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The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

116 points by ardy42 8y ago

dbg31415 8y ago
Consumer tech has been refined and dumbed down to the point where everything just sort of magically works, and since it's "magic" you never have to dive into the nuts and bolts. By making it so easy to use, we are depriving people of their opportunities to organically learn like people in my generation had to. Exceptions exist. * Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
- traderjane 8y ago
  In what way were people able to introspect into their computing devices for learning? By being able to poke around OS details or the filesystem? Doesn't it sound more important to have an IDE + fluid building so people don't have to care about the details?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    It’s often useful to be able to know what goes on behind the scenes, but the hardware/software of today makes this increasingly difficult to ascertain.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." This is the biggest difference between then and now. In the 70s and 80s computing was all about details, all the way down to the hardware, which most developers understood at the register level. 8-bit amateurs grew up with simple toy machines. They learned enough detail to allow a natural transition to professional development on mainframes and minis - far more detail and more complexity, more of an OS to deal with, but with a recognisably similar outline. Now most development is more like LEGO - clip moving parts to other moving parts in a slightly precarious way and hope nothing breaks. It's a completely different way of thinking about computing - kit and cookbook based, with less space for original creation and problem solving. This is partly because the details are hidden and can't be changed, but also because the ethic of experimentation and creativity based on deep domain knowledge driven by curiosity isn't the same.
    - wilsonnb3 8y ago
      > There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." The whole point of the many abstractions between the user and the hardware is so they don’t have to care about the details.
      - dkersten 8y ago
        Not caring about the details leaves us with people who can't fix simple issues and with applications that use way too much cpu, memory or energy than they really should. Sure, a lot of people don't care and just want to do the thing, but if you at all care that your computer that is 1000x as powerful as the one you had years ago, but doesn't really do a lot more, then you have to care. If you care about the users of your application and don't simply pass your lower development effort on to them in terms of performance cost, then you have to care. If you want to be able to fix your own issues, then you have to care. Yes, the abstractions mean people can do more without caring, which in turn means more people can use them, but it comes at a cost too.
        goldfeld 8y ago
        Every user application doesn't have to be written in C.
        dkersten 8y ago
        Of course not, but from reading HN, I’m not the only one frustrated with the performance state of many applications. They don’t have to be written in C to perform well. For example, I quite like using Qutebrowser, a minimalistic keyboard-centric browser that’s more lightweight than Chrome or Firefox, yet its written in Python (well, I guess the actual browser engine is C++/Qt)
        goldfeld 8y ago
        I'm reading this (late) in qutebrowser! Mine has so many tabs open but doesn't hang (until it does), which is a fresh change from luakit (and Chrome but not Firefox, alas mine has many many more tabs open so that I don't open it anymore.) And I'm using because it's written in Python (and so easily scriptable from my own Python program.)
  - II2II 8y ago
    Whether you are talking about old or new, it depends upon what you are trying to accomplish as well as how you go about it. Think back to the computers of the early 1980's. It was quite easy for someone to pick up BASIC and create simple programs. Their understanding of programming will be basic and their understanding of the machine will reflect that. That is quite similar to today. Someone who whetted their appetite will move on to more advanced concepts. With early computers, that typically meant learning about the hardware or learning about algorithms. You either had to squeeze more performance out of your software or you needed to extend your reach beyond the language (and libraries). Today's programmer is, more likely than not, going to dive more deeply into libraries or learn more about their programming language. Yes, there will be exceptions based upon the domain that interests them or what they wish to gain from their learning. Let's say that they decide to dive deeper into how the computer works. In the case of an early personal computer, the task was relatively easy. From a programmer's perspective, almost everything can be viewed sequentially and shuffling data across a bus. If they were more interested in electronics, it was relatively easy to see what was going on by looking at a circuit diagram or the board itself coupled with reading (admittedly more difficult to obtain) datasheets. With that knowledge, it was possible to modify the existing hardware and practical to build new hardware. The notion that we are abstracting our understanding further and further from the workings of the machine while letting that limited understanding decide how what we can do with it isn't exactly a new one. My first real encounter with that idea was from one of the pioneers of digital computers, who described the machine as fundamentally physical and analog. In other words, making the physical world digital is in some sense and abstraction in its own right. Granted, the article's author had relatively little to say on the fronts of programming and electronics design. It was more of a critique about younger people using software with very little understanding of its features or how it works, the sort of thing that can get you into trouble when things are not working as expected. While I disagree that this problem is specific to this generation, it is a solid reminder that the stereotype that younger people are better with technology is just plain wrong.
