
Kids can't use computers (2013) - jjuhl
http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/
======
jccalhoun
The author is correct when he writes, "The truth is, kids can't use general
purpose computers, and neither can most of the adults I know" but he goes much
further than I think is really necessary or even realistic.

I teach at a liberal arts college and in most of my classes I devote a day or
two to researching and evaluating sources. I ask them "How can to determine if
a web site is credible?" and in every class I get a significant number of
students say "If it is a .org, .gov, or .edu" Who is telling these kids this?

This week I had one class take an online survey and gave them a bit.ly link. I
just cut and pasted it from bit.ly into notepad to make the font large enough
that they could read it on the screen. In a class of ~35 I had 3-4 that were
having problems. They were putting the url into google. At least one was
typing in the "[http://"](http://") that I had just cut and pasted. Of course
it was on his phone so he had to find the punctuation.

THen ther are the students who submit .gdoc or .pages files and when I tell
them to export the files to .docx or .rtf they say they don't have word. First
off, you can download MS Office for free from the university. Secondly, you
can export from google docs and pages to word files.

Of course this is not the majority of students but it is easily 1 in 10.

So whenever I see something about "digital natives" I roll my eyes. Until I
have a colleague freak out about having to use the online gradebook the
university is now making us use instead of a paper one because that person
doesn't know how to do it.

~~~
kenning
The other day I bought a backpack at a skateboard shop and a girl working
there said she didn't own a laptop -- just a smartphone. I can absolutely see
this becoming common in the near future as phones become even more useful.
With a chromecast you can even watch netflix without a laptop, which takes
away the main use I have for one aside from coding.

~~~
snarfy
As soon as I can do work on my phone, all other computers will be pointless.

Imagine your phone with all of the computing power of your current desktop or
laptop, with all of the same software too. If you want to work at a desktop,
you could have a wireless keyboard, mouse, display, and power. This is all
possible today, but the phones aren't quite there, yet.

~~~
s369610
You might like continuum from Microsoft? [https://support.microsoft.com/en-
au/help/17280/windows-10-mo...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-
au/help/17280/windows-10-mobile-continuum)

~~~
snarfy
Yes! If my phone could run Visual Studio and PC games I wouldn't need a
desktop.

------
aeturnum
I think this article is one big categorical error.

The author is not talking about people using computers, everyone he describes
as not being able to use a computer is obviously using one. He needs another
word to describe what they can't do.

I would suggest the people in the article cannot "maintain" a computer. I can
use a car, but I cannot maintain one. I can use a watch but I can't maintain
one (unless it's quite large and easy to disassemble).

It's troubling that people can't maintain something that's a big part of their
lives, but society has made do with maintenance services for plenty of other
things. I think nerds and geeks (let's call them computer mechanics) scoff at
groups like geek squad (for reasons I agree with), but they take their cars to
car mechanics like everyone else and don't think twice. I think it's common
for computer mechanics to suggest that someone who wants help should learn to
help themselves, but I know I would be taken aback if my car mechanic finished
a visit by handing me a maintenance manual and a catalog for in-home lifts and
told me that, really, I should learn to do this myself.

~~~
wtallis
> I would suggest the people in the article cannot "maintain" a computer.

That's definitely too restrictive of a description.

Laypeople don't tell their mechanic "the car won't work". They say that it
won't start, or that a tire is flat or a headlight is burned out or that the
check engine light is on or that it's making an unusual sound under certain
circumstances. Even if they don't have any skill as a mechanic, you usually
get at least a specific identification of the symptom relative to the expected
behavior. And while you're not expected to perform all the maintenance, you
_are_ expected to be able to read and understand the basics from the owner's
manual and apply that knowledge.

But the average technically illiterate user has even shallower mental models
for their computer than for their car, and is disinclined to attempt any
amount of diagnosis.

~~~
smallnamespace
> But the average technically illiterate user has even shallower mental models
> for their computer than for their car, and is disinclined to attempt any
> amount of diagnosis.

