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I don't know how things could be worse than 30-40 years ago. Not many people had access to computers, and it they had, it was either for business, or for playin

I don't know how things could be worse than 30-40 years ago. Not many people had access to computers, and it they had, it was either for business, or for playing games. In both cases, it was just going through a well-known path to achieve the goal, no exploration, no experimenting. Only a very small minority of kids were interested in programming. The fact that we have more accessible technology now doesn't change the fact that only a small minority of kids are interested in programming. The difference these days is that if they are interested in programming, they have so many resources available. YouTube videos on every single topic, AI chatbots capable of answering programming questions. If I had these tools as a kid, not having to rely on the 5 books in the local library, I'd learn so much more.

milesrout 2y ago
Computers were easier to use then. They had fewer concepts and those concepts were designed as analogies to what people knew. If you don't know what a manila folder is, the icon means nothing to you and you have to learn it as an abstract entity. That is fine, but it slows down learning rate.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I had to dig out a physical manilla file folder from my filing cabinet to explain it to my kid. They have zero real world experience with the physical objects that the icons are supposed to represent.
deleted 2y ago
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cjs_ac 2y ago
30 years ago, computers were a powerful magic, and everyone thought that if you could master the magic, the world was your oyster. Nowadays, computers are a petty magic, like the goblins that spawn in boxes of spare cables and tie them into knots.
FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
30 years ago was the beginning of the Dotcom boom. The web started in 1994-ish and computers were becoming pretty wide spread. Almost everyone had a Commodore 64 or if you were (un)lucky a Windows 95 PC.

milesrout 2y ago

Computers were easier to use then. They had fewer concepts and those concepts were designed as analogies to what people knew. If you don't know what a manila folder is, the icon means nothing to you and you have to learn it as an abstract entity. That is fine, but it slows down learning rate.

ryandrake 2y ago
I had to dig out a physical manilla file folder from my filing cabinet to explain it to my kid. They have zero real world experience with the physical objects that the icons are supposed to represent.

deleted 2y ago

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cjs_ac 2y ago

30 years ago, computers were a powerful magic, and everyone thought that if you could master the magic, the world was your oyster. Nowadays, computers are a petty magic, like the goblins that spawn in boxes of spare cables and tie them into knots.

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago

30 years ago was the beginning of the Dotcom boom. The web started in 1994-ish and computers were becoming pretty wide spread. Almost everyone had a Commodore 64 or if you were (un)lucky a Windows 95 PC.