6 ms·

There's something to be said about growing up using devices that are made for creation and not just consumption - the barrier to go from "this is a cool web pag

There's something to be said about growing up using devices that are made for creation and not just consumption - the barrier to go from "this is a cool web page! How can I make one?" is a hell of a lot higher on a phone than a computer, or now vs. the mid-90's (if only because the standards are so much higher). But this guy is just being a jerk: "Digital natives my ass, all they do is stream videos on YouTube and Twitch." Which is a shame, because it crowds out what I was hoping would be a more thoughtful discussion about devices created purely for consumption, or perhaps walled gardens, and how they don't afford people the same opportunity to learn as general purpose computers. I wonder if early car enthusiasts felt the same about people who learned to drive when you no longer needed to know how to fix your car all the time.

ghaff 6y ago
>I wonder if early car enthusiasts felt the same about people who learned to drive when you no longer needed to know how to fix your car all the time. I don't think you need to go back to early car enthusiasts. A lot of people would argue that at least being able to do basic car maintenance is a life skill everyone should have. I don't necessarily agree but I do think it's useful to understand at least the basics of how a car operates.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  The car is a black box. Gas goes in, vroom comes out. If the box stops working, I pay someone to fix it. You might argue I'm not car literate, but I'm not sure that is particularly insightful, as the type of specialized knowledge is not actually relevant to doing almost anything with a car that people want to do. Similarly, while coding is great and all, I'm not sure that not being able to code is the same thing as not knowing how to use a computer effectively.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I won't argue. And I grew up at a time when cars were less reliable (and my first clunker certainly wasn't). I do think some basic things like changing a tire, jumping a battery, and at least knowing how to check fluid levels is useful. You don't always have something go wrong where you can easily just call for help.
    - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      Yeah except new cars you don't have access to the battery (they are starting to make the engine 'protected') and even changing a tire is more rare as many manufacturers are shipping a repair kit vs a spare wheel. Most also have roadside assistance (or your insurance has) which makes it easier. Most people want a car to go from A to B, many times, if every few years (I only had a blown tire in 20 years driving) they have to call someone to help them, it makes much more sense than spend the time to learn how to do it themselves. Same with computers, they don't want to know how the bytes get into ram, they want to play Doom or write a school paper. There is no need for them to learn all that.
  - hnick 6y ago
    In such cases though I always have a nagging suspicion they are fixing things I don't need or gold plating the service. It definitely happens to some people. So, I always feel better with a small amount of understanding to arm the BS detector.
  - flukus 6y ago
    > The car is a black box. Gas goes in, vroom comes out. If the box stops working, I pay someone to fix it. It would be a huge problem if you're an aspiring mechanic or anything related, but that's an increasingly niche role so we aren't worried about kids not having mechanical literacy. Many kids are aspiring to work in roles where computer literacy is vital and becoming more so every day. The one's that lack the fluency to do things like automate the repetitive parts of their jobs will gradually not be adding enough value to be gainfully employed. Not being computer literate will have a huge impact on their careers, not being car literate won't (for most).
worker767424 6y ago
> "this is a cool web page! How can I make one?" I sympathize with what's been lost, but what happened was people realized they didn't actually want to build a web page, they wanted to converse on a forum and share pics, and be entertained. Sure, you could publish anything you can imagine that's less than 4 MB on Geocities, but I'd rather have Wikipedia.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  It's more like "That's a cool YouTube career, how do I make one?"
  - worker767424 6y ago
    (Perceived) fame and fortune are pretty standard aspirations.
    - musicale 6y ago
      It's interesting that streamers and "influencers" seem to be replacing, or at least competing with, other pop culture and performing arts celebrities. Though there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in practice between "youtuber" and "television presenter" other than the broadcast medium. One thing that youtube adds to television is an easy way to interact directly with viewers.
    - culturestate 6y ago