When have you truly encountered this? If you read through the article, the
behavior the guy complains about is actually users going through the process
of building a mental model of what their computer does.

E.g. the woman from the article expects PowerPoint presentations to just work
despite Internet video being blocked, because she has a (correct) mental model
that PowerPoint presentations should be local. This is what I would expect
from someone who _was_ trying to understand their computer and has made an
honest attempt at diagnosis.

I've dealt with a lot of relatively computer illiterate users, including
friends and family, and I can count on my fingers the number of times I've
felt someone was being willfully ignorant. 95% of the time, people are making
an honest effort to learn, and bashing them for not knowing everything yet is
a very unfair reaction.

~~~
wtallis
> "E.g. the woman from the article expects PowerPoint presentations to just
> work despite Internet video being blocked, because she has a (correct)
> mental model that PowerPoint presentations should be local. This is what I
> would expect from someone who was trying to understand their computer and
> has made an honest attempt at diagnosis."

The PowerPoint embedded video issue in specific is a case of not understanding
the difference between a link/reference and the object itself. That class of
misunderstanding occurs all over the place and PowerPoint's UI probably wasn't
helping the situation, but it's still an extremely basic thing to be confused
about. The user certainly did _not_ have a correct understanding of what
PowerPoint was up to; she was expecting PowerPoint to conform to her vague
wishes, rather than deriving her expectations from any technical reality.

And taken as a whole, the anecdote shows a user that immediately gave up in
the face of both simple and hard problems, was unwilling to help in the
diagnosis process, and arrogantly rejected the author's attempts to educate
the user. This wasn't a user that was trying to learn or understand, this was
a user that had clearly decided not to learn anything more and was trying to
outsource all further need for technical knowledge.

~~~
smallnamespace
We're conflating two different things, which is the user's attitude toward the
author, vs. the user's attitude towards learning the tech itself.

Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to
be less technically literate from the very start, I wouldn't be surprised at
the user's reaction, although I agree she should show some level of
appreciation for what is essentially unpaid IT work.

> extremely basic thing to be confused about

No, the confusion is that PowerPoint even allows links and references, rather
than directly embedding the content. You're expecting the user to be familiar
with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing
feature is used rarely.

It doesn't help that the software purposefully hides the fact that it's a
reference in order to make the experience more seamless.

~~~
wtallis
> "Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived
> to be less technically literate from the very start,"

The author mentions that his usual tactic is sarcasm, but that during this
encounter he was polite.

> "You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and
> in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely."

The user has just been told that PowerPoint was trying to stream the video. At
this point, she no longer needs specific prior knowledge that PowerPoint has a
linking/referencing feature. She has been presented with enough information to
infer that the feature exists, if she has enough technical knowledge to
recognize the general concept of a link. But instead of rethinking her
situation, she patronizingly rejects the author's explanation—the first
occasion in the encounter where she engaged in any discussion of the technical
details.

~~~
smallnamespace
Again, we have only the author's account for the interaction, and he sounds
like he's got a big chip on his shoulder. I wouldn't be surprised if his
attitude his coloring his interpretation.

Even if this particular user was being willfully ignorant, it's not been my
experience with many, many other tech 'illiterate' people, who I've found by
and large ask good questions and listen to explanations. I think computer-
literate people really forget how much background knowledge they've absorbed
over the years and how it helps them learn more.

Existing knowledge helps acquire more knowledge, and the effect compounds over
time.

For example, a lot of posts here seem to be saying 'just Google it', but even
knowing what terms to Google for is confusing for someone who doesn't have a
knowledge base, because they don't even know what search terms to Google for,
and which sources to trust.

For example, here's the first link you hit if you search 'remove viruses from
computer':

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/243818/security/how-to-
remove...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/243818/security/how-to-remove-
malware-from-your-windows-pc.html)

Among other things, it recommends installing third-party AVX and random
'malware scanners'. Given how poor antivirus software is, following this
advice will often slow down the computer and causes other problems down the
line.