- gordaco 8y ago
  Regarding computer literacy, there are two glaring difference between the current generation and the one who grew with computers in the 90s: one is the one you mention; in the 90s we were our own tech support, so to speak, and when DOS didn't want to run that shiny game that you just got, it was up to you to figure out the problem and hopefully to find a solution. We learned a lot because we had to. The other is that most devices are increasingly more geared towards conmsumption and less towards experimentation and creation. On one hand, I used to do crazy things with assembler, regarding direct access to ports and interrupts, that no current OS would allow. On the other, the shift towards phones has greatly changed (and IMHO, reduced, mostly) what we do with our computers. The good news is that the info is out there for the ones who do want to learn; we didn't have that privilege. Still, these are a minority, and in my experience, the average 18yo person preparing right now to start a degree in CS (or whichever career centered around programming) knows way less about computer than what we used to know at their age.
  - eecsninja 8y ago
    The bad news is that you can't do any of that on modern computer systems anymore. I started out learning how to program in Windows 95 to make games. I learned to use inline assembly to set the video mode, and then directly write to video memory at 0xA0000000. You can't do that anymore on modern Windows even if you knew how. Today if you wanted to start game programming, you'd probably read a bunch of articles recommending Unity, which doesn't even easily support C++ FFS.
jahn716 8y ago
There's definitely a false equivalency being made in being "more connected" as meaning "superior." Certainly younger generations will always be more accustomed to interfacing with technology (this will never change). But that doesn't mean they understand it.
anotheryou 8y ago
I guess the first generation of digital natives (and those older who caught up a bit later in life) will remain the only one who had to touch relatively low level stuff (things as simple as a tree of folders and file endings).
- davnicwil 8y ago
  I remember when one of the markers of being a technical person was using the word directory vs the word folder. It seems arbitrary but I think the reason is that non technical users always feel more comfortable sitting at the exact level of abstraction of the interface without translating it into what it actually is, in computing terms. A folder is something you recognise, you put files in it, there's even an icon that looks like a folder - a file extension is the 'type' of the file and controls the progam that will open it. That's all you need to know. I'm not sure those non technical users have got less technical with time, I just think the abstraction has moved up a level from the OS and file storage being something they have to think about regularly, to now apps mostly just handling storage and files for you and presenting the data through their interface (i.e. The concept of a file being separate from the app that uses it is going away somewhat). The people that were dealing with folders and file extensions may seem now in retrospect to be more low level, but they weren't. That was just the interface/abstraction available to them at the time. I don't think they had a better model of what was going on underneath than someone today who just taps app icons etc.
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    I think language is not the best indicator, because I think one should obey the masses to keep communication efficiently, even if it hurts a bit sometimes. (drone = quadcopter, autonomous quadcopter = autonomous drone or something, app = mobile app, AI = ML/DL/if)
iliketosleep 8y ago
The people who are "digitally superior" as those who take an active interest in learning the tech. They are young or old, and constitute only a small percentage of the population.
EliRivers 8y ago
Related, http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... Computers, for the majority of people, are now principally consumption devices, with some small amount of guided typing of tweets and chats (which I think I would argue is effectively consumption still, in much the way that I'd consider someone speaking on the telephone to be a consumer of that service). I would not expect someone who watched a lot of movies to be good at making them; I would not expect someone who reads a lot of books to be a whizz when it comes to typesetting and printing; I would not expect someone who eats a lot of sandwiches to be competent at baking bread; I would not expect someone who watches Netflix and reads tweets to be good at configuring or programming the computer they're using to do it.
ddebernardy 8y ago