      Fame and fortune aren’t the only reasons people try to make careers out of content; some (maybe even most) are just trying to support themselves by doing things they enjoy instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5 so they can afford to do those things on the weekend. I find it pretty inspiring that we live in a time where someone who really loves doing, like, aerial yoga can reasonably make doing aerial yoga their job just by learning how to edit videos and engaging with other people who are also into that thing.
qsort 6y ago
There's nothing wrong with consumption devices, but they are not computers. You are using a computer if and only if you are programming, otherwise you are using a glorified television or a glorified typewriter. There's nothing wrong with that. The vast majority of people want exactly that. We shouldn't fight it, nor we should believe we are better or smarter. But that's not tech literacy.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  But isn't it though? Does someone literate in film need to make movies? Why can't someone be literate in tech without writing html?
- yak_shaver2000 6y ago
  What an odd form of gatekeeping. To what end?
  - qsort 6y ago
    I am specifically not attempting to 'gate-keep'. You don't want to code? Don't. I'm not going to force it down your throat.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      You're gatekeeping who qualifies as "using a computer", and using a really odd definition to do it. Now, the rest of your point is, who cares? Do with that thing whatever floats your boat, it's fine if you don't program. That point is valid. But when "that thing" is a computer, and they're "doing" something with it, that qualifies as "using a computer". At least by the definitions the rest of us are using.
      - qsort 6y ago
        That's just a debate on the semantics of the sentence "using a computer". Maybe your definition is better, I don't particularly care. The point I'm trying to make is that I percieve a very clear conceptual difference between "using a computer to program" and "using a computer to do other things", and I would tend to believe an effort to improve computer literacy should attempt to point people to the former rather than the latter. Do you believe those things to be the same? I have a strong intuition that they aren't, but I'm very willing to hear a counterpoint. Once again, I'm specifically trying to avoid any kind of value judgment.
ggggtez 6y ago
Agree. Plus, anyone who has gotten into streaming knows that there is a learning curve which introduces the streamer to all sorts of hardware and software. The best streamers often invent specialized solutions for their needs.
matwood 6y ago
I think you're applying your incomplete idea of what it means to create. Now phones/tablets let people say 'that video is cool, let's make one.' Same with pictures or other digital art. When I look at the creator options available in my pocket, I'm amazed. If anything, back in the 90s having to learn to create web pages was a barrier to creation. Video? Forget about it. Digital cameras were just coming around, but were still super expensive. I have some old pics taken on my flip phone from the early 2000s and they are...really bad. Instead I had to spend hundreds of dollars are completely separate device to be creative. And that device still didn't do video.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Creating high quality video or photos still poses a far higher barrier than simple text. The acquisition hardware (camera) is a trivial step, it's everything else that involves a huge amount of work.
  - matwood 6y ago
    It's a trivial step now. At no point did I say it wasn't a lot of work. But instead of having to create a web page to show off my creative works, I can focus on the work I want to do - take/edit/share pictures. I just get annoyed when people call these devices consumption only. I could say the same thing about computers when many people only play games on them. These devices are what the person makes of them.
    - tasssko 6y ago
      I agree with you, as a parent i witness how my child uses his technology. I did think to mention that we might have biases, as technologists our world view is dominated by technology. My child has a ipad and i have a few computers and game consoles in house. By observing me my child sees how i use technology.
  - jkaptur 6y ago
    I agree with you personally. For me, it's easy to gather my thoughts into sentences and paragraphs, and I'd rather learn Markdown and Hugo (or LaTeX!) than edit a video. But that isn't some kind of law of nature - it isn't true for everybody. There's a significant group of people who find it much easier to use video or voice and powerful tools have arisen to help them. For example, the TikTok video editor gets people started quickly and lets them learn as they go. I'd really encourage you to watch a tutorial to see how easy and surprisingly powerful it is.
tasssko 6y ago
I am hopeful we will see a creative renaissance in technology in our children. You can do more than consume with your phone today. Our children have ipads which are hybrid computers at a young age and are learning to access information more readily. They are general knowledge whizzes and learning to do more than just consuming. The software is better and with cloud services the average child will probably never see a data center or build a PC however they most definitely will use airtable and probably build an app in the cloud. The world for them will have opportunities at higher levels of abstraction. At least i hope that is the case.