For someone who _really_ doesn't know what they're doing, and knows that they
don't know, another barrier to trying to learn is simple risk aversion. I'm
hesitant to work on my own car because I _know_ that I'm ignorant, to the
point that I don't have a clear idea of what the failure modes are and the
cost to me to fix them if I screw up.

Similarly, if a computer user really has no clue what they're doing and _they
know that they 're ignorant_, they might perceive the process of experimenting
and learning as potentially very costly -- maybe they can lose all their
files, or bork their computer for a week, etc.

There's also a second-order effect here -- some people are just not that quick
at picking up new things, _and they know that they 're bad at it_. I bet most
software engineers are in the top 5% of the population in being able to teach
themselves new things and learning them quickly. Unwillingness to learn a new
task or fact can be rational if you have strong reasons to suspect that the
cost of learning more is high.

------
pumblechook
Am I the only one who is as tired of the 'kids can't use computers' meme as
the 'digital natives' meme?

The vast majority of people have never been able to 'use' a computer like the
author describes because the vast majority of people don't understand
computing. And that's ok - I would consider it a triumph that we've been able
to create such effective illusions in the form of UI that people who have no
interest in computing can share in the incredible power that it enables.

But at the same time, it is a mistake to assume that mastery of the illusion
equals mastery of the thing is abstracts. This is why the digital native meme
is so misguided - kids don't know any more about computers than their parents
did, they just know the walled gardens that sprang up around them.

~~~
javajosh
Aren't we just masters of different illusions? Our illusions are lower-level,
consisting of "file systems" and "kernels", "processes" and "TCP/IP", and
"drawing calls". (And indeed, being able to upgrade a hard-drive and reinstall
an OS hardly denotes mastery of _anything_ , and never did. It denotes being
able to follow directions.)

------
dri_ft
> To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She'd be quite
> happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs and snigger at
> them to their faces, but she knows that when she can't display her
> PowerPoint on the IWB she'll need a technician, and so she maintains a
> facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too
> geeky to interact with.

> I've heard this sentence so many times now from students and staff, that I
> have a stock reaction. Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to
> tap in a few numbers. Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the
> office of the President of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD. This
> is an emergency.... Hello, Mister President, I'm afraid I have some bad
> news. I've just been informed that The Internet is not working.'

Yes, it's a mystery how anyone could form the preconception that computer
geeks don't socialize well.

~~~
Kluny
It's a funny joke if you pick the right audience. The woman in this story
wasn't the right audience, so he had the sense to contain himself. Doesn't
seem that bad.

------
CoryG89
How can we expect our kids to be able to use computers when their schools are
censoring the word "proxy" from their web searches?

And really? No YouTube? Give me a break. The difference between a prison and a
grade school? Prisoners have rights.

~~~
Retr0spectrum
For me at least, my school's aggressive network filtering was a great learning
experience. They used deep-packet-inspection combined with SSL MITM, so I
designed my own obfsproxy-like tunneling protocol. In retrospect, I could
probably have just used obfsproxy, but as I said, it was a great learning
experience.

~~~
halfnibble
We had filtered internet at home. I learned a lot about networking and VPN's
because of that fact.

~~~
philamonster
I'm doing the same currently but like any subject I encourage questions about
the how & why. If we have a discussion about content that is filtered that has
more to do with technical aspects I will, right now, always allow access. If
it's about the actual content then it becomes a broader discussion that
involves both parents.

My goal is that by keeping communication open early their moral compass will
be developed enough to evaluate situations when the parental units have
absolutely zero control over access. Pretty much like any other aspect of
parenting except requiring more technical acuity.

------
stcredzero
In the 80's, the local arcade owner in a podunk rural town could put up a
random arcade machine from Japan, and the local kids would figure out how to
play it. (Then lose interest, because it was some stupid movie tie-in thing.)

In the 80's, kids would run out of games on their dad's personal computer,
then start typing in source code for additional games from paper magazines,
and accidentally teach themselves how to program.

I know this. I was one of those kids. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Boredom is a fantastic motivator.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-
dD4&t=135s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4&t=135s)

~~~
pitaj
This sounds like confirmation bias. I'm sure that this happened, but I doubt
it resulted in any more kids being interested in and competent with computers.

