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I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted i

I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her. Students have no idea how to do this. Some of them struggle with emails. She has had to make her tutorials on this longer and longer. And she has also been forced to start accepting assignments as a pile of attachments, because so few students understand zip files.

markbnj 7y ago
> I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. I suspect it is the same progression as any other new technology that undergoes mainstreaming. Take automobiles for example. In the early days if you owned a car you either made yourself something of an expert (and if you were an early buyer you were probably kind of an enthusiast already) or you hired one. Today outside of enthusiast circles they are just an appliance: you get in, turn it on, and go do whatever it is you need to do.
- unqueued 7y ago
  I agree that technology will be more streamlined as it becomes more widely adopted. But people still understand that they need to put gas in their car to make their car go, and if they run out of gas, their car can not go. We don't have to know what gas is, but it is still a quantity of something. But our concept of files and data is becoming so abstracted that we do not even know where our data is anymore, how much we need, or how long it takes to transfer it. But until we have much more bandwidth and storage, there will be problems. Imagine a world where we tried optimizing our cars interfaces so much that we removed gas gauges, and just had reminders that told people that they had to go to a gas station. And as a result people would frequently run out of gas, or be shocked by how much gas costs. But gas gauges were considered a power-user feature, and everyone was convinced that users would just never be able to understand them.
  - slededit 7y ago
    Teslas do this, they show battery charge in terms of miles or kilometers which is obviously not the correct unit. It's more abstract and often wrong but closer to what the person wants to know. Oddly enough the iPhone doesn't do this, it will happily tell you how many GB you have left when what the user really wants to know is "How many more songs or photos can I store?".
    - apostacy 7y ago
      I actually think that what Teslas do is good. It is the most accurate representation of driving capacity. And a lot of non electric cars are doing that now too. The first few years of bluetooth headphones would just give you an alarm when they were at 5% capacity, and that was it. And in general, there is very little feedback given about what your storage is doing and where it is located. Just a simple question of "where are your photos" can be hard for most people to answer now. "Uhh, the 'eye cloud', but also on my phone. I mean some of them are and some aren't." And that is why people are constantly losing their data now. I have seen plenty of people hold onto their old phones because they have data that they don't know how to get off, and it is just easier to hold onto the entire device.
    - userbinator 7y ago
      when what the user really wants to know is "How many more songs or photos can I store?" That depends on how large they are, and that can vary widely, which is why abstracting away files (or more specifically, file size) is such a bad idea.
      - slededit 7y ago
        How many KM remaining depends on the terrain, traffic, driving technique, weather and a host of other factors. Nobody is expecting 100% accuracy just a rough estimate. They are already mentally doing the conversion anyways.
        userbinator 7y ago
- friendlybus 7y ago
  I don't need a license for my washing machine. I understand how the functions on my washing machine work less than I do my user facing car controls. People spend thousands of hours driving with the keen knowledge it is possible to kill other drivers on the road. They master it's abilities even if they make bad decisions behind the wheel.
- paulific 7y ago
  For a look at just how hands on early motoring was, check out this article about Kipling and cars (he was an enthusiastic "early adopter"): http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_steamtactics_kipearly.htm http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_steamtactics_kipearly.htm Reading this really does sound like the early days of computing (or as I imagine from reading about it).
jedimastert 7y ago
I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I very rarely send emails at all outside of work. Maybe one or two support emails. I also fairly rarely create zip files either. Of course, I know how to do these things, but I don't really do it anymore. I haven't needed to, for the same reason that I don't own a printer. I haven't needed to "compress" anything since Google Drive and Dropbox meant that all I needed to do to get someone a file is type their email into a box. Perhaps instead of email, you teacher friend could find out how her students send things to each other and meet them half way? Make up a google drive or dropbox or whatever microsoft or apple are doing instead of insisting on whatever's most comfortable for you. In short, I don't think this is an example of students falling behind, but teachers getting left behind. It's a little rudde to say it that way, but I really don't know how else to say it.
- unqueued 7y ago
  > I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I suppose, in the same way that people using crayons are moving away from the printed word. > Perhaps instead of email, you teacher friend could find out how her students send things to each other and meet them half way? Make up a google drive or dropbox or whatever microsoft or apple are doing instead of insisting on whatever's most comfortable for you. Isn't the whole point of school to learn new skills? If students have illegible handwriting and poor grammar, should the teacher really be meeting the students half way? I actually told her that she should continue doing what she was doing, because it was a real boon to her students. They might not ever learn this stuff. Her students objectively less able to share information with each other. I have certainly seen kids who have to go as far as taking screenshots of what an app contains and send a screenshot to someone, than actually be able to export text. I could understand if what the students were doing was in some way comparable in flexibility, but it isn't. They basically only know how to click on the share button in an app, and text links for someone else to install the app. Or send them screenshots of them using an app scrolled to the relevant info. But the biggest benefit is that having assignments in discrete organized bundles makes the most sense for everyone.