danShumway 6y ago
Totally agreed. I'm going to be a lot less charitable than you, because to me this is some pretty obvious gatekeeping and I don't have patience for it. This attitude was around for a while when Linux started getting easier to use (I feel like it's gotten a bit better, but maybe I'm just a part of better communities now). It's the same attitude that came up occasionally in game dev around Unity. It's pretty predictable and pretty tiresome. I don't think the author is a bad person or that they hate kids, but I think this kind of attitude is something that shows up regularly in technical communities and it's worth forcefully stamping out. This article as it's written isn't interested in education, it's purely inwardly focused on describing how hard the author had it growing up, and how rewarding it was, and how great they turned out, and how everyone else who didn't have that same experience is a poser. It's purely designed to put younger generations down and denigrate them rather than reach out to them in any kind of thoughtful or meaningful way. The author isn't proposing any solutions. Forget solutions, they're not even identifying problems. There's nothing of substance in this post other than bragging. No mention of how proprietary hardware incentivizes lock-in. No mention of how laws have changed. No mention of how software gets written today and how our toolkits affect accessibiliity. No mention of the rise of SAAS and how that affects people's ability to modify the programs they run. No mention of education challenges. Just nothing at all. The only reason this blog post exists is because the author is mad that some kids are getting more attention than they did. And while it's worth talking about increasing barriers to creation, the author doesn't seem to be equipped to do so, and their targets of ire (streamers and content producers, arguably some of the more technically involved youth communities out there today) are poorly chosen. > "If anybody is a digital native, it is me. I did not just grow up with computers, I grew up alongside them." We get it, you're very smart. I'm super proud of you for installing Windows from a floppy disk. Do you want a medal? Should we all clap for you? Round up and scoff at the people who didn't appreciate your generation enough? Notice what this article never says. It never says that a reduced hacker ethos in younger generations is a problem. Its primary concern is not that younger kids aren't engaged enough with technology, or that they're not hacking their devices. The primary complaint this article raises is that younger kids are called digital natives, a title that the article is concerned they don't deserve.
- sebular 6y ago
havelhovel 6y ago
I think the line about streaming is less of the author being a jerk and more of the author resetting the dialogue concerning the average tech know-how of Gen Z relative to previous generations. Of course for every IT geek in the author’s generation, I’m sure there are at least two in Gen Z, which the author could have acknowledged.
- torh 6y ago
  Author here. You are right. My intention was not to come of as a jerk, nor did I expect anyone to read my blog post, to be honest. My point, which kind of got lost in the end, was to show of the big difference between my generation and the next. I have heard so many people praising today's kids as technical wizards because they master the gesture/finger based interface so much better then the generation before me. The term "digital natives" I got wrong, big time. In hindsight I could have spent some more time polishing my idea before publishing.
kannanvijayan 6y ago
Yeah, I grew up in the same era as the article author, and I'm honestly much happier about the state of access to resources these days. The modern "digital native" that I categorize is the legions of young people getting started in programming the vast number of rich environments that exist today. Yes I remember the times upgrading my 486DX-33 to 8Mb of RAM, installing slackware from floppies, figuring out whatever dark magic was needed to run Duke Nukem 3D over IPX networks simulated over dialup, and heady and critically important discussions about the role of Amigas, coveting the barmaid in LoRD on the high school BBS, running unauthorized star wars MUDs on the high school computer network and getting dragged in front of school boards because you ran "nethack" once (in fairness it was likely also the pornography being accessed and distributed leveraging the school T1 lines as well but in my defence I was 14). It was a time and a place, and there's certainly value in reminiscing. But these new kids will create their own time and place, and demanding that they somehow pay homage to my experience as being "more authentic" seems a bit pleading. And to be honest we downplay the limitations of our times. Free and accessible development environments? Not on the standard desktop PC operating system (until DJGPP came along anyway, and even that had severe limitations for a while for building native windows apps). If you were a super nerd who went out of your way and downloaded an obscure little free unix system developed by some finnish guy named after a peanuts character, you got a compiler. And then if you scrounged around random docfiles spread out across dozens and dozens of random howtos, you could sort of learn how to program C, or python or perl. I look at today's technical environment, available to the entry level student in some technical field, and the available breadth and depth of tooling, the amount of documentation and tutorials, all available for free, and it's amazing. If you're someone looking to build something interesting, there are a 100 different more opportunities to do that today using accessible tooling than there ever was when I was a kid.
