The way people react to computers is similar to how many react to math.
A lot of capable people are mathphobic, and it's strange to watch (as someone who took naturally to math). The expressions on the page (or the attempt to produce those expressions from a model in their mind) causes them to seize up. It's like watching an anxiety attack happen. Something about math (the subject, their experience when taking the courses, whatever) has left them with a severe discomfort or level of fear when dealing with it.
Computers illicit the same response from many people, regardless of background, education, level of experience with computers. They develop an understanding by rote, or with a rudimentary (but likely totally wrong) mental model. As soon as something is slightly different, the fear or discomfort rises and their mind blanks. They cannot figure out the next step. At an extreme, a color changes and they think it must mean something, but really it's just that that control is now "transparent" (pulling in the background color but blurred) and they happen to have a bright red object behind it, when normally it's a more neutral gray or blue. For some it's that things are no longer in the right place or that display differently (think of the changes in the Windows start menu over the decades). They'll have different thresholds, but once they hit theirs they cannot proceed without great difficulty.
We definitely should see if we can develop math teaching which doesn't elicit that response, because it has to be learned. Humans aren't evolved to be good at arithmetic or symbolic thinking, but we're not evolved to be morbidly afraid of