It's not clear to me why they should be "digitally superior" - whatever that means. Kids just need to tap icons on their touchscreens nowadays. They seldom need to tinker with or troubleshoot computers. Just spitballing here, but I'd expect peak tech-savviness to have occurred in the 80s and early 90s. If you were old enough to want to play resource intensive games released in the run-up to Win95, you'd sometimes need to free up memory by messing around with config.sys and autoexec.bat. Good times...
- drchiu 8y ago
  Your comment about config.sys and autoexec.bat brought a smile to me. Definitely good old times. Also miss messing around hexadecimal editors to cheat in games.
- alephnil 8y ago
  In fact, it is much harder to tinker with technology than it used to be. Not only is it more complex, but phones are also locked down so you are not really able to control your own device, or it does at least require quite some effort to do so, and can't be done using the device itself. Both Apple and Google in practice discourage people from tinkering with the device.
  - c22 8y ago
    It might be harder to tinker with The Device, but tinkering kids these days are not bereft of options. When I was a teenager I remember badly wanting a "386 single board computer" which I saw advertised in the pages of Popular Science for hundreds of dollars. Imagine the things I could do with a whole computer small enough to hold in one hand! It could breathe new life into my projects and bring my tinkering to a whole new level! Sadly this marvel was beyond my budget at the time but today you can buy dozens of such boards for a fraction of the price. Boards with a dizzying array of integrated peripherals teenage me wouldn't have even known what to do with. Today there are uncountable open source projects you can download immediately to run on these boards, whole sophisticated stacks which can be imported now and torn apart to be stitched back together tomorrow. A tech-interested teen today can buy devices with their pocket change that have more power and flexibility than any of the platforms I had access to as a kid.
II2II 8y ago
This is something that I realized a couple of decades back, when my generation was supposedly the computer savvy one, after meeting a man in his sixties. While teaching computer programming to children I noticed that people tended to correlate screen time with technical ability, even when the child was a passive consumer. When I talk to children and youth today, I recognize similarities between the ones that I hold technical coversations with and my peers while I was growing up. I would not be surprised if the proportion of youth engaged with technology remains relatively stable from generation to generation.
high_derivative 8y ago
I have long thought the term 'digital native' is a sort of filter for people who are not actually technologists but avid consumers of mostly social platforms. I (as a computer scientist) have never heard people actually working in tech refer to themselves as that.
- avip 8y ago
  I've heard this term first time now reading your comment. Adding it to "list of thing I hope my kids are not".
- SuoDuanDao 8y ago
  I always assumed it was coined by a manager somewhere who was impressed by his teenage intern's ability to set up his email. There are a lot of people who aren't just not technical but actively phobic of computers, I think 'digital native' is more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to fix a car.
  - fmajid 8y ago
    AFAIK it was introduced by Don Tapscot in his 1999 book Growing up Digital.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Here's a little more background on the term. Tapscot seems to have had the basic concept in the book but didn't use the exact term. Douglas Rushkoff probably coined the precise term. http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of_Terms-DN_DI-June-2006_Blog_Post.pdf http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of...
- ghaff 8y ago
  It's a term and concept that came out of essentially sociology writing by a number of different people in the late 90s and early 2000s. As the linked article suggests though, it's not clear it's a particularly useful term. The digital immigrants are often more tech savvy in at least many respects than the natives because they once had to be. And most of the people I work with in tech have had absolutely no problem fully incorporating the rideshare, social media, video/ music streaming, and mapping apps into their everyday lives even though many first encountered them as adults. Are there age-based differences in media consumption etc.? Sure. But that's much more about generational preferences and habits than having grown up before the Web.
sxates 8y ago
When I was a kid, my dad changed the oil in our cars, replaced brakes and spark plugs, and if it broke down he could at least diagnose it if not fix it himself. Now I'm grown up, and cars have changed a lot. I have a tesla, and the only thing I can really service on it myself is the washer fluid. But it's also more reliable and doesn't need constant tinkering. This was what came to mind reading this. I was of the "tinker" generation with computers, which have changed a lot since then. More reliable, more user friendly. I don't expect my children will have the same relationship with them I did, just like I didn't have the same relationship with cars my parents did. But maybe they will be the tinker generation of something else...
- bmking 8y ago
