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I feel like the author defeats his own central thesis in his conclusion: It didn’t used to be like this. Using an OS used to be hard work. When things went wro

by Kuiper 13y ago

I feel like the author defeats his own central thesis in his conclusion: It didn’t used to be like this. Using an OS used to be hard work. When things went wrong you had to dive in and get dirty to fix things. You learned about file systems and registry settings and drivers for your hardware. Not any more. In other words, people used to be technically literate because they had to be. Now, it's possible to utilize technology without knowing how it works. Think for a moment about what that means. This sounds very much like a case of a species evolving to meet its own (lack of) need. People aren't tech literate because you don't need to be tech literate to check your email on an iPad, just like I'm not very proficient in spear hunting because being able to hunt a wild animal is no longer necessary to feed myself. Not everyone needs to be good at everything, and mastering skills has an opportunity cost. Yes, it would be nice if every teenager could spend the hours required to know how to install Linux and work around the Linux desktop environment, but how many hours would that take them? Every hour that they spend learning how to install and use Linux is one hour less that they have to spend on guitar lessons, or learning a foreign language, or automotive repair, or oratory practice, or whatever other pursuits they might choose to invest themselves in.

ryansan 13y ago
Well put. Taken to the extreme, I'd hate to live in a world where everyone understood what dscacheutil does, but didn't know how to play a guitar chord. I'd like to think that the original author is referring to what happens some of the time, not all of the time. It's the growing pains that come with rapidly advancing as a society. I can't imagine that this is such a major issue that it's tearing at our ability to move forward.
pgeorgi 13y ago
Not everyone needs to be good at everything, but it would be a nice change to stop pretending that "digital natives" are all computer wizards. They aren't, not even close - some of them fail with turning on their machines. _If_ pepole need to computer wizards is an entirely different question, and it also depends on what they do. As per the article: > I have one question for these policy makers: > Without reference to Wikipedia, can you tell me what the difference is between The Internet, The World Wide Web, a web-browser and a search engine? > If you can’t, then you have no right to be making decisions that affect my use of these technologies. I'd expect people deciding on "computer things" to be experts on their decision matter. Unfortunately in our society it's possible for one person to show utter disdain for those concerns and decide about mandantory internet filtering at the same time and not be laughed out of the room. And this problem _won't_ be fixed by the current teen cohort eventually entering positions of power.

by Kuiper 13y ago

ryansan 13y ago

Well put. Taken to the extreme, I'd hate to live in a world where everyone understood what dscacheutil does, but didn't know how to play a guitar chord. I'd like to think that the original author is referring to what happens some of the time, not all of the time. It's the growing pains that come with rapidly advancing as a society. I can't imagine that this is such a major issue that it's tearing at our ability to move forward.

pgeorgi 13y ago

Not everyone needs to be good at everything, but it would be a nice change to stop pretending that "digital natives" are all computer wizards. They aren't, not even close - some of them fail with turning on their machines. _If_ pepole need to computer wizards is an entirely different question, and it also depends on what they do. As per the article: > I have one question for these policy makers: > Without reference to Wikipedia, can you tell me what the difference is between The Internet, The World Wide Web, a web-browser and a search engine? > If you can’t, then you have no right to be making decisions that affect my use of these technologies. I'd expect people deciding on "computer things" to be experts on their decision matter. Unfortunately in our society it's possible for one person to show utter disdain for those concerns and decide about mandantory internet filtering at the same time and not be laughed out of the room. And this problem _won't_ be fixed by the current teen cohort eventually entering positions of power.