control-F in order to search for a particular word or phrase.
duxup 8y ago
Chromebooks are a good device that is inexpensive, has keyboard, and many can run Android app.
ssivark 8y ago
Kids should be weaned off tablets just like infants are weaned off milk and induced to use their teeth. The thing that really bothers me is, as Alan Kay says: The ipad interface is designed for 2-year-olds and 82-year-olds and being forced upon everyone in between. See, eg: https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-about-the-iphone-and-technology-now https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-ab... It is a de-evolution of problem-solving culture in the sense that people are discouraged from using more sophisticated tools to step up their game! "There's an app for that" culture implies that you don't need to learn to compose tools to solve problems -- sit back and consume somebody else's hard work. While that does simplify computers so that more people can use it in the short-term, it also strips away the whole purpose of computing, which is to empower people with a more advanced tool. That's what human cultural/civilizational evolution has been about -- from stone tools, to metals, to the industrial revolution, to the information/computing revolution. Forcing people to interact by tapping on graphical interfaces is to step backwards to caveman levels of communication: point and grunt. We're giving up on human language, writing and tool use, just so that people can avoid learning a little! Not knowing to use a keyboard is not bad as such, if one's typing speed on a touchscreen can be as effective. But that's hard---at least for someone who hasn't grown up with touchscreens all over the place---and I had to switch from my phone to my laptop to type this long-ish comment! And the amount of typing, editing, reorganizing and adding links that I had to do would have been extremely difficult to do on a phone interface. Giving in to that barrier can so easily stop one from creating/contributing, and going into a passive consumption mode!
- flogic 8y ago
  This kinda captures one of my concerns. While I could care less about the particulars of how people interact with computers, I do find it concerning that modern devices seem to make general purpose computing less accessible. I love my phone but I haven't even found a decent calculator for it much less a tolerable equivalent of Excel, the shell, or programming environment. Part of me suspects it's an inherent limitation in touch IUs but that also seems like a cop out.
  - earenndil 8y ago
jdietrich 8y ago
I have mostly forgotten how to write with a pen. I am absolutely fine with that.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  I use fountain pens exclusively and take pride in my penmanship. I also love my Apple Pencil - it lets me use and practice my skills, and is a very good approximation of several different types of nibs. Even my older Wacom tablets weren’t as good.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    Any tips on improving penmanship? Mine has always been absolutely horrible, which stinks as there's lots of things I prefer to write out by hand. Most things, in fact, unless it needs to be electronic.
    - samatman 8y ago
      Learn a different script. Right now you know one script: whatever scrawl you learned as a youth. Pick up something else, preferably a print hand rather than cursive. There are a ton of options! Here are some examples: http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/scrindex.htm http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/scrindex.htm A print hand lets you focus on correctness. Once you have some confidence, if you like, you can tackle another cursive hand, such as Spencer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script
      - dorchadas 8y ago
        I'll look into those, thank you!
    - LyndsySimon 8y ago
      I started by changing my writing drastically - I wrote in smallcaps for a while, until I “forgot” my handwriting, then started over.
egypturnash 8y ago
> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Recently I started reading actual paperbacks again after a few years doing most of my reading on a tablet; I was quite amused to find that sometimes I'd try to swipe the pages instead of turning them. I'm in my forties. My first computer was in 1981. I've got decades of interacting via keyboard behind me and this still happened to me. Habit is a powerful thing.
- walterbell 8y ago
  Motor memory working as intended. It can adapt in the other direction.
pcl 8y ago
> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects A friend of mine in college once wrote date on a sheet of paper during an exam, expecting to find out what time it was...
- thinkingemote 8y ago
  College? As in older than 13? What else did they write? Was it the first time they saw paper? I'm flabbergasted but want to know more!
  - pcl 8y ago
    This was around 20 years ago (!), and yes, he was a fully-grown person. But he probably hadn’t slept in a few days — exam week and all. And he definitely spent more time with a keyboard than a pen.
  - ehsanu1 8y ago
    These are just brain farts. Read throughout the sibling threads to see all the other personal accounts.
crypt1d 8y ago
> Compare for example searching for animal pictures using voice search versus going to the search engine, typing out the term, clicking on "images"... The first is much easier and teaches instant gratification, while the second teaches perseverance and comes with a greater sense of accomplishment. I find this comparison hilarious. I've spent my early childhood without a computer, so if I wanted to see a picture of an animal I probably had to open a book and maybe even go to the library to get one. So I really doubt any of those methods u mention really teach anything.