  Although I would like to think that the next generation will be renowned for the "tinkerers of something else that comes out", it is also true that industry and society has changed a lot in that regard. Back in your parents day, your dad was able to have a holistic view on his car and repair many parts also because it was more simple back then. And it was also possible to repair TVs, toasters, lawnmower and whatnot. This has just completely changed for many reasons. Things are becoming more complex and more "consumer-friendly". But in fact "consumer-friendly" nowadays feels more and more like keeping the user limited (or maybe even stupid) to never even try to ask questions/put the technology into perspective finding new use cases for him/herself or even fixing things for themselves (think about Apple policies...). So I do believe that for "tinkerers" to have a come-back a completely new era would first have to evolve again.
  - gordaco 8y ago
    Indeed. Things become more consumer friendly, i.e. more general public friendly, but less power user friendly. This happened with cars (they have many electronic components that aren't as easy to repair as it was in the past, when everything was mechanic) and has been happening with computers for some time, regarding both software and hardware (walled gardens, dumbed-down operating systems with fewer and fewer configuration options[0], simplified UIs, etc). [0]: I can only talk about Windows, which is what I use extensively. I noticed that there are many things that I could do in Windows 7 (sometimes using non-Microsoft tools, like Open Shell) and that are not possible any more in Windows 10.
xbmcuser 8y ago
The same kids will run rings around most parents no matter how tech savvy when it cames to using social media. I know way more about computers and technology than my parents at the same time my dad knows more about wiring and plumbing where I sometimes draw a blank though YouTube helps. As my dad had to interact with bad plumbing and wiring in his life I haven't.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  Exactly this. We think we are tech savvy because we are better than them at our tech. That tech was plumbing for your dad, and it’s something 90s-00s for me. My kids do stuff better than me that I don’t even consider tech but it probably is. That’s how you become an old person that know nothing about tech - you keep being good at tech and don’t consider the stuff you aren’t good as to be tech. Eventually that other tech is all there is and you are now your dad.
  - niwo 8y ago
    Tech savvy is a misnomer a lot of the time. Because it is not technology that is hard to learn as such, but the flaws. It always annoyed me when I was younger that people would think you are smart because you could brute force a printer setup. When in reality it is because I probably had nothing else to do so I could "learn" by banging my head against the wall.
- joefourier 8y ago
  What exactly requires tech savviness about social media? The interfaces are designed to be simple and intuitively usable by the lowest common denominator. The platforms' front-ends expose almost nothing about they actually work, and there is almost no way for an average user to fix any problems should they occur, or to customize the closed-source app released in the walled garden. Does Instagram teach you about image codecs? Does the average user have any idea how the computer vision in Snapchat filters works? When YouTube suffers an outage, what can they do but shrug and wait until the people working there fix it? That's exactly what the article above is saying. The kids aren't learning any problem solving skills. They may be better at following social media trends, knowing the latest memes, and finding the latest hot new app, but that has nothing to do with technical aptitude.
fmajid 8y ago
It has nothing to do with generation. About 5% of the population has the neurological wiring that makes a good programmer. The rest are just passive users of technology, just as clueless politicians and educators seem to think teaching Excel (a useful skill) somehow constitutes Computer Science.
- auxym 8y ago
  Do you have a source for that 5% figure? I mean, I suspect as much from my own experience, but I'm curious to know if there's actual research out there.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    From my own personal experience, I believe that most people can learn most things, but they need the motivation to do it. I find that most learning material for programming (especially courses/lectures) don't do a very good job at providing motivation. I also believe that most teachers are simply not that good at teaching, sadly, which makes learning hard. For example, often you're given an example, but not enough information to get from a blank page to the example by yourself. I do believe that its mostly nurture and only a tiny bit nature (the nature is mostly in our tolerance for certain things, especially problems we face, rather than in our ability to tackle them).
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I think the exact number comes out of thin air but from observation I agree that only a minority of people are cut out for this work. Most will find it boring and tedious.
analog31 8y ago
In my house, Mom and Dad are scientists, and quite tech savvy in our respective fields, including digital technology supporting our work. I also happen to have taken up programming and electronics as hobbies starting around 1981. So I'm a tech savvy parent. Yet I've noticed some age differences. My kids are "quicker" at picking things up. They can notice a tiny detail on a big screen, and are more likely to recognize and remember the meaning of an icon, whereas I have to hover over it with my mouse pointer and hope for a tool tip to pop up. So things like GUIs will seem more intuitive to them, when the real advantage is their ability to quickly distinguish a bunch of tiny abstract symbols.
TadaScientist 8y ago
Get a raspberry pi and a couple of how-tos and you can watch your kid become addicted to making things sing with code.