After all, I have similar anecdotes, and I grew up in the 2000s. I know
several friends who that would also apply to.

Generationally, I think the number of people able to accomplish intermediate
computer maintenance as described in the article is probably about the same
across the board.

This article has one good point in my eyes: if you want people to learn, make
them do it themselves. When my younger brother asks me, "how do I do [thing I
know about], I tell him to Google it, first. Then I'll help him work the kinks
out after he's at least tried to do something himself.

~~~
stcredzero
_After all, I have similar anecdotes, and I grew up in the 2000s._

Another anecdote from 2014 watching a kid walk up to a Battlezone 1980
emulator: Waggles the joysticks around for 2 seconds. This causes the tank to
waggle. Kid gives up.

~~~
pitaj
What's the purpose of this comment? Providing another anecdote doesn't
invalidate my argument. Nor does it counter what you quoted there.

~~~
stcredzero
My thesis is that kids in days past would go to further lengths than kids
nowadays to figure things out, mostly out of boredom. Middle class kids in the
past also had access to "the sum of all human knowledge" through their public
library and inter-library loans, but the barriers were higher than for kids
growing up with the Internet. Nowadays, it seems like every kind of game
imaginable is being implemented (albeit badly) by someone out there.

 _Providing another anecdote doesn 't invalidate my argument. Nor does it
counter what you quoted there._

Nope. Just sharing. Ok, fine, you win, I guess.

------
redleggedfrog
It has always been this way. Even back in the heyday of personal computers,
people stayed on simple happy paths to make sure didn't get lost. If they got
lost, and a restart didn't help, they were at the mercy of the closest
technical person.

That person would be exasperated at the simpleton who wouldn't put in the
effort to learn the tool they were using.

The truth: Those people can't, or won't, learn, and now, they don't have to.

Being that technical person, I eventually got to the point of saying to
myself, "These people will never learn, and they obviously don't appreciate
the joy that comes with computer proficiency. They don't deserve to have a
computer."

I dreamed of the day that they wouldn't have computers. I actually started to
design a operating system (no code, just UI, concepts) that I code-named
MoronOS out of sheer bitterness. No file system, no window manager, no cut-n-
paste, little or no configuration, like that. I never needed implement it
because Apple did it for me. It's iOS. And now Android.

These are _perfect_ for people. Rarely do people as me technical questions
about their phones. Kudos to the people who design those OS's. The fact you
can't even do 5% of what you can do on a general purpose computer is fine,
cause they never used that other 95% anyway.

Now computers are for the people who will put in the time to learn them, to
harness that power, and dare I say it, rule the future. Everyone else can
enjoy their phones (really, what I think of as the real "personal computers").

More better for those of us with keyboards.