ci5er 8y ago
With A/R, it will get worse. When I used to work with Motorola in the early-to-mid-90s (it was an actual company, you know), we had some HUD A/R things, and my kids (3 y.o.? 4 y.o?) got pretty accustomed to flicking at books and objects in real space. Motorola tanked. Kids grew up. Learned how to type. Everything is fine. It was just a weird thing for my wife to try to process at the time.
sundvor 8y ago
Interesting. I didn't quite realise it but these may be important computer literacy advantages we can pass on to our children. Also noting we're typing in English here on a Latin keyboard, however my 7y son's taken to his keyboard like a duck to water. We gave him a touch typing challenge to plant some seeds, and he greatly enjoyed it. I benefit every day from touch typing and want him to have the same advantage - I started far later, in middle school, on the good old typewriters. He's also fully figured out Windows 10 user interface, alt tabbing, using copy paste shortcuts etc; I'm pretty sure he'd figure out any GUI, as long as there was a reward at the end (start a game / movie). He loves his mouse keyboard gaming, but in order to earn gaming time he's also got to do chores - and I'll also give him points for coding. I'm trying to get him used to Python now, it's a bit early and it can be challenging to find the special characters, but he's getting it rather than giving up - and we'll dive into it more later, with the benefit of the Cozmo SDk to make things more interesting. There's a challenge in making the understanding of code an intrinsic reward, vs the low hanging fruits of playing computer games, but I'm hoping it'll come in the next few years. I also couldn't help but reflect on the fact that by doing this, he's getting experience with Visual Studio Code, the exact toolset I use for my own work.
- geomark 8y ago
  Can you point me to that touch typing challenge that your 7 year old enjoyed? Very pertinent to my interests. Also, Python at age 7 seems pretty advanced. My 7 year old is pretty strong with block-based programming but I'm still trying to figure out when and how to transition to real coding.
  - sundvor 8y ago
    Nice! It was actually an iPad app that we used, with the Bluetooth keyboard - he was using it for hours. I'll dig up the app name when I can find the iPad, presently everyone's asleep and the iPad was hidden somewhere. I think it doesn't matter so much which one you choose though, as long as it tells you what fingers you are allowed to use for what keys. The challenge that we set for him was to perform the exercises and getting the fingers right. He's at the absolute beginner level with Python yet, which we do on the PC, but I figured it was the next logical step as I'm questioning the engagement with e.g. Tynker. He's quick at dragging the blocks across, but the way they template a lot of the lower levels makes it too easy to blindly drag things across until he suddenly hits a wall with something he can't understand. I'm struggling with the curriculum part of this myself, how to best get his interest and how/when to introduce concepts. So hooking up the Cozmo robot and getting it do simple things is neat way of doing loops for example.
raverbashing 8y ago
> And it may sound old fashioned, but making things too easy for kids makes them less independent and less willing to put in the effort required for learning. Yes, agreed. We're building a generation where even pulling your parking brake when you park is seen as "hard", not having a discoverable, hand-hold, guided experience is "inconvenient". Netflix even have a hard time making people update their cards when they expire or are cancelled. Life is not a Steve Jobs utopia. Some things require work and persistence.
- terrywilcox 8y ago
  I'm guessing I'm a generation older than you and I agree, my generation built a lazy, useless generation. My parents say the same thing about my generation.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    While there is a lot of that, it's one thing to "not do X because it's never needed and is supplanted by new technology" Young people don't know what a VHS or vinyl player is and that is fine Another thing is to think everything is solvable with a phone app, that everything is on Google or that everything is learnable through a step by step YouTube video and requires no effort. That causes frustrations as well.
terrywilcox 8y ago
Typing a word into Google gives you a sense of accomplishment? Wow. When I was a kid (and by that I mean all the way into university), we had to go to the library (an actual physical place that wasn't our home), look in the card catalogue (an actual physical box of drawers with actual physical cards in them), then find the shelves with actual physical books on them. Then we had to look at the index in the book. Or just read it. That took time and perseverance. There was no instant gratification. It took hours or days. Are you advocating a return to that past and that much perseverance? Typing a word into Google and clicking search is nothing. Trying to make it sound like it's so much better for character building is ridiculous.
chaoticmass 8y ago
> And it may sound old fashioned, but making things too easy for kids makes them less independent and less willing to put in the effort required for learning. I wonder if this makes older programmers better learners. For instance, I learned BASIC and QBASIC before I had internet access. When I ran into problems I only had the provided language documentation to help me and I was largely on my own. Now when I run into problems I have many resources to help me, but sometimes there is no answer on StackOverflow or anywhere else I can find and I have to rely on myself to find a solution.

