@ryancbriggs - 18 Oct 2024
> When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that knows how computers work?
> When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that knows how computers work?
We raised a generation of people on consumption-based computing devices, which means they don't develop the skills necessary to produce things using computers. Of course, we can teach these skills, but to do that, we must first acknowledge it's a skill which needs to be taught.
That's true of my generation as well, but computers weren't ubiquitous and used by everyone all the time for virtually everything.
That's true, but only because not all young people owned or used computers. I was born in the mid 70s and got my first computer as a young child. Back then you had to "know all about computers" to use the computer and get it to function. These days, every kid grows up surrounded by computers, with a computer in their pocket, and very few have even an inkling of how they work.
Thus "young people who use computers know all about computers" used to be a true statement, but no longer is.
The whole argument is pretty dumb anyway. Just try replacing "computers" with any other technology and you see how weird it starts sounding.
- "People use roads every day but almost nobody even knows how to make asphalt from scratch these days."
- "People use electricity every day but almost nobody even knows the basic equations for electric generators."
- "Children these days use refrigerators only as consumers, they don't even understand the differences between HCFC and A3 type refrigerants..."
Computer programmers despairing about how few children understand computers has strong vibes from https://xkcd.com/2501/ IMO.
Whatever dictates if people are capable of creative work with computers, year of birth does not seem to be it.
> It was a Minecraft convention. We had the game set up with a keyboard, and a controller. By the 2nd day we realized, none of the kids could use a keyboard. So on the 2nd day we set up two controllers instead.
> Then I noticed something else. We counted it. 50% of the kids would come up to the console, push the controller out of the way, and try to touch the screen.
I mean, she was right, it turned out to be a touch screen, but really who does something like that?
I went on to study CS and teach undergrad courses and what I noticed, this started already maybe a decade ago, is that CS students who we handed bootable linux usbs couldn't figure out how to set their system up. And not just that, they just kept emailing us with statements like "it didn't work, what do I do?". It's not just lack of knowledge but complete helplessness when something doesn't work in 2 minutes. That's the biggest problem with this reliance on ChatGPT or whatever.
I think the young generation is in an even worse position. Not only do they not know how computers work, they don't even have the basic DIY problem solving attitude our parents have.