~~~
tomdell
Not everyone has to learn about computers to a high level of proficiency -
there are many other things in the world for people to do with their time -
and everyone learning the ins and outs of their machines probably wouldn't
make the world a better place. Why are you so disdainful of these people?

~~~
snuxoll
High level of proficiency? No. But maybe enough to apply critical thinking
skills to them, I work in IT and the number of people in IT POSITIONS that
can't just dive in and ATTEMPT to diagnose an application they are unfamiliar
with boggles my mind.

It extends far beyond the desk workers who can't be assed to make a 30 second
google search before calling the helpdesk.

------
johnchristopher
I don't know. I read it before and I agree. Heck, I've defended that point of
view on the net in the past.

But I have spent most of the last 2 days surfing the net looking for
information on which models of lightbulbs and washer pump I should buy for my
car. Eventually I managed to track down and figure out the manufacturer serial
number patterns and I was able to order the things (hoping the washer pump
manufacturer I randomly chose delivers quality products) but I haven't yet
found how to safely disconnect the battery of my - specific - car so I can
perform the maintenance operation (which I am told is fairly easy).

So that is going to take me 2 days (at best) to fix my washer pump and change
a lightbulb (how many HNers does it take ?). Any mechanic `geek` could fix it
in 30 minutes. But I decided I am not going to shell out $120 to have that
done. Yeah me and the hacker ethos.

My point is: I never had any proper mechanical courses in high school so I can
see why today's kids can't find files or drivers or proxy settings (which
reminds me of the f* proxy at work that is still getting on my nerves
sometimes) or how to sort columns in excel even with the internet at their
fingertips.

~~~
Kluny
I see the parallel, but I don't think it's all that parallel. I'm in a similar
situation right now with a motorcycle battery. My bike stopped working last
Friday - 8 days and counting now. It took 2 days before I had time to go out
and have a look at it. Then I had to come inside and look up a video to find
the non-obvious location of the battery. I used a multimeter to check the
charge on the battery, but I don't have a real tester to tell me the health of
the battery. The multimeter seemed to be telling me it's fine. It took it to a
local auto parts store to be sure, but the kid at the counter was even less
sure than I was. So I took it into work the next day and walked to a
motorcycle dealership to have it tested there. Yes, the battery is dead, no
they don't have one...

There are several more episodes in this story (which hasn't ended yet), but
the point is that this would have been a 30 minute job if I had a SHOP and
TOOLS and LIGHTS and the ability to work on it uninterrupted for a little
while. The fact that it's taken 8 days is almost entirely down to the fact
that I live in an apartment building and my tools are in storage right now.

But the beauty of computers is that everything you need is contained on the
device, and you can work from anywhere. If only more people would take
advantage of it!

------
jmnicolas
So he shames people that are clueless with a computer but at the end admits
he's the same with his car.

The truth is nobody can master everything so there's no reason to feel
superior to someone that is clueless in your domain.

~~~
Neliquat
You bring up a good point. What is the social expectation of competence in
these areas? In the USA it is assumed a man can change a tire, do basic
handyman stuff, etc. But is there a social equivelent in tech? At what point
are techs just keyboard moneys to the masses like mechanics are now?

Its odd, as the two share much. The average modern mechanic now knows hex, rom
flashing, checksums, and some basic networking, in addition to metalurgy,
gas/vapor flow, and customer service. The complexity has increased
dramatically, but social respect has not.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I expect people to be able to connect devices, since the ports are labeled and
shape matched. (And often color coded, too.)

I expect people to be able to perform slightly-nontrivial Google searches
('site:' and similar tags; Boolean operators).

I expect people to have the equivalent of "electrons flow in copper"
(electricity) or "explosions push the pistons" (ICEs) level of understanding
of what's in a computer and what it does, what the internet is and how traffic
flows across it.

Now, the reasons some of these don't happen is poor teaching materials, but I
think we need to get to that point -- where everyone knows at least those
things -- before we can sanely discuss technology as a society. Democracy will
break down -- is breaking down -- because most of the electorate refuses to
know even the basics of one of the major social forces.

------
ggggtez
>some faceless, keyboard tapping, socially inept, sexually inexperienced
network monkey

>she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing
them as too geeky to interact with

>Normally I pull out my mobile phone and pretend to tap in a few numbers.
Holding the handset to my ear I say: 'Yes, give me the office of the President
of the United States.... NO, I WILL NOT HOLD.

I think her initial reaction was spot-on based on this... Am I supposed to
route for this protagonist?

~~~
daotoad
He's got his routing handled. You may wish to 'root' for him, however.

------
dang
Big discussion at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730).