21 8y ago

> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Why do you think this is a bad think? This is how kids learn how the world works, by trying the same thing in different contexts, like how small children put everything in their mouth. We don't criticize that, it's part of learning. > Compare for example searching for animal pictures using voice search versus going to the search engine, typing out the term, clicking on "images" I don't know, when I was a kid I was searching for animal pictures by opening an atlas picture book. Was it better, did I became smarter because I did this this instead of using Google or a voice search? I don't think that making information access easier is ever a bad think.

codingdave 8y ago
It depends on the age of the child. A toddler who is still exploring the world is one thing. A 14 year old who swipes at a book is a problem. (I don't know the age of the children from these anecdotes.) On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there.
- 21 8y ago
  > On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there. You are making quite an assumption here. People of many centuries ago would also say that we raise our kids in a wrong way, because we don't teach them how to survive in the wild or how to work a potato field.
  - curuinor 8y ago
    A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use, unlike anything someone who survives in the wild or farms would do. Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers. This is unacceptable.
    - 21 8y ago
      > A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use A funny thing to say, given that today a lot of content requires computers to produce, even abstract art. > Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers How is that different from people who voraciously read countless books, or watch countless movies, yet never produce anything at all, in whatever domain. Not everybody wants to be a producer. Some people are perfectly happy just consuming, or partying all day.
      - andybak 8y ago
        I've had similar disagreements with people bemoaning VR for being isolating and non-social compared to other interactive media. Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        >Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group. // Never heard the term "bookworm", it's a mild pejorative leveled at people who read books a lot.
victorvation 8y ago
I find this type of neo-Luddism to be a strange form of gatekeeping for technologists. "Back-in-my-day"-ism for Google and manpages and the computer mouse.
- dev_north_east 8y ago
  I know plenty of parents who let their 3/4 year olds "play" away with tablets. Like really, they give toddlers internet connected devices and let's be honest they're not always supervised. Or even most of the time from what I've seen. It's the modern pacifier. When some of the kids come over to ours to play, their withdrawl from the devices becomes very bad. I won't let my kids near tablets/smart-phones. When they're a bit older, they can start their journey on a family desktop in the sitting room. Call me a neo-Luddite all you want, I have a feeling all other things being equal my kids will have a better chance at life than the ones left to explore Youtube on their own before mastering how to cycle a bike.
userbinator 8y ago
I don't think that making information access easier is ever a bad think. Except when it decreases learning and perseverance, and deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. The term 'spoonfeeding' is very relevant here.
- 21 8y ago
  The way you view personal responsibility is also important here. Spoonfeeding kinds of assumes no human agency. If you let yourself be a leaf in the wind, yes, you'll arrive wherever the currents take you.
- pharrington 8y ago
  > deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. This may be a bit of a tangent, but that reminds me of what is, by my guess, a core flaw of the US Constitution - it is deliberately written in a difficult to follow style (most notably, double inversions are slammed in everywhere). Even if the intent is to cause people to more carefully consider the subject matter, in the hopes that they come to a more accurate understanding, the literal effect of making information harder to access is that more energy is spent trying to access that information. In turn, the likelihood of errors in the course of accessing that information increases. addendum: It's good to make things less error-prone.
nickserv 8y ago
My worry with toddlers and touch interfaces is precisely because at that age they should be exploring the world, touching, tasting, smelling, feeling... By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not against tablets, just that they shouldn't be given to toddlers at all, and to older kids once they are able to use the basics of a keyboard and mouse interface. Like walking before running so to speak. Regarding looking things up in a book, it's a great skill to have, even from a purely enjoyment aspect, and I would certainly encourage kids to learn it. It doesn't mean not having access to the internet or voice search. Same way one can teach growing food or making fire with a bow, while still buying groceries every week and cooking on a convection range. It's important in my view for kids to know where we've come from, to better understand the world as it is today.
- 2bitencryption 8y ago
  this is once of those things where I'm 90% confident it isn't actually harmful to a young child... ...and yet if I had a child, I wouldn't expose them to tablets at a young age, just because that 10% is scary.
  - Double_a_92 8y ago
    But I guess it's more because of the content, not because it will learn that certain surfaces are swipeable. E.g. it's probably quite bad to just let your kids watch random youtube playlists all the time.
- kqr 8y ago
  > By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not friends with how you casually throw the word "wrong" in there, as if it was an unquestionable universal agreement. Transport yourself (by vessel of imagination) to a future where this toddler is 30 years old, and both you and this toddler-no-more are bidding for a project: a customer is going to write a neat piece of software dealing with technical spec sheets, but they need someone to do the interaction design for it. Of course, it's going to run on the next-next-next-next-next gen touch surfaces which is what is available at the time. You both present your solutions to the customer, and after a few weeks they call you up to say, "Please don't get us wrong. Your interface was really good. We decided to go with the ex-toddler anyway. They had similar ideas to yours, it's just that yours felt a bit tied to the Newtonian laws of physics. The toddler seemed to think more freely about the medium and used that for good. "We fear that, given your age, you have gotten a wrong first impression of digital interfaces. You seem to have problems distinguishing the difference between what we call a book these days, and one of those old objects made from dead trees." I'm not saying it's good either, I'm saying it's different. And while the toddler perspective may look wrong with your 20th century eyes, it could very well be that your perspective looks wrong with the toddlers 21st century eyes.