nostrademons 7y ago
I'm curious if this is actually computer literacy plummeting or if it's a wider population of students being expected to understand computers. When I was in high school the vast majority of my peers understood how to bundle up a bunch of photos, documents, etc. into a zip file and e-mail them. This is because my peers were nerds, and we were excited about this new computer technology and eager to learn everything we could about it. There were no computer classes in high school. When we had high school science class, we were expected to draw pictures of our experiments (y'know, with a pencil, on paper) and fill out the lab report longhand. There was a large segment of the student body who had no idea what a file was, or how to turn a picture into one, let alone how to bundle it into a zip file. It was a bit different in college, where we were expected to understand Excel and how to run a regression or graph some data. But then, that drew from a very different population than high school. It's sorta like how SATs are dropping not because kids are getting stupider, but because a larger proportion of people who would never have been considered college-bound a generation ago are now expected to take the test.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think vastly more people are reading and writing due to modern computer literacy, and I can't stand the way they are changing the meaning of words because they don't read books. It appears vocabulary is increasing, but people get their vocabulary from inadequate online dictionary entries and/or peers that don't read books either. So to me, because I grew up reading books, it's incredibly aggravating because it seems like a new and inferior language that grew out of ignorance.
  - stormbrew 7y ago
    What, precisely, makes it inferior?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - pm90 7y ago
      Not the OP, but will take a crack: A divergence from the acceptable usage of words makes comprehension difficult, and can cause miscommunications, especially where precision is required; which happens often in a business environment. Even in a misunderstanding of proper usage can severely change the intent behind the messaging, if most communication happens over text (Slack/Email etc.). That being said... if I'm reading this correctly, its specific to communication in non-business settings, where I don't really care much about whats "proper". This is a losing battle, btw. Every society seems to struggle with the problem of keeping purity in language and all of them seem to have failed in that effort. Europeans failed to keep Latin relevant. Indians failed to keep Sanskrit relevant. The common language that is well understood by a majority will always win. And trying to keep it pure by force, just makes it die in relevance. Which is why, the fact that Oxford English Dictionary keeps adding new words to the English dictionary is one of the best indicators of the resilience of the English language.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thrower123213 7y ago
This is very interesting. I've heard similar reasons as to why computer literacy is apparently low in Japan; the keitai ecosystem was so good that e-mail in Nippon is synonymous with messaging.
guggle 7y ago
Teaching to non-CS students (LibreOffice, etc). I confirm most of them have no idea what a file, folder, file system or zip is.
Someone 7y ago
”She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her.” As others said, that’s because they don’t need to do that. In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you. They probably also will understand that editing said documents after informing you of their existence may not mean you’ll see said changes.
- unqueued 7y ago
  > In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you. From what she has told me, and from what I have seen, some of them don't even get that far. Their idea of sharing information is to send screenshots in MMS messages or over snapchat. And, I think that if you graduate high school, you should have these basic skills. Just in the last year, I have emailed zip files to several different people, like my attorney, or when I applied with the local town clerk for a parking permit. There is never going to be an app for everything. And call me old fashioned, but I think a high school graduate should be able to write a check, put it in a physical envelope with a stamp, and mail it. And if someone lets you expedite something by emailing forms to them directly, you should be able to do that too. God forbid a medical office asks you to fax them something. (Which I still have to do several times a year) When I was in high school, everyone knew how to use AOL to send word documents and pictures and even mp3s to each other via email. Everyone. These are skills that can be taught.
  - u801e 7y ago
    > God forbid a medical office asks you to fax them something. (Which I still have to do several times a year) Doing that was much easier in the days when computers came with fax/modems and most places had landlines. Now you have to search for some online service that will inject adverts in your fax or go to a copy place (if you can find one) and pay lots of money to send a fax. I'd almost rather mail a certified letter with return receipt instead :)
zaphirplane 7y ago
The same can be said for newer cars and the people not knowing how they work to fix them up Or gps and knowing how to navigate This maybe another example of users just caring about using something to make lives simpler and more fun
rootsudo 7y ago
These are both interesting insights and I, am, somehow more, selfishly surprised and amused that my career isn't going away because of increasing literacy but because user experience on few devices made it so.