- em-bee 6y ago
  i don't think the author is disputing that, of course, tech today is better than it was before. what he is saying is, that having learned to use computers as the computers themselves developed, he got a different, better, insight into how they work and what potential they have, whereas todays youth use computers as a black box, not caring how they work inside, and thus not learning how to use them to their potential.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
I think this is because you are thinking as a programmer/something. Folks now have web page editors in their phones/tablets. Drawing apps, etc. When I was 16, yeah, I want to make a webpage about WWE/F, so I had to spend days learning table based layouts and how to ftp files to a server (and find one). Now I (my son) can open his phone and he has various tools to do so. He can share/post pictures of someone doing a full nelson and write about it, and get it up on the web in minutes vs days. Just because he didn't have to learn 45 different incantations at the command line, doesn't mean he isn't creative, he just doesn't need to slog through programming to do it. (He is learning python though) Think about it as frameworks, when we started, we needed to learn it all to make any kind of decent page, now most folks here would use bootstrap/material ui/whatever, or react/rails vs writing all the css by hand, fighting with all the problems it brings, configure perl scripts to be able to send an email from it, etc etc.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  True - I am thinking of it as a programmer. And I wasn't entirely clear. You can create lots of wonderful things on tablets, phones, locked-down computers, etc. but it relies on someone else making the tools. On my computer I can use a program, and then make a program just like it. On a tablet I can use an app, but if I want to create an app I need to use a computer. It's one layer of abstraction removed. The comments here have been a helpful reminder that creativity is very much alive and well! I do worry about how many people would think "This app is cool! I want to learn how to make them" but stop because the device for consumption is different from the device for creation. Really dating myself here but the very first programs I used were ones from a magazine I typed in to a little TRS-80 pocket computer from Radio Shack myself (I'm not 100, really, I just started young and had an encouraging grandpa), and in the process realized "hmmm I could change this line and get a different output, cool!". I think that's about the lowest possible barrier between consumption and creation. On the other hand, I learned very, very slowly compared to now, in large part because it meant getting a magazine or reading a book, and having nobody to ask when things weren't clear. On the whole it probably is easier, now that I think about it, but only if you're motivated. Maybe that's OK - people who want to can still learn to rebuild a transmission, even if most drivers don't.
torh 6y ago
Hi, author here. First; I must say I was surprised that my little rant made it to HN, but obviously some found it interesting, and it did spark a discussion. Secondly: Yes, I do come of as a jerk. English is not my native language, and my Norwegian dry humour may not have translated as well as I had hoped (which is not an excuse). Also, at an age of 38, I do not really have that much experience with what todays youth does, with exception of kids between 5 to 10. And that is not a fair comparison anyways. I have not yet read all the comments here, because I fear some of them might be a bit personal, while my "attack" was mostly a generational one. As I said earlier, this is the first time I gotten a real audience on my blog, and I was not prepared at all for this kind of reaction. But I value your feedback, and I see your point. Next time I will try to look a bit past the "rough" language and see topics from different angles. Because the world I grew up in is gone, and we are still making progress, so obviously things are going the right way.
- mousepilot 5y ago
  probably the language. You guys aren't the digital natives, you are more like the digital pioneers, you weren't born into digital land like today's digital natives. you came over on an analog boat so to speak, and with your axe, you built a digital country. its the kids who grew up in digital land that we should consider the digital natives. 2 cents from the peanut gallery!