lfowles 8y ago

> For one, I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. I don't know, I have the urge to tap words in books to bring up definitions after using ereaders for the past ten years.

tobyhinloopen 8y ago
My urge: Let me CMD+F this -oh right, it's a physical book

api 8y ago

Even more important is the nature of PCs vs mobile devices. The mobile platform is designed to commoditize the user and create a stark division between users on one side and content and software creators on the other. You can't easily create anything of any substance on a mobile device and the ecosystem discourages it by e.g. treating user data as unimportant. PCs were designed to be devices for people to create things. Its largely a product of when the two platforms were created and the economic forces at play. I wonder what mobile devices designed to empower the user would be like?

scarface74 8y ago
PCs were designed to be devices for people to create things. I think you have an idealized view of how most people use PCs. Even during the first era of PCs in the 80s, most kids used them for playing games. By the mid 90s, it was all about games and “multimedia” on CDs. Then Facebook and social media games. The geeks that looked forward to InCider, Nybble, and whatever the offshoot computer mag from 3-2-1 Contact were and typed BASIC programs in were the minority.
- titanix2 8y ago
  Of course, but having the technical possibility to create something on the machine make this minority exists in the first place. Now take the same demographic with a locked down class of devices and the basic programming crowd fall to 0%.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    With iOS 12, Apple will be integrating automation that lets you automate actions within other programs either visually or from what I’ve read JavaScript. Just imagine what kids can do when they can use their phone to automate smart home devices. There are also apps that let you program robots. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HK962VC/A/ubtech-jimu-robot-meebot-kit https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HK962VC/A/ubtech-jimu-rob... Amazon announced an easy way to program Alexa. https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-skill-python-tutorial https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/alexa-skill-py... There is also Swift Playgrounds. https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/

ximeng 8y ago

I've absentmindedly pinched to zoom on books and occasionally mentally ctrl+z when I screw up. Not a major problem.

ThinkingGuy 8y ago
I've never done that, but I sometimes will pick up a paper book, and instinctively want to press control-F in order to search for a particular word or phrase.

duxup 8y ago

Chromebooks are a good device that is inexpensive, has keyboard, and many can run Android app.

