My grandfather was born in 1919, and the parts of TVs he liked weren't the entertaining or cool parts. Furthermore, his obsession was actually detrimental to fulfilling his social role: My father says that his father wasn't good with money in part because he spent too much of it on things to tinker with, and he was socially not the most ept guy.
It was this way for other classes too:
My class background is complicated because my mother is from a decently well-off family but cut off contact and bailed at 15. One example from her childhood/family, however, is that one of her relatives was a tenured academic who helped found the academic study of pop culture. On the other hand, this was something he did after winning a Pulitzer and getting tenure for more serious work.
It's easy to forget, but 2-3 generations ago a tech interest was seen as a potentially useful eccentricity at best outside of a very few select sectors.
We're Michiganders.
That seems like a massive assumption about people you don't know.
IMO, a more likely explanation is that people just tend to do the things that their brains find rewarding. I like programming because it feels like playing a puzzle game, so I'll do it for fun. For lots of other people the idea of sitting behind a computer all day solving abstract problems is pure torture.
Doing the dishes on the other hand is not mentally stimulating so I kind of avoid it until I have to do them. So my place usually isn't as clean or tidy as it could be. I also know people who enjoy the process of cleaning and tidying, and their place is always clean and tidy.
I don't think these people are more virtuous than I am for keeping their place cleaner, nor do I think that I'm more virtuous than others because I enjoy programming and can make things that they cannot. None of this is caused by abstract pondering about one's value to society. We just follow the reward structure of our brains.
Meh, not necessarily. I like to tinker, but I wouldn't say I do it to provide value for anyone (and throwing something on GitHub won't provide value to almost anyone)