markbnj 7y ago

> I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. I suspect it is the same progression as any other new technology that undergoes mainstreaming. Take automobiles for example. In the early days if you owned a car you either made yourself something of an expert (and if you were an early buyer you were probably kind of an enthusiast already) or you hired one. Today outside of enthusiast circles they are just an appliance: you get in, turn it on, and go do whatever it is you need to do.

unqueued 7y ago
I agree that technology will be more streamlined as it becomes more widely adopted. But people still understand that they need to put gas in their car to make their car go, and if they run out of gas, their car can not go. We don't have to know what gas is, but it is still a quantity of something. But our concept of files and data is becoming so abstracted that we do not even know where our data is anymore, how much we need, or how long it takes to transfer it. But until we have much more bandwidth and storage, there will be problems. Imagine a world where we tried optimizing our cars interfaces so much that we removed gas gauges, and just had reminders that told people that they had to go to a gas station. And as a result people would frequently run out of gas, or be shocked by how much gas costs. But gas gauges were considered a power-user feature, and everyone was convinced that users would just never be able to understand them.
- slededit 7y ago
  Teslas do this, they show battery charge in terms of miles or kilometers which is obviously not the correct unit. It's more abstract and often wrong but closer to what the person wants to know. Oddly enough the iPhone doesn't do this, it will happily tell you how many GB you have left when what the user really wants to know is "How many more songs or photos can I store?".
  - apostacy 7y ago
    I actually think that what Teslas do is good. It is the most accurate representation of driving capacity. And a lot of non electric cars are doing that now too. The first few years of bluetooth headphones would just give you an alarm when they were at 5% capacity, and that was it. And in general, there is very little feedback given about what your storage is doing and where it is located. Just a simple question of "where are your photos" can be hard for most people to answer now. "Uhh, the 'eye cloud', but also on my phone. I mean some of them are and some aren't." And that is why people are constantly losing their data now. I have seen plenty of people hold onto their old phones because they have data that they don't know how to get off, and it is just easier to hold onto the entire device.
  - userbinator 7y ago
    when what the user really wants to know is "How many more songs or photos can I store?" That depends on how large they are, and that can vary widely, which is why abstracting away files (or more specifically, file size) is such a bad idea.
    - slededit 7y ago
      How many KM remaining depends on the terrain, traffic, driving technique, weather and a host of other factors. Nobody is expecting 100% accuracy just a rough estimate. They are already mentally doing the conversion anyways.
      - userbinator 7y ago
friendlybus 7y ago
I don't need a license for my washing machine. I understand how the functions on my washing machine work less than I do my user facing car controls. People spend thousands of hours driving with the keen knowledge it is possible to kill other drivers on the road. They master it's abilities even if they make bad decisions behind the wheel.
paulific 7y ago
For a look at just how hands on early motoring was, check out this article about Kipling and cars (he was an enthusiastic "early adopter"): http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_steamtactics_kipearly.htm http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_steamtactics_kipearly.htm Reading this really does sound like the early days of computing (or as I imagine from reading about it).

jedimastert 7y ago

I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I very rarely send emails at all outside of work. Maybe one or two support emails. I also fairly rarely create zip files either. Of course, I know how to do these things, but I don't really do it anymore. I haven't needed to, for the same reason that I don't own a printer. I haven't needed to "compress" anything since Google Drive and Dropbox meant that all I needed to do to get someone a file is type their email into a box. Perhaps instead of email, you teacher friend could find out how her students send things to each other and meet them half way? Make up a google drive or dropbox or whatever microsoft or apple are doing instead of insisting on whatever's most comfortable for you. In short, I don't think this is an example of students falling behind, but teachers getting left behind. It's a little rudde to say it that way, but I really don't know how else to say it.

unqueued 7y ago
> I might imply that your highschool teacher friend is instead falling out of computer literacy, and that highshool students are moving away from her form of a computer-based workflow. I suppose, in the same way that people using crayons are moving away from the printed word. > Perhaps instead of email, you teacher friend could find out how her students send things to each other and meet them half way? Make up a google drive or dropbox or whatever microsoft or apple are doing instead of insisting on whatever's most comfortable for you. Isn't the whole point of school to learn new skills? If students have illegible handwriting and poor grammar, should the teacher really be meeting the students half way? I actually told her that she should continue doing what she was doing, because it was a real boon to her students. They might not ever learn this stuff. Her students objectively less able to share information with each other. I have certainly seen kids who have to go as far as taking screenshots of what an app contains and send a screenshot to someone, than actually be able to export text. I could understand if what the students were doing was in some way comparable in flexibility, but it isn't. They basically only know how to click on the share button in an app, and text links for someone else to install the app. Or send them screenshots of them using an app scrolled to the relevant info. But the biggest benefit is that having assignments in discrete organized bundles makes the most sense for everyone.