ssivark 8y ago

Kids should be weaned off tablets just like infants are weaned off milk and induced to use their teeth. The thing that really bothers me is, as Alan Kay says: The ipad interface is designed for 2-year-olds and 82-year-olds and being forced upon everyone in between. See, eg: https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-about-the-iphone-and-technology-now https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-ab... It is a de-evolution of problem-solving culture in the sense that people are discouraged from using more sophisticated tools to step up their game! "There's an app for that" culture implies that you don't need to learn to compose tools to solve problems -- sit back and consume somebody else's hard work. While that does simplify computers so that more people can use it in the short-term, it also strips away the whole purpose of computing, which is to empower people with a more advanced tool. That's what human cultural/civilizational evolution has been about -- from stone tools, to metals, to the industrial revolution, to the information/computing revolution. Forcing people to interact by tapping on graphical interfaces is to step backwards to caveman levels of communication: point and grunt. We're giving up on human language, writing and tool use, just so that people can avoid learning a little! Not knowing to use a keyboard is not bad as such, if one's typing speed on a touchscreen can be as effective. But that's hard---at least for someone who hasn't grown up with touchscreens all over the place---and I had to switch from my phone to my laptop to type this long-ish comment! And the amount of typing, editing, reorganizing and adding links that I had to do would have been extremely difficult to do on a phone interface. Giving in to that barrier can so easily stop one from creating/contributing, and going into a passive consumption mode!

flogic 8y ago
This kinda captures one of my concerns. While I could care less about the particulars of how people interact with computers, I do find it concerning that modern devices seem to make general purpose computing less accessible. I love my phone but I haven't even found a decent calculator for it much less a tolerable equivalent of Excel, the shell, or programming environment. Part of me suspects it's an inherent limitation in touch IUs but that also seems like a cop out.
- earenndil 8y ago

jdietrich 8y ago

I have mostly forgotten how to write with a pen. I am absolutely fine with that.

LyndsySimon 8y ago
I use fountain pens exclusively and take pride in my penmanship. I also love my Apple Pencil - it lets me use and practice my skills, and is a very good approximation of several different types of nibs. Even my older Wacom tablets weren’t as good.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  Any tips on improving penmanship? Mine has always been absolutely horrible, which stinks as there's lots of things I prefer to write out by hand. Most things, in fact, unless it needs to be electronic.
  - samatman 8y ago
    Learn a different script. Right now you know one script: whatever scrawl you learned as a youth. Pick up something else, preferably a print hand rather than cursive. There are a ton of options! Here are some examples: http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/scrindex.htm http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/scrindex.htm A print hand lets you focus on correctness. Once you have some confidence, if you like, you can tackle another cursive hand, such as Spencer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      I'll look into those, thank you!
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    I started by changing my writing drastically - I wrote in smallcaps for a while, until I “forgot” my handwriting, then started over.

egypturnash 8y ago

> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Recently I started reading actual paperbacks again after a few years doing most of my reading on a tablet; I was quite amused to find that sometimes I'd try to swipe the pages instead of turning them. I'm in my forties. My first computer was in 1981. I've got decades of interacting via keyboard behind me and this still happened to me. Habit is a powerful thing.

walterbell 8y ago
Motor memory working as intended. It can adapt in the other direction.

pcl 8y ago

> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects A friend of mine in college once wrote date on a sheet of paper during an exam, expecting to find out what time it was...

thinkingemote 8y ago
College? As in older than 13? What else did they write? Was it the first time they saw paper? I'm flabbergasted but want to know more!
- pcl 8y ago
  This was around 20 years ago (!), and yes, he was a fully-grown person. But he probably hadn’t slept in a few days — exam week and all. And he definitely spent more time with a keyboard than a pen.
- ehsanu1 8y ago
  These are just brain farts. Read throughout the sibling threads to see all the other personal accounts.

crypt1d 8y ago

> Compare for example searching for animal pictures using voice search versus going to the search engine, typing out the term, clicking on "images"... The first is much easier and teaches instant gratification, while the second teaches perseverance and comes with a greater sense of accomplishment. I find this comparison hilarious. I've spent my early childhood without a computer, so if I wanted to see a picture of an animal I probably had to open a book and maybe even go to the library to get one. So I really doubt any of those methods u mention really teach anything.

ci5er 8y ago

With A/R, it will get worse. When I used to work with Motorola in the early-to-mid-90s (it was an actual company, you know), we had some HUD A/R things, and my kids (3 y.o.? 4 y.o?) got pretty accustomed to flicking at books and objects in real space. Motorola tanked. Kids grew up. Learned how to type. Everything is fine. It was just a weird thing for my wife to try to process at the time.