116 points by ardy42 8y ago

Consumer tech has been refined and dumbed down to the point where everything just sort of magically works, and since it's "magic" you never have to dive into the nuts and bolts. By making it so easy to use, we are depriving people of their opportunities to organically learn like people in my generation had to. Exceptions exist. * Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk

traderjane 8y ago
In what way were people able to introspect into their computing devices for learning? By being able to poke around OS details or the filesystem? Doesn't it sound more important to have an IDE + fluid building so people don't have to care about the details?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  It’s often useful to be able to know what goes on behind the scenes, but the hardware/software of today makes this increasingly difficult to ascertain.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." This is the biggest difference between then and now. In the 70s and 80s computing was all about details, all the way down to the hardware, which most developers understood at the register level. 8-bit amateurs grew up with simple toy machines. They learned enough detail to allow a natural transition to professional development on mainframes and minis - far more detail and more complexity, more of an OS to deal with, but with a recognisably similar outline. Now most development is more like LEGO - clip moving parts to other moving parts in a slightly precarious way and hope nothing breaks. It's a completely different way of thinking about computing - kit and cookbook based, with less space for original creation and problem solving. This is partly because the details are hidden and can't be changed, but also because the ethic of experimentation and creativity based on deep domain knowledge driven by curiosity isn't the same.
  - wilsonnb3 8y ago
    > There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." The whole point of the many abstractions between the user and the hardware is so they don’t have to care about the details.
    - dkersten 8y ago
      Not caring about the details leaves us with people who can't fix simple issues and with applications that use way too much cpu, memory or energy than they really should. Sure, a lot of people don't care and just want to do the thing, but if you at all care that your computer that is 1000x as powerful as the one you had years ago, but doesn't really do a lot more, then you have to care. If you care about the users of your application and don't simply pass your lower development effort on to them in terms of performance cost, then you have to care. If you want to be able to fix your own issues, then you have to care. Yes, the abstractions mean people can do more without caring, which in turn means more people can use them, but it comes at a cost too.
      - goldfeld 8y ago
        Every user application doesn't have to be written in C.
        dkersten 8y ago
        Of course not, but from reading HN, I’m not the only one frustrated with the performance state of many applications. They don’t have to be written in C to perform well. For example, I quite like using Qutebrowser, a minimalistic keyboard-centric browser that’s more lightweight than Chrome or Firefox, yet its written in Python (well, I guess the actual browser engine is C++/Qt)
        goldfeld 8y ago
        I'm reading this (late) in qutebrowser! Mine has so many tabs open but doesn't hang (until it does), which is a fresh change from luakit (and Chrome but not Firefox, alas mine has many many more tabs open so that I don't open it anymore.) And I'm using because it's written in Python (and so easily scriptable from my own Python program.)
- II2II 8y ago
  Whether you are talking about old or new, it depends upon what you are trying to accomplish as well as how you go about it. Think back to the computers of the early 1980's. It was quite easy for someone to pick up BASIC and create simple programs. Their understanding of programming will be basic and their understanding of the machine will reflect that. That is quite similar to today. Someone who whetted their appetite will move on to more advanced concepts. With early computers, that typically meant learning about the hardware or learning about algorithms. You either had to squeeze more performance out of your software or you needed to extend your reach beyond the language (and libraries). Today's programmer is, more likely than not, going to dive more deeply into libraries or learn more about their programming language. Yes, there will be exceptions based upon the domain that interests them or what they wish to gain from their learning. Let's say that they decide to dive deeper into how the computer works. In the case of an early personal computer, the task was relatively easy. From a programmer's perspective, almost everything can be viewed sequentially and shuffling data across a bus. If they were more interested in electronics, it was relatively easy to see what was going on by looking at a circuit diagram or the board itself coupled with reading (admittedly more difficult to obtain) datasheets. With that knowledge, it was possible to modify the existing hardware and practical to build new hardware. The notion that we are abstracting our understanding further and further from the workings of the machine while letting that limited understanding decide how what we can do with it isn't exactly a new one. My first real encounter with that idea was from one of the pioneers of digital computers, who described the machine as fundamentally physical and analog. In other words, making the physical world digital is in some sense and abstraction in its own right. Granted, the article's author had relatively little to say on the fronts of programming and electronics design. It was more of a critique about younger people using software with very little understanding of its features or how it works, the sort of thing that can get you into trouble when things are not working as expected. While I disagree that this problem is specific to this generation, it is a solid reminder that the stereotype that younger people are better with technology is just plain wrong.
gordaco 8y ago
Regarding computer literacy, there are two glaring difference between the current generation and the one who grew with computers in the 90s: one is the one you mention; in the 90s we were our own tech support, so to speak, and when DOS didn't want to run that shiny game that you just got, it was up to you to figure out the problem and hopefully to find a solution. We learned a lot because we had to. The other is that most devices are increasingly more geared towards conmsumption and less towards experimentation and creation. On one hand, I used to do crazy things with assembler, regarding direct access to ports and interrupts, that no current OS would allow. On the other, the shift towards phones has greatly changed (and IMHO, reduced, mostly) what we do with our computers. The good news is that the info is out there for the ones who do want to learn; we didn't have that privilege. Still, these are a minority, and in my experience, the average 18yo person preparing right now to start a degree in CS (or whichever career centered around programming) knows way less about computer than what we used to know at their age.
- eecsninja 8y ago
  The bad news is that you can't do any of that on modern computer systems anymore. I started out learning how to program in Windows 95 to make games. I learned to use inline assembly to set the video mode, and then directly write to video memory at 0xA0000000. You can't do that anymore on modern Windows even if you knew how. Today if you wanted to start game programming, you'd probably read a bunch of articles recommending Unity, which doesn't even easily support C++ FFS.