nostrademons 7y ago

I'm curious if this is actually computer literacy plummeting or if it's a wider population of students being expected to understand computers. When I was in high school the vast majority of my peers understood how to bundle up a bunch of photos, documents, etc. into a zip file and e-mail them. This is because my peers were nerds, and we were excited about this new computer technology and eager to learn everything we could about it. There were no computer classes in high school. When we had high school science class, we were expected to draw pictures of our experiments (y'know, with a pencil, on paper) and fill out the lab report longhand. There was a large segment of the student body who had no idea what a file was, or how to turn a picture into one, let alone how to bundle it into a zip file. It was a bit different in college, where we were expected to understand Excel and how to run a regression or graph some data. But then, that drew from a very different population than high school. It's sorta like how SATs are dropping not because kids are getting stupider, but because a larger proportion of people who would never have been considered college-bound a generation ago are now expected to take the test.

perl4ever 7y ago
I think vastly more people are reading and writing due to modern computer literacy, and I can't stand the way they are changing the meaning of words because they don't read books. It appears vocabulary is increasing, but people get their vocabulary from inadequate online dictionary entries and/or peers that don't read books either. So to me, because I grew up reading books, it's incredibly aggravating because it seems like a new and inferior language that grew out of ignorance.
- stormbrew 7y ago
  What, precisely, makes it inferior?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pm90 7y ago
    Not the OP, but will take a crack: A divergence from the acceptable usage of words makes comprehension difficult, and can cause miscommunications, especially where precision is required; which happens often in a business environment. Even in a misunderstanding of proper usage can severely change the intent behind the messaging, if most communication happens over text (Slack/Email etc.). That being said... if I'm reading this correctly, its specific to communication in non-business settings, where I don't really care much about whats "proper". This is a losing battle, btw. Every society seems to struggle with the problem of keeping purity in language and all of them seem to have failed in that effort. Europeans failed to keep Latin relevant. Indians failed to keep Sanskrit relevant. The common language that is well understood by a majority will always win. And trying to keep it pure by force, just makes it die in relevance. Which is why, the fact that Oxford English Dictionary keeps adding new words to the English dictionary is one of the best indicators of the resilience of the English language.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thrower123213 7y ago

This is very interesting. I've heard similar reasons as to why computer literacy is apparently low in Japan; the keitai ecosystem was so good that e-mail in Nippon is synonymous with messaging.

guggle 7y ago

Teaching to non-CS students (LibreOffice, etc). I confirm most of them have no idea what a file, folder, file system or zip is.

Someone 7y ago

”She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her.” As others said, that’s because they don’t need to do that. In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you. They probably also will understand that editing said documents after informing you of their existence may not mean you’ll see said changes.

unqueued 7y ago
> In my experience, they will know how to share their Google Docs (which is where their spreadsheets and typed reports in all likelihood get written) with you. From what she has told me, and from what I have seen, some of them don't even get that far. Their idea of sharing information is to send screenshots in MMS messages or over snapchat. And, I think that if you graduate high school, you should have these basic skills. Just in the last year, I have emailed zip files to several different people, like my attorney, or when I applied with the local town clerk for a parking permit. There is never going to be an app for everything. And call me old fashioned, but I think a high school graduate should be able to write a check, put it in a physical envelope with a stamp, and mail it. And if someone lets you expedite something by emailing forms to them directly, you should be able to do that too. God forbid a medical office asks you to fax them something. (Which I still have to do several times a year) When I was in high school, everyone knew how to use AOL to send word documents and pictures and even mp3s to each other via email. Everyone. These are skills that can be taught.
- u801e 7y ago
  > God forbid a medical office asks you to fax them something. (Which I still have to do several times a year) Doing that was much easier in the days when computers came with fax/modems and most places had landlines. Now you have to search for some online service that will inject adverts in your fax or go to a copy place (if you can find one) and pay lots of money to send a fax. I'd almost rather mail a certified letter with return receipt instead :)

zaphirplane 7y ago

The same can be said for newer cars and the people not knowing how they work to fix them up Or gps and knowing how to navigate This maybe another example of users just caring about using something to make lives simpler and more fun

rootsudo 7y ago

These are both interesting insights and I, am, somehow more, selfishly surprised and amused that my career isn't going away because of increasing literacy but because user experience on few devices made it so.