sundvor 8y ago

Interesting. I didn't quite realise it but these may be important computer literacy advantages we can pass on to our children. Also noting we're typing in English here on a Latin keyboard, however my 7y son's taken to his keyboard like a duck to water. We gave him a touch typing challenge to plant some seeds, and he greatly enjoyed it. I benefit every day from touch typing and want him to have the same advantage - I started far later, in middle school, on the good old typewriters. He's also fully figured out Windows 10 user interface, alt tabbing, using copy paste shortcuts etc; I'm pretty sure he'd figure out any GUI, as long as there was a reward at the end (start a game / movie). He loves his mouse keyboard gaming, but in order to earn gaming time he's also got to do chores - and I'll also give him points for coding. I'm trying to get him used to Python now, it's a bit early and it can be challenging to find the special characters, but he's getting it rather than giving up - and we'll dive into it more later, with the benefit of the Cozmo SDk to make things more interesting. There's a challenge in making the understanding of code an intrinsic reward, vs the low hanging fruits of playing computer games, but I'm hoping it'll come in the next few years. I also couldn't help but reflect on the fact that by doing this, he's getting experience with Visual Studio Code, the exact toolset I use for my own work.

geomark 8y ago
Can you point me to that touch typing challenge that your 7 year old enjoyed? Very pertinent to my interests. Also, Python at age 7 seems pretty advanced. My 7 year old is pretty strong with block-based programming but I'm still trying to figure out when and how to transition to real coding.
- sundvor 8y ago
  Nice! It was actually an iPad app that we used, with the Bluetooth keyboard - he was using it for hours. I'll dig up the app name when I can find the iPad, presently everyone's asleep and the iPad was hidden somewhere. I think it doesn't matter so much which one you choose though, as long as it tells you what fingers you are allowed to use for what keys. The challenge that we set for him was to perform the exercises and getting the fingers right. He's at the absolute beginner level with Python yet, which we do on the PC, but I figured it was the next logical step as I'm questioning the engagement with e.g. Tynker. He's quick at dragging the blocks across, but the way they template a lot of the lower levels makes it too easy to blindly drag things across until he suddenly hits a wall with something he can't understand. I'm struggling with the curriculum part of this myself, how to best get his interest and how/when to introduce concepts. So hooking up the Cozmo robot and getting it do simple things is neat way of doing loops for example.

raverbashing 8y ago

> And it may sound old fashioned, but making things too easy for kids makes them less independent and less willing to put in the effort required for learning. Yes, agreed. We're building a generation where even pulling your parking brake when you park is seen as "hard", not having a discoverable, hand-hold, guided experience is "inconvenient". Netflix even have a hard time making people update their cards when they expire or are cancelled. Life is not a Steve Jobs utopia. Some things require work and persistence.

terrywilcox 8y ago
I'm guessing I'm a generation older than you and I agree, my generation built a lazy, useless generation. My parents say the same thing about my generation.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  While there is a lot of that, it's one thing to "not do X because it's never needed and is supplanted by new technology" Young people don't know what a VHS or vinyl player is and that is fine Another thing is to think everything is solvable with a phone app, that everything is on Google or that everything is learnable through a step by step YouTube video and requires no effort. That causes frustrations as well.

terrywilcox 8y ago

Typing a word into Google gives you a sense of accomplishment? Wow. When I was a kid (and by that I mean all the way into university), we had to go to the library (an actual physical place that wasn't our home), look in the card catalogue (an actual physical box of drawers with actual physical cards in them), then find the shelves with actual physical books on them. Then we had to look at the index in the book. Or just read it. That took time and perseverance. There was no instant gratification. It took hours or days. Are you advocating a return to that past and that much perseverance? Typing a word into Google and clicking search is nothing. Trying to make it sound like it's so much better for character building is ridiculous.

chaoticmass 8y ago

> And it may sound old fashioned, but making things too easy for kids makes them less independent and less willing to put in the effort required for learning. I wonder if this makes older programmers better learners. For instance, I learned BASIC and QBASIC before I had internet access. When I ran into problems I only had the provided language documentation to help me and I was largely on my own. Now when I run into problems I have many resources to help me, but sometimes there is no answer on StackOverflow or anywhere else I can find and I have to rely on myself to find a solution.