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It's almost certainly the case that learning precision dexterity early in life is far easier than later. There are neurophysiological reasons why it's easier to

It's almost certainly the case that learning precision dexterity early in life is far easier than later. There are neurophysiological reasons why it's easier to learn certain skills earlier in life. That being said, this is just one guy's opinion, not a true motor behavioral study. The impulse to blame the "kids these days" seems like an ever-present force, so I wouldn't place too much emphasis on this without a proper study of precision dextrous manipulation across age cohorts.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vanderZwan 8y ago
> The impulse to blame the "kids these days" seems like an ever-present force Lamenting a lack of experience with arts and crafts and similar sounds more like an "education these days"-complaint to me. If children do suffer from a lack of trained motor skills it is not their fault, but it is something to take seriously, for their sake more than anyone else. Also, I dunno waiting for a proper study is worth the risk. It would take quite long, which means that if it is a problem we already screwed over a generation. Plus, people complaining about a lack of physical education these days is not something limited to surgery. Taking physical education more seriously as being important for general development, and not something just for the people who want to continue in sports is probably beneficial for everyone in the long term anyway. (tangent: I wonder if these students would perform better when handling robot arms with a control stick than previous generations)
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > Taking physical education more seriously as being important for general development, and not something just for the people who want to continue in sports is probably beneficial for everyone in the long term anyway. Physical education is awful and it is not capable of not being awful. Even if it was not almost uniformly focused on team sports which some people hate to the point of faking illness and others love to the point of obsession, leading to massive capability gaps, it would still be irrelevant. Two or three hours a week of teacher directed exercise is nothing in the scheme of developing real skill. If people were serious about this problem they could allow children ample time to play, learning about the world and their bodies as small animals are meant to, or if they insist on making everything into a subject, treat physical education as a core part of the curriculum, English public school style, where everyone plays team sports almost every day.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Two hours a week of coaching is better than none. Unstructured play is great, but it's no substitute for targeting coaching when it comes to developing useful skills.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      > Two hours a week of coaching is better than none. No one gets good at anything on two hours a week of practice. Absolutely nothing. Two hours a week will barely get you past novice in a year. It’s so little, so seldom that a substantial amount of each lesson has to be revision too but even if learning was instant and perfect 100 hours a year rounds to nothing. > Unstructured play is great, but it's no substitute for targeting coaching when it comes to developing useful skills. Tell it to the Chinese football team. Then tell it to the Brazilian football team.
      - nradov 8y ago
        Bullshit. I've seen my own children and their peers make significant improvements in several sports with only 2-3 hours a week of coached practice. For example it's not that hard to learn a decent swimming crawl stroke, but almost no one can figure out the right technique on their own. That takes an experienced instructor and focused, disciplined practice. You might have had a bad experience in PE class but don't project your own failings on others.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - vanderZwan 8y ago
        > No one gets good at anything on two hours a week of practice. Absolutely nothing. You have never done any sports, have you? > Tell it to the Chinese football team. Then tell it to the Brazilian football team. Are you seriously going to use two professional teams with extensive professional coaching as an argument against the use of coaching? Nobody is arguing against unstructured play, you are just trying to steer the conversation into a direction where it's an either/or situation where it is not.
derReineke 8y ago
I would also like to point out that this guy's name is "Kneebone". Sounds fake, but okay.
- gaius 8y ago
  It’s called nominative determinism
  - derReineke 8y ago
    ... That would explain why I have a degree in German actually.
    - Filligree 8y ago
      With a name like "derReineke", I should think so.
- warent 8y ago
  I love it. The first thing I thought was "Kneebone? Huh... I wonder if he comes from a lineage of doctors."
gonzo41 8y ago
There was a similar theme in the military where the trigger finger was loosing dexterity and being surpassed by the thumb for controls. Most people didn't grow up shooting on farms but they do get access to a phone early on. As an example the Javelin anti Armour missile have playstation-esq aiming controls on them for this reason and most remote weapons systems have a thumb driven joystick config.
- walshemj 8y ago
  What proportion of enlistees in the military post ww2 have ever a lot of shooting experience. Sounds like presumably "USA" is not expending enough time and money on target practice - I would hope that UK still understand s the lesson taught by the Napoleonic wars that well trained and practiced troops are key to winning a firefight. And crew served weapons is quite different to traditional marksmanship and that's where most of the killing is done these days.
  - debaserab2 8y ago
    You’d be surprised. Gun fetishism often starts at a pretty young age in America.
  - nradov 8y ago
    The US Federal Government sponsors the Civilian Marksmanship Program specifically because of that concern. http://thecmp.org http://thecmp.org
  - larrywright 8y ago
    You wouldn’t know it to listen to them talk these days, but this was actually one of the original goals of the NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vanderZwan 8y ago