ghaff 6y ago

>I wonder if early car enthusiasts felt the same about people who learned to drive when you no longer needed to know how to fix your car all the time. I don't think you need to go back to early car enthusiasts. A lot of people would argue that at least being able to do basic car maintenance is a life skill everyone should have. I don't necessarily agree but I do think it's useful to understand at least the basics of how a car operates.

ggggtez 6y ago
The car is a black box. Gas goes in, vroom comes out. If the box stops working, I pay someone to fix it. You might argue I'm not car literate, but I'm not sure that is particularly insightful, as the type of specialized knowledge is not actually relevant to doing almost anything with a car that people want to do. Similarly, while coding is great and all, I'm not sure that not being able to code is the same thing as not knowing how to use a computer effectively.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I won't argue. And I grew up at a time when cars were less reliable (and my first clunker certainly wasn't). I do think some basic things like changing a tire, jumping a battery, and at least knowing how to check fluid levels is useful. You don't always have something go wrong where you can easily just call for help.
  - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
    Yeah except new cars you don't have access to the battery (they are starting to make the engine 'protected') and even changing a tire is more rare as many manufacturers are shipping a repair kit vs a spare wheel. Most also have roadside assistance (or your insurance has) which makes it easier. Most people want a car to go from A to B, many times, if every few years (I only had a blown tire in 20 years driving) they have to call someone to help them, it makes much more sense than spend the time to learn how to do it themselves. Same with computers, they don't want to know how the bytes get into ram, they want to play Doom or write a school paper. There is no need for them to learn all that.
- hnick 6y ago
  In such cases though I always have a nagging suspicion they are fixing things I don't need or gold plating the service. It definitely happens to some people. So, I always feel better with a small amount of understanding to arm the BS detector.
- flukus 6y ago
  > The car is a black box. Gas goes in, vroom comes out. If the box stops working, I pay someone to fix it. It would be a huge problem if you're an aspiring mechanic or anything related, but that's an increasingly niche role so we aren't worried about kids not having mechanical literacy. Many kids are aspiring to work in roles where computer literacy is vital and becoming more so every day. The one's that lack the fluency to do things like automate the repetitive parts of their jobs will gradually not be adding enough value to be gainfully employed. Not being computer literate will have a huge impact on their careers, not being car literate won't (for most).

worker767424 6y ago

> "this is a cool web page! How can I make one?" I sympathize with what's been lost, but what happened was people realized they didn't actually want to build a web page, they wanted to converse on a forum and share pics, and be entertained. Sure, you could publish anything you can imagine that's less than 4 MB on Geocities, but I'd rather have Wikipedia.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
It's more like "That's a cool YouTube career, how do I make one?"
- worker767424 6y ago
  (Perceived) fame and fortune are pretty standard aspirations.
  - musicale 6y ago
    It's interesting that streamers and "influencers" seem to be replacing, or at least competing with, other pop culture and performing arts celebrities. Though there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in practice between "youtuber" and "television presenter" other than the broadcast medium. One thing that youtube adds to television is an easy way to interact directly with viewers.
  - culturestate 6y ago
    Fame and fortune aren’t the only reasons people try to make careers out of content; some (maybe even most) are just trying to support themselves by doing things they enjoy instead of sitting in a cubicle from 9-5 so they can afford to do those things on the weekend. I find it pretty inspiring that we live in a time where someone who really loves doing, like, aerial yoga can reasonably make doing aerial yoga their job just by learning how to edit videos and engaging with other people who are also into that thing.