------
blakesterz
So that's a long read... some good points buried in there, I guess it's good
to provoke conversation in this area. Worth a read at least, much to agree
with, much to disagree with.

>> Mobile has killed technical competence.

Yeah, maybe, probably? So many sweeping generalizations throughout.

It's hard to pick out everything that feels wrong, but I don't know about
this...

>>Not really knowing how to use a computer is deemed acceptable if you're
twenty-five or over.

I've not thought this to be true for a couple of decades now. Anyone* over 40
has been using computers for most of their life at this point.

* Yes, not literally anyone, maybe "Anyone reading this" is more accurate.

~~~
uiri
"Anyone reading this" isn't in the population of people who don't know how to
use a computer.

Contrary to the beliefs of many people over the age of 40, being born around
the time that the personal computer or the Internet or mobile phones were
invented and took off does not make one any better with computers. The general
population under 30 is just as clueless as, if not even more clueless than,
the generations before them when it comes to computers.

------
gjkood
I think we have to recognize that the use of the computer has changed over
time. It's no longer the "computing" device that the users of yore recognize.

Before the late seventies, the use of computers were restricted to those who
absolutely needed them and could afford them.

In the late seventies and early eighties the computers started entering the
homes of ordinary people and where primarily used by the 'nerdy' kids. These
were the kids that actually used the computers to program things and even
program their own games (or copy/import other freely available game source
code) and played them.

Come the nineties and we see the proliferation of high end games and the 'non-
nerdy' users focused on using the computer as a game console. This was also
the advent of the web browser and now the whole new world of the internet
became accessible to the normal folks.

The audience today considers the computer as nothing but a commodity device
just like a phone or an MP3 player. Now babies and toddlers are as comfortable
with them as their grandparents are still confused with them.

You can't blame the kids of today for not knowing what the computer was
originally used for. We read email, browse the web, play games and
occasionally use it for the odd assignments which require a Word processor of
some sort.

~~~
RodericDay
I don't think anyone is blaming the kids, they're blaming those PR/marketing
people who go on talking about "digital natives".

------
SQL2219
The real issue is that people do not have the patience to try and figure stuff
out. They've got google and youtube, but would rather ask someone for the
answer.

~~~
dyim
100% yes - and I am guilty of this myself. I've always found CSS miserable, so
I'd just Stack Overflow things to "just make it work" ASAP.

Yesterday I took the time to read the specs for the flexbox feature. Spent an
extra hour or two to build a cogent mental model of how to lay out various
components, and voila - it's fun now; it's a brain-teaser and a game.

------
spenrose
This is a good anecdotal piece. Here's a structured study of what computer
skills people actually have:

[https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-
levels/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/)

HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13111768)

------
qwertyuiop924
Speaking as a kid who does know how to use computers, this phenomenon
infuriates me.

There is a special place in hell for people who claim to be "1337 h4x0rs", but
have less skills than the average script kiddie. Especially if they spew BS to
make themselves look good to their peers.

------
ghoshbishakh
60% of Computer Science students also do not know how to use a computer. (At
least in elite institutes in India).

The problem is they learn theory of computation and operating systems and all,
but cannot reinstll their OS. And building a wifi driver from source in Linux
is just wizardry.

~~~
nxc18
Are they really learning it then? Memorizing facts without the practical
understanding to back that up is pointless, especially nowadays with reference
(Google) being instant and cheap.

I have not been impressed with the overall grad population in my CS
department, which just happens to be dominated by Indian students. I tutor
students who passed presumably difficult and comprehensive exams that can't
get through the bridge courses, equivalent to the undergrad intro sequence.
Yesterday I worked with a student who was incredibly flustered by the prospect
of splitting a string in Java, even after I wrote out the functions to look
at, how they worked, input and output examples, etc.

There's also an annual cheating scandal whereby ~90% of new grad students are
caught cheating on the first assignment, and we explain that strike 2 involves
losing their scholarships.