jahn716 8y ago

There's definitely a false equivalency being made in being "more connected" as meaning "superior." Certainly younger generations will always be more accustomed to interfacing with technology (this will never change). But that doesn't mean they understand it.

anotheryou 8y ago

I guess the first generation of digital natives (and those older who caught up a bit later in life) will remain the only one who had to touch relatively low level stuff (things as simple as a tree of folders and file endings).

davnicwil 8y ago
I remember when one of the markers of being a technical person was using the word directory vs the word folder. It seems arbitrary but I think the reason is that non technical users always feel more comfortable sitting at the exact level of abstraction of the interface without translating it into what it actually is, in computing terms. A folder is something you recognise, you put files in it, there's even an icon that looks like a folder - a file extension is the 'type' of the file and controls the progam that will open it. That's all you need to know. I'm not sure those non technical users have got less technical with time, I just think the abstraction has moved up a level from the OS and file storage being something they have to think about regularly, to now apps mostly just handling storage and files for you and presenting the data through their interface (i.e. The concept of a file being separate from the app that uses it is going away somewhat). The people that were dealing with folders and file extensions may seem now in retrospect to be more low level, but they weren't. That was just the interface/abstraction available to them at the time. I don't think they had a better model of what was going on underneath than someone today who just taps app icons etc.
- anotheryou 8y ago
  I think language is not the best indicator, because I think one should obey the masses to keep communication efficiently, even if it hurts a bit sometimes. (drone = quadcopter, autonomous quadcopter = autonomous drone or something, app = mobile app, AI = ML/DL/if)

iliketosleep 8y ago

The people who are "digitally superior" as those who take an active interest in learning the tech. They are young or old, and constitute only a small percentage of the population.

EliRivers 8y ago

Related, http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... Computers, for the majority of people, are now principally consumption devices, with some small amount of guided typing of tweets and chats (which I think I would argue is effectively consumption still, in much the way that I'd consider someone speaking on the telephone to be a consumer of that service). I would not expect someone who watched a lot of movies to be good at making them; I would not expect someone who reads a lot of books to be a whizz when it comes to typesetting and printing; I would not expect someone who eats a lot of sandwiches to be competent at baking bread; I would not expect someone who watches Netflix and reads tweets to be good at configuring or programming the computer they're using to do it.

ddebernardy 8y ago

It's not clear to me why they should be "digitally superior" - whatever that means. Kids just need to tap icons on their touchscreens nowadays. They seldom need to tinker with or troubleshoot computers. Just spitballing here, but I'd expect peak tech-savviness to have occurred in the 80s and early 90s. If you were old enough to want to play resource intensive games released in the run-up to Win95, you'd sometimes need to free up memory by messing around with config.sys and autoexec.bat. Good times...