qsort 6y ago

There's nothing wrong with consumption devices, but they are not computers. You are using a computer if and only if you are programming, otherwise you are using a glorified television or a glorified typewriter. There's nothing wrong with that. The vast majority of people want exactly that. We shouldn't fight it, nor we should believe we are better or smarter. But that's not tech literacy.

ggggtez 6y ago
But isn't it though? Does someone literate in film need to make movies? Why can't someone be literate in tech without writing html?
yak_shaver2000 6y ago
What an odd form of gatekeeping. To what end?
- qsort 6y ago
  I am specifically not attempting to 'gate-keep'. You don't want to code? Don't. I'm not going to force it down your throat.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    You're gatekeeping who qualifies as "using a computer", and using a really odd definition to do it. Now, the rest of your point is, who cares? Do with that thing whatever floats your boat, it's fine if you don't program. That point is valid. But when "that thing" is a computer, and they're "doing" something with it, that qualifies as "using a computer". At least by the definitions the rest of us are using.
    - qsort 6y ago
      That's just a debate on the semantics of the sentence "using a computer". Maybe your definition is better, I don't particularly care. The point I'm trying to make is that I percieve a very clear conceptual difference between "using a computer to program" and "using a computer to do other things", and I would tend to believe an effort to improve computer literacy should attempt to point people to the former rather than the latter. Do you believe those things to be the same? I have a strong intuition that they aren't, but I'm very willing to hear a counterpoint. Once again, I'm specifically trying to avoid any kind of value judgment.

ggggtez 6y ago

Agree. Plus, anyone who has gotten into streaming knows that there is a learning curve which introduces the streamer to all sorts of hardware and software. The best streamers often invent specialized solutions for their needs.

matwood 6y ago

I think you're applying your incomplete idea of what it means to create. Now phones/tablets let people say 'that video is cool, let's make one.' Same with pictures or other digital art. When I look at the creator options available in my pocket, I'm amazed. If anything, back in the 90s having to learn to create web pages was a barrier to creation. Video? Forget about it. Digital cameras were just coming around, but were still super expensive. I have some old pics taken on my flip phone from the early 2000s and they are...really bad. Instead I had to spend hundreds of dollars are completely separate device to be creative. And that device still didn't do video.

zozbot234 6y ago
Creating high quality video or photos still poses a far higher barrier than simple text. The acquisition hardware (camera) is a trivial step, it's everything else that involves a huge amount of work.
- matwood 6y ago
  It's a trivial step now. At no point did I say it wasn't a lot of work. But instead of having to create a web page to show off my creative works, I can focus on the work I want to do - take/edit/share pictures. I just get annoyed when people call these devices consumption only. I could say the same thing about computers when many people only play games on them. These devices are what the person makes of them.
  - tasssko 6y ago
    I agree with you, as a parent i witness how my child uses his technology. I did think to mention that we might have biases, as technologists our world view is dominated by technology. My child has a ipad and i have a few computers and game consoles in house. By observing me my child sees how i use technology.
- jkaptur 6y ago
  I agree with you personally. For me, it's easy to gather my thoughts into sentences and paragraphs, and I'd rather learn Markdown and Hugo (or LaTeX!) than edit a video. But that isn't some kind of law of nature - it isn't true for everybody. There's a significant group of people who find it much easier to use video or voice and powerful tools have arisen to help them. For example, the TikTok video editor gets people started quickly and lets them learn as they go. I'd really encourage you to watch a tutorial to see how easy and surprisingly powerful it is.

tasssko 6y ago

I am hopeful we will see a creative renaissance in technology in our children. You can do more than consume with your phone today. Our children have ipads which are hybrid computers at a young age and are learning to access information more readily. They are general knowledge whizzes and learning to do more than just consuming. The software is better and with cloud services the average child will probably never see a data center or build a PC however they most definitely will use airtable and probably build an app in the cloud. The world for them will have opportunities at higher levels of abstraction. At least i hope that is the case.