I can almost have sympathy. Skating through college without any practical
understanding and then suddenly being expected to think is probably
frustrating. I suspect there is some large structural defect in the
educational system causing this situation.

My institution probably doesn't attract students from the most elite
universities, but you'd expect a higher quality floor for a group passing
rigorous testing and, y'know, getting a diploma.

~~~
ghoshbishakh
I think the problem is with that people in India and other developing
countries get into Computer Science not because they have interest in the
machine but only because they want some sort of job. They are very fast
learners but do not care to learn how to use computers.

------
jimmaswell
I think the capacity for computer proficiency is simply something you're
either born with or not. Some people can be introduced to an unfamiliar system
like a computer and actually make an attempt to make sense of it, figuring it
out as they go, learning what does what such as actually reading the words on
the buttons to make educated guesses on how to accomplish what they're trying
to do and gaining an intuitive feeling for the filesystem/window management
system, while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never
will. These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant
print button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone
with the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own
to figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just
select email instead of messaging, and so on. I've had extensive experience
with these kinds of people and my only conclusion is that they are unteachable
and you have to be born with "computer genes" for lack of a better term.

~~~
imchillyb
> while other people (a lot of people) don't have that faculty and never will.
> These people will ask you how to print something when there's a giant print
> button on the screen, be taught how to share a picture on their phone with
> the messaging app but then not be able to connect the dots on their own to
> figure out how to send a picture in an email and have to be told to just
> select email instead of messaging, and so on. @jimmaswell

We call those folk: LAZY.

They're too lazy to think for themselves, and want everyone else to do the
lifting for them. This isn't new. This isn't some _computer only_ or _tech
only_ thing. It's just plain lazy. Lazy has been around for thousands of
years. It's just more noticeable now that everything is meme'd and shared
online.

TL;DR - They're lazy.

~~~
smallnamespace
Laziness is the motivator to get a computer to do something, rather than by
hand.

------
Too
Knowing how to work around weird quirks caused by bad UI design != Knowing how
to use a computer.

The wifi-switch on the side of laptop is a classic one (or even worse: fn+F7).
While i personally do appreciate having a physical switch for it, how is an
average user supposed to know that my laptop has a magic switch that can turn
on or off the internet when the only error message they get is "Connection
error". This is the type of error that can have so many fault sources that it
should have a checklist that the average user can easily go through
themselves. Now if such a list exists and the user doesn't have the attention
span to read it - then they don't know how to use a computer.

Simply using linux doesn't teach you how to _use a computer_. Unless you are
interested in knowing why certain things work and can troubleshoot yourself,
using linux will simply teach you how to use linux.

------
nxc18
There's a pretty strong tension between creating a great product and creating
a product that encourages learning.

Great products we love make it so that we need to learn as little as possible
to be successful (intuitive = didn't need to learn). Windows just works, macOS
just works, and Linux gets closer every day.

The author recommends switching to Linux, but I think he underestimates the
Linux dev community. They're taking their sweet time, but they will eventually
get to 'just works', and students raised on Ubuntu will be just as alienated
from the command line as Windows users are.

I would never have learned so much or gotten any sort of limited understanding
of computers if Windows 98 just worked. That is scary because we've been in
'just works' territory across the board for years.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but asking people to fix their own problems
is probably a good first step.

~~~
dmoo
Personally I think the raspberryPi is a great place for kids to start. In
particular look at what the Kano guys are doing.
[https://kano.me/](https://kano.me/)

------
type0
Digital natives can use MS Office, play pokemon go and other games, use social
media snapchats and bully each other online. They don't care about privacy
online because they have nothing to hide (unless they are being bullied), they
don't know how internet works but have strong opinions about it. They can not
replace RAM, sometimes they have the luxury to through away the whole PC
because they can't figure out that it's just graphics card that's dead and
since parents can buy new anyway. Digital natives don't know how programs are
made, they don't control the checksums of their software and if they see a
recognizable logo they would think that it's totaly legit thing even though
the utility isn't signed and they downloaded it from some dodgy forums.