> The impulse to blame the "kids these days" seems like an ever-present force Lamenting a lack of experience with arts and crafts and similar sounds more like an "education these days"-complaint to me. If children do suffer from a lack of trained motor skills it is not their fault, but it is something to take seriously, for their sake more than anyone else. Also, I dunno waiting for a proper study is worth the risk. It would take quite long, which means that if it is a problem we already screwed over a generation. Plus, people complaining about a lack of physical education these days is not something limited to surgery. Taking physical education more seriously as being important for general development, and not something just for the people who want to continue in sports is probably beneficial for everyone in the long term anyway. (tangent: I wonder if these students would perform better when handling robot arms with a control stick than previous generations)

barry-cotter 8y ago
> Taking physical education more seriously as being important for general development, and not something just for the people who want to continue in sports is probably beneficial for everyone in the long term anyway. Physical education is awful and it is not capable of not being awful. Even if it was not almost uniformly focused on team sports which some people hate to the point of faking illness and others love to the point of obsession, leading to massive capability gaps, it would still be irrelevant. Two or three hours a week of teacher directed exercise is nothing in the scheme of developing real skill. If people were serious about this problem they could allow children ample time to play, learning about the world and their bodies as small animals are meant to, or if they insist on making everything into a subject, treat physical education as a core part of the curriculum, English public school style, where everyone plays team sports almost every day.
- nradov 8y ago
  Two hours a week of coaching is better than none. Unstructured play is great, but it's no substitute for targeting coaching when it comes to developing useful skills.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    > Two hours a week of coaching is better than none. No one gets good at anything on two hours a week of practice. Absolutely nothing. Two hours a week will barely get you past novice in a year. It’s so little, so seldom that a substantial amount of each lesson has to be revision too but even if learning was instant and perfect 100 hours a year rounds to nothing. > Unstructured play is great, but it's no substitute for targeting coaching when it comes to developing useful skills. Tell it to the Chinese football team. Then tell it to the Brazilian football team.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Bullshit. I've seen my own children and their peers make significant improvements in several sports with only 2-3 hours a week of coached practice. For example it's not that hard to learn a decent swimming crawl stroke, but almost no one can figure out the right technique on their own. That takes an experienced instructor and focused, disciplined practice. You might have had a bad experience in PE class but don't project your own failings on others.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - vanderZwan 8y ago
      > No one gets good at anything on two hours a week of practice. Absolutely nothing. You have never done any sports, have you? > Tell it to the Chinese football team. Then tell it to the Brazilian football team. Are you seriously going to use two professional teams with extensive professional coaching as an argument against the use of coaching? Nobody is arguing against unstructured play, you are just trying to steer the conversation into a direction where it's an either/or situation where it is not.

derReineke 8y ago

I would also like to point out that this guy's name is "Kneebone". Sounds fake, but okay.

gaius 8y ago
It’s called nominative determinism
- derReineke 8y ago
  ... That would explain why I have a degree in German actually.
  - Filligree 8y ago
    With a name like "derReineke", I should think so.
warent 8y ago
I love it. The first thing I thought was "Kneebone? Huh... I wonder if he comes from a lineage of doctors."

gonzo41 8y ago

There was a similar theme in the military where the trigger finger was loosing dexterity and being surpassed by the thumb for controls. Most people didn't grow up shooting on farms but they do get access to a phone early on. As an example the Javelin anti Armour missile have playstation-esq aiming controls on them for this reason and most remote weapons systems have a thumb driven joystick config.

walshemj 8y ago
What proportion of enlistees in the military post ww2 have ever a lot of shooting experience. Sounds like presumably "USA" is not expending enough time and money on target practice - I would hope that UK still understand s the lesson taught by the Napoleonic wars that well trained and practiced troops are key to winning a firefight. And crew served weapons is quite different to traditional marksmanship and that's where most of the killing is done these days.
- debaserab2 8y ago
  You’d be surprised. Gun fetishism often starts at a pretty young age in America.
- nradov 8y ago
  The US Federal Government sponsors the Civilian Marksmanship Program specifically because of that concern. http://thecmp.org http://thecmp.org
- larrywright 8y ago
  You wouldn’t know it to listen to them talk these days, but this was actually one of the original goals of the NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association