danShumway 6y ago

Totally agreed. I'm going to be a lot less charitable than you, because to me this is some pretty obvious gatekeeping and I don't have patience for it. This attitude was around for a while when Linux started getting easier to use (I feel like it's gotten a bit better, but maybe I'm just a part of better communities now). It's the same attitude that came up occasionally in game dev around Unity. It's pretty predictable and pretty tiresome. I don't think the author is a bad person or that they hate kids, but I think this kind of attitude is something that shows up regularly in technical communities and it's worth forcefully stamping out. This article as it's written isn't interested in education, it's purely inwardly focused on describing how hard the author had it growing up, and how rewarding it was, and how great they turned out, and how everyone else who didn't have that same experience is a poser. It's purely designed to put younger generations down and denigrate them rather than reach out to them in any kind of thoughtful or meaningful way. The author isn't proposing any solutions. Forget solutions, they're not even identifying problems. There's nothing of substance in this post other than bragging. No mention of how proprietary hardware incentivizes lock-in. No mention of how laws have changed. No mention of how software gets written today and how our toolkits affect accessibiliity. No mention of the rise of SAAS and how that affects people's ability to modify the programs they run. No mention of education challenges. Just nothing at all. The only reason this blog post exists is because the author is mad that some kids are getting more attention than they did. And while it's worth talking about increasing barriers to creation, the author doesn't seem to be equipped to do so, and their targets of ire (streamers and content producers, arguably some of the more technically involved youth communities out there today) are poorly chosen. > "If anybody is a digital native, it is me. I did not just grow up with computers, I grew up alongside them." We get it, you're very smart. I'm super proud of you for installing Windows from a floppy disk. Do you want a medal? Should we all clap for you? Round up and scoff at the people who didn't appreciate your generation enough? Notice what this article never says. It never says that a reduced hacker ethos in younger generations is a problem. Its primary concern is not that younger kids aren't engaged enough with technology, or that they're not hacking their devices. The primary complaint this article raises is that younger kids are called digital natives, a title that the article is concerned they don't deserve.

sebular 6y ago

havelhovel 6y ago

I think the line about streaming is less of the author being a jerk and more of the author resetting the dialogue concerning the average tech know-how of Gen Z relative to previous generations. Of course for every IT geek in the author’s generation, I’m sure there are at least two in Gen Z, which the author could have acknowledged.

torh 6y ago
Author here. You are right. My intention was not to come of as a jerk, nor did I expect anyone to read my blog post, to be honest. My point, which kind of got lost in the end, was to show of the big difference between my generation and the next. I have heard so many people praising today's kids as technical wizards because they master the gesture/finger based interface so much better then the generation before me. The term "digital natives" I got wrong, big time. In hindsight I could have spent some more time polishing my idea before publishing.

kannanvijayan 6y ago

Yeah, I grew up in the same era as the article author, and I'm honestly much happier about the state of access to resources these days. The modern "digital native" that I categorize is the legions of young people getting started in programming the vast number of rich environments that exist today. Yes I remember the times upgrading my 486DX-33 to 8Mb of RAM, installing slackware from floppies, figuring out whatever dark magic was needed to run Duke Nukem 3D over IPX networks simulated over dialup, and heady and critically important discussions about the role of Amigas, coveting the barmaid in LoRD on the high school BBS, running unauthorized star wars MUDs on the high school computer network and getting dragged in front of school boards because you ran "nethack" once (in fairness it was likely also the pornography being accessed and distributed leveraging the school T1 lines as well but in my defence I was 14). It was a time and a place, and there's certainly value in reminiscing. But these new kids will create their own time and place, and demanding that they somehow pay homage to my experience as being "more authentic" seems a bit pleading. And to be honest we downplay the limitations of our times. Free and accessible development environments? Not on the standard desktop PC operating system (until DJGPP came along anyway, and even that had severe limitations for a while for building native windows apps). If you were a super nerd who went out of your way and downloaded an obscure little free unix system developed by some finnish guy named after a peanuts character, you got a compiler. And then if you scrounged around random docfiles spread out across dozens and dozens of random howtos, you could sort of learn how to program C, or python or perl. I look at today's technical environment, available to the entry level student in some technical field, and the available breadth and depth of tooling, the amount of documentation and tutorials, all available for free, and it's amazing. If you're someone looking to build something interesting, there are a 100 different more opportunities to do that today using accessible tooling than there ever was when I was a kid.

