I take a bit of an orthogonal view myself: the skills themselves don't matter nearly as much as the resilience necessary to build them. Consumer tech focuses a

I take a bit of an orthogonal view myself: the skills themselves don't matter nearly as much as the resilience necessary to build them. Consumer tech focuses a lot on low-friction interactions that abstract away challenges. Sometimes those challenges are pointless, but sometimes they're not. If you take away all the challenges everywhere, you end up with someone who's fragile to the tiniest random bumps in life. I think this is true the value of extracurricular activities like sports and art. There's no way to shortcut those skills. The struggle is part of the experience. Every violin player will sound like a dying cat their first year. Every would-be baseball pitcher will make awful throws when playing catch with their dad. But they get better with time, and in the process internalize that they're capable of doing so.