drchiu 8y ago
Your comment about config.sys and autoexec.bat brought a smile to me. Definitely good old times. Also miss messing around hexadecimal editors to cheat in games.
alephnil 8y ago
In fact, it is much harder to tinker with technology than it used to be. Not only is it more complex, but phones are also locked down so you are not really able to control your own device, or it does at least require quite some effort to do so, and can't be done using the device itself. Both Apple and Google in practice discourage people from tinkering with the device.
- c22 8y ago
  It might be harder to tinker with The Device, but tinkering kids these days are not bereft of options. When I was a teenager I remember badly wanting a "386 single board computer" which I saw advertised in the pages of Popular Science for hundreds of dollars. Imagine the things I could do with a whole computer small enough to hold in one hand! It could breathe new life into my projects and bring my tinkering to a whole new level! Sadly this marvel was beyond my budget at the time but today you can buy dozens of such boards for a fraction of the price. Boards with a dizzying array of integrated peripherals teenage me wouldn't have even known what to do with. Today there are uncountable open source projects you can download immediately to run on these boards, whole sophisticated stacks which can be imported now and torn apart to be stitched back together tomorrow. A tech-interested teen today can buy devices with their pocket change that have more power and flexibility than any of the platforms I had access to as a kid.

II2II 8y ago

This is something that I realized a couple of decades back, when my generation was supposedly the computer savvy one, after meeting a man in his sixties. While teaching computer programming to children I noticed that people tended to correlate screen time with technical ability, even when the child was a passive consumer. When I talk to children and youth today, I recognize similarities between the ones that I hold technical coversations with and my peers while I was growing up. I would not be surprised if the proportion of youth engaged with technology remains relatively stable from generation to generation.

high_derivative 8y ago

I have long thought the term 'digital native' is a sort of filter for people who are not actually technologists but avid consumers of mostly social platforms. I (as a computer scientist) have never heard people actually working in tech refer to themselves as that.

avip 8y ago
I've heard this term first time now reading your comment. Adding it to "list of thing I hope my kids are not".
SuoDuanDao 8y ago
I always assumed it was coined by a manager somewhere who was impressed by his teenage intern's ability to set up his email. There are a lot of people who aren't just not technical but actively phobic of computers, I think 'digital native' is more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to fix a car.
- fmajid 8y ago
  AFAIK it was introduced by Don Tapscot in his 1999 book Growing up Digital.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Here's a little more background on the term. Tapscot seems to have had the basic concept in the book but didn't use the exact term. Douglas Rushkoff probably coined the precise term. http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of_Terms-DN_DI-June-2006_Blog_Post.pdf http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of...
ghaff 8y ago
It's a term and concept that came out of essentially sociology writing by a number of different people in the late 90s and early 2000s. As the linked article suggests though, it's not clear it's a particularly useful term. The digital immigrants are often more tech savvy in at least many respects than the natives because they once had to be. And most of the people I work with in tech have had absolutely no problem fully incorporating the rideshare, social media, video/ music streaming, and mapping apps into their everyday lives even though many first encountered them as adults. Are there age-based differences in media consumption etc.? Sure. But that's much more about generational preferences and habits than having grown up before the Web.

sxates 8y ago

When I was a kid, my dad changed the oil in our cars, replaced brakes and spark plugs, and if it broke down he could at least diagnose it if not fix it himself. Now I'm grown up, and cars have changed a lot. I have a tesla, and the only thing I can really service on it myself is the washer fluid. But it's also more reliable and doesn't need constant tinkering. This was what came to mind reading this. I was of the "tinker" generation with computers, which have changed a lot since then. More reliable, more user friendly. I don't expect my children will have the same relationship with them I did, just like I didn't have the same relationship with cars my parents did. But maybe they will be the tinker generation of something else...