em-bee 6y ago
i don't think the author is disputing that, of course, tech today is better than it was before. what he is saying is, that having learned to use computers as the computers themselves developed, he got a different, better, insight into how they work and what potential they have, whereas todays youth use computers as a black box, not caring how they work inside, and thus not learning how to use them to their potential.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago

I think this is because you are thinking as a programmer/something. Folks now have web page editors in their phones/tablets. Drawing apps, etc. When I was 16, yeah, I want to make a webpage about WWE/F, so I had to spend days learning table based layouts and how to ftp files to a server (and find one). Now I (my son) can open his phone and he has various tools to do so. He can share/post pictures of someone doing a full nelson and write about it, and get it up on the web in minutes vs days. Just because he didn't have to learn 45 different incantations at the command line, doesn't mean he isn't creative, he just doesn't need to slog through programming to do it. (He is learning python though) Think about it as frameworks, when we started, we needed to learn it all to make any kind of decent page, now most folks here would use bootstrap/material ui/whatever, or react/rails vs writing all the css by hand, fighting with all the problems it brings, configure perl scripts to be able to send an email from it, etc etc.

CalRobert 6y ago
True - I am thinking of it as a programmer. And I wasn't entirely clear. You can create lots of wonderful things on tablets, phones, locked-down computers, etc. but it relies on someone else making the tools. On my computer I can use a program, and then make a program just like it. On a tablet I can use an app, but if I want to create an app I need to use a computer. It's one layer of abstraction removed. The comments here have been a helpful reminder that creativity is very much alive and well! I do worry about how many people would think "This app is cool! I want to learn how to make them" but stop because the device for consumption is different from the device for creation. Really dating myself here but the very first programs I used were ones from a magazine I typed in to a little TRS-80 pocket computer from Radio Shack myself (I'm not 100, really, I just started young and had an encouraging grandpa), and in the process realized "hmmm I could change this line and get a different output, cool!". I think that's about the lowest possible barrier between consumption and creation. On the other hand, I learned very, very slowly compared to now, in large part because it meant getting a magazine or reading a book, and having nobody to ask when things weren't clear. On the whole it probably is easier, now that I think about it, but only if you're motivated. Maybe that's OK - people who want to can still learn to rebuild a transmission, even if most drivers don't.

torh 6y ago

Hi, author here. First; I must say I was surprised that my little rant made it to HN, but obviously some found it interesting, and it did spark a discussion. Secondly: Yes, I do come of as a jerk. English is not my native language, and my Norwegian dry humour may not have translated as well as I had hoped (which is not an excuse). Also, at an age of 38, I do not really have that much experience with what todays youth does, with exception of kids between 5 to 10. And that is not a fair comparison anyways. I have not yet read all the comments here, because I fear some of them might be a bit personal, while my "attack" was mostly a generational one. As I said earlier, this is the first time I gotten a real audience on my blog, and I was not prepared at all for this kind of reaction. But I value your feedback, and I see your point. Next time I will try to look a bit past the "rough" language and see topics from different angles. Because the world I grew up in is gone, and we are still making progress, so obviously things are going the right way.

mousepilot 5y ago
probably the language. You guys aren't the digital natives, you are more like the digital pioneers, you weren't born into digital land like today's digital natives. you came over on an analog boat so to speak, and with your axe, you built a digital country. its the kids who grew up in digital land that we should consider the digital natives. 2 cents from the peanut gallery!