------
mattbee
This piece tells me more about the author than it does any of his unfortunate
users & students.

He lacks any understanding of his users' needs and sneers at them rather than
try to improve their understanding. No wonder he's surrounded by people who
struggle with IT.

------
monksy
She showed a clear lack of respect for him after helping him many times. He
shouldn't taken that, gaven her laptop back and said: "Go to the it help" for
the uni. There was no reason to pull out a 3g hotspot to rip a youtube video.

------
halfnibble
Dear Author,

Your explanation of the Ubuntu Touch solution saddened me. I know the OS has
improved a lot since this article was written, but I still don't think there
is a 4G LTE option.

I therefore recommend BlackBerry 10 as a mobile OS for serious "users." Root
is locked down, but the brilliant community has devised ways to install GCC
and other software development tools, so you really can write, compile, and
execute applications on your mobile. I use Helium Code Editor, Term48 terminal
emulator, and you can google how to compile and install GCC on BB10. It also
comes with a Python 3.2 interpreter.

------
matthewaveryusa
I find this argument by Alan Kay to be the most eloquent one yet on this
subject:
[https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099](https://youtu.be/ubaX1Smg6pY?t=5099)

The whole talk it good

------
matthewhall
I pride myself as being one of the few teens who know how to use computer.

------
imdsm
And there I was compiling Gentoo at 13 because I liked the colours.

------
antfarm
[https://www.howacarworks.com/](https://www.howacarworks.com/)

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
I can't imagine being a kid today. But if genetic me were reborn today, I
suppose he would adapt as all humans do.

------
lucb1e
TL;DR (239 words, 1 minute reading)

I told a colleague, whom isn't tech savvy, that contrary to her belief, most
kids aren't digital natives. They all can't use computers. Examples of people
who can't use computers are mostly the obvious (plug in the ethernet cable;
turn on the display; turn on the wireless switch in an OS of your choice); one
is a bit harder (reinstall Windows). Parents did it all wrong, fixing
everything for their children without teaching them how to do it themselves.
The UK asked the industry what should be taught and Microsoft told them
Microsoft Office, so now that's what they know. People aren't used to a
command line anymore.

Why should we care? Tomorrow's people are going to be creating laws regarding
computers, enforcing laws regarding computers, educating the youth about
computers, reporting in the media about computers and lobbying politicians
about computers. All while not being able to use a computer.

How to fix it? Stop fixing things for your kids. Schools should teach not to
install malware instead of locking down machines. Teach how to stay safe on-
line. Adopt a responsible disclosure model instead of punishing kids in school
for hacking things. At least play around with Linux and powershell and stuff.

I've owned a car for most of my adult life yet I wouldn't know how to fix one.
It's a recurring problem with computers. Yet I want to build a generation of
hackers. Who's with me?

\--- End of TLDR. ---

That took the author 4165 words in story mode (and me about 30 minutes to
read, including this summary). This, author, is why you were probably asked
for a TLDR in the past and why you write "gtfo you stupid fuck" as a TLDR on
top: it takes forever like this. And be honest, author, did I miss anything?
Other than clipped sentences, should anything more be included to get that
message across?

Now as for my own commentary, I more or less agreed up to the "Why" part. I
mean, yeah, digital self defense is important but not for everyone. If a
subset of the population in every country knows it, we're good right? You even
admit to not knowing how to fix your own car, yet without explaining how this
is different you expect us to understand that it is different somehow?

I'd like to see people be a little bit more tech savvy, but not as much as you
seem to think is necessary before not calling someone computer illiterate
anymore.

~~~
Paul_S
Thank you for the public service tl;dr version. Should be compulsory on any
article this long.

I experience this 'digital natives' lie first hand from my younger family
members, it's really disheartening but unlike the author I don't think it's
all that important. Compared to social media induced passivity being tech
illiterate is inconsequential.