bmking 8y ago
Although I would like to think that the next generation will be renowned for the "tinkerers of something else that comes out", it is also true that industry and society has changed a lot in that regard. Back in your parents day, your dad was able to have a holistic view on his car and repair many parts also because it was more simple back then. And it was also possible to repair TVs, toasters, lawnmower and whatnot. This has just completely changed for many reasons. Things are becoming more complex and more "consumer-friendly". But in fact "consumer-friendly" nowadays feels more and more like keeping the user limited (or maybe even stupid) to never even try to ask questions/put the technology into perspective finding new use cases for him/herself or even fixing things for themselves (think about Apple policies...). So I do believe that for "tinkerers" to have a come-back a completely new era would first have to evolve again.
- gordaco 8y ago
  Indeed. Things become more consumer friendly, i.e. more general public friendly, but less power user friendly. This happened with cars (they have many electronic components that aren't as easy to repair as it was in the past, when everything was mechanic) and has been happening with computers for some time, regarding both software and hardware (walled gardens, dumbed-down operating systems with fewer and fewer configuration options[0], simplified UIs, etc). [0]: I can only talk about Windows, which is what I use extensively. I noticed that there are many things that I could do in Windows 7 (sometimes using non-Microsoft tools, like Open Shell) and that are not possible any more in Windows 10.

xbmcuser 8y ago

The same kids will run rings around most parents no matter how tech savvy when it cames to using social media. I know way more about computers and technology than my parents at the same time my dad knows more about wiring and plumbing where I sometimes draw a blank though YouTube helps. As my dad had to interact with bad plumbing and wiring in his life I haven't.

alkonaut 8y ago
Exactly this. We think we are tech savvy because we are better than them at our tech. That tech was plumbing for your dad, and it’s something 90s-00s for me. My kids do stuff better than me that I don’t even consider tech but it probably is. That’s how you become an old person that know nothing about tech - you keep being good at tech and don’t consider the stuff you aren’t good as to be tech. Eventually that other tech is all there is and you are now your dad.
- niwo 8y ago
  Tech savvy is a misnomer a lot of the time. Because it is not technology that is hard to learn as such, but the flaws. It always annoyed me when I was younger that people would think you are smart because you could brute force a printer setup. When in reality it is because I probably had nothing else to do so I could "learn" by banging my head against the wall.
joefourier 8y ago
What exactly requires tech savviness about social media? The interfaces are designed to be simple and intuitively usable by the lowest common denominator. The platforms' front-ends expose almost nothing about they actually work, and there is almost no way for an average user to fix any problems should they occur, or to customize the closed-source app released in the walled garden. Does Instagram teach you about image codecs? Does the average user have any idea how the computer vision in Snapchat filters works? When YouTube suffers an outage, what can they do but shrug and wait until the people working there fix it? That's exactly what the article above is saying. The kids aren't learning any problem solving skills. They may be better at following social media trends, knowing the latest memes, and finding the latest hot new app, but that has nothing to do with technical aptitude.

fmajid 8y ago

It has nothing to do with generation. About 5% of the population has the neurological wiring that makes a good programmer. The rest are just passive users of technology, just as clueless politicians and educators seem to think teaching Excel (a useful skill) somehow constitutes Computer Science.

auxym 8y ago
Do you have a source for that 5% figure? I mean, I suspect as much from my own experience, but I'm curious to know if there's actual research out there.
- dkersten 8y ago
  From my own personal experience, I believe that most people can learn most things, but they need the motivation to do it. I find that most learning material for programming (especially courses/lectures) don't do a very good job at providing motivation. I also believe that most teachers are simply not that good at teaching, sadly, which makes learning hard. For example, often you're given an example, but not enough information to get from a blank page to the example by yourself. I do believe that its mostly nurture and only a tiny bit nature (the nature is mostly in our tolerance for certain things, especially problems we face, rather than in our ability to tackle them).
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I think the exact number comes out of thin air but from observation I agree that only a minority of people are cut out for this work. Most will find it boring and tedious.

analog31 8y ago

In my house, Mom and Dad are scientists, and quite tech savvy in our respective fields, including digital technology supporting our work. I also happen to have taken up programming and electronics as hobbies starting around 1981. So I'm a tech savvy parent. Yet I've noticed some age differences. My kids are "quicker" at picking things up. They can notice a tiny detail on a big screen, and are more likely to recognize and remember the meaning of an icon, whereas I have to hover over it with my mouse pointer and hope for a tool tip to pop up. So things like GUIs will seem more intuitive to them, when the real advantage is their ability to quickly distinguish a bunch of tiny abstract symbols.

TadaScientist 8y ago

Get a raspberry pi and a couple of how-tos and you can watch your kid become addicted to making things sing with code.