Comment by basch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by basch | Hacker News Reader

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I have noticed the same thing, but not from age, instead I attribute it to ux/ui.

People used to know how to type a url into an address bar. If they didnt type it correctly it didnt work. They knew how to type an email address. Now for the life of people, its actually uncomfortable to type example.com without a space into an address bar and go directly to a site and not to google. They purposely put a space between the words because they only know how to search for terms. (This could also be a semi-unconscious learned safety behavior to avoid typos in domains.) The same applies to autocomplete in the TO field of email programs. If a name doesnt autopopulate, "well that email must not exist, because autocomplete isnt suggesting their name."

As fields started thinking more for us, and the raw structure of paths has become more and more hidden (websites to apps, chrome overall shrinking and hiding protocols), I dont think its fair to attribute "well I cant find the url" to cognitive decline. Our interfaces are purpose hiding this stuff and making us depend more and more on fuzzy representations of structure.

I am a senior software engineer and I do the "google instead of type the domain name" thing intentionally every time... I want to be sure I don't mistype the domain. It is not semi-unconscious... it is very much intentional.

Obviously.

That’s the first thing you teach kids when the start browsing by themselves.

Google provides a security layer over the brand-domain pair.

Google profits handsomely from this service but it is invaluable nonetheless.

Except when Google shows another domain as the first (ad) result.

I’ve seen people get viruses from downloading the “first result” on Google, which winds up being a malicious ad.

IIRC there was a first result ad showing malware infected Chrome some time ago

When I figured out that address bar autocomplete could look for matches in bookmarks, it started to change how I interact with internal tools at work. I still like to have a wiki page with all of the links for a subject area, but I'm as likely to start typing the name into my address bar and seeing what pops up.

Unless, of course, you're looking for Sci-hub or Library Genesis, in which case Google will suggest you every thinkable misspelling of the domain but the right one :)

But if you type it in your address bar and search it, they're the top result, which is the point.

> I say "your" civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you, it became our civilization.

But the question shouldn't be, "are new interfaces making us dumber?", it should be "what are we doing with this cognitive surplus?"

If you aren't putting that surplus energy somewhere then it'll begin to go away, retired or not.

> People used to know how to type a url into an address bar.

People used to know how to write in cursive too. Some skills just get obsolete.

>People used to know how to write in cursive too. Some skills just get obsolete.

I heard this few times. Is it actually a thing that people don't know how to write cursive? Natural writing (cursive) has been a part of primary education in most(perhaps all) countries since the beginning. Did they actually remove it recently? That would be insane. How one is supposed to be able to write quickly, as in when taking notes, without cursive?

> How one is supposed to be able to write quickly, as in when taking notes, without cursive?

One usually types said notes into their phone or speaks them into their watch. Or just writes them quickly the typical way, since there aren't likely to be cases where that wouldn't be sufficient.

I grew up in Greece, nobody is taught cursive. I kinda developed a horrible version of it as I went along though.

> Is it actually a thing that people don't know how to write cursive?

Of course. Cursive writing is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of skill, and almost no one uses it any more. It has been replaced by typing. When was the last time you received a letter written in cursive? When was the last time you wrote one?

It was part of my education through middle school up to 2004 and I had never used it since so I don't remember it.

On the other hand there are kids today that aren't taught proper typing and they can manage 30 words per minute at best while I can do 140 because I type constantly.

insane? I learned cursive but I was always faster writing without it. this has never been a problem for me. I type faster than handwriting. Cursive is a waste of valuable school time. there are more useful things to teach.

if you actually think "fast hand-written note taking" is a critical skill you should advocate for teaching shorthand. I'm not convinced cursive is actually faster and the science on that is hardly clear. http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-o...

Learning cursive is a waste of time like video games are a waste of time. The process teaches hand-eye coordination, patience, and even learning itself.

ok... so should we teach video games in schools? I'm not saying we should ban the use of cursive. I'm saying it doesn't deserve a prominent place in school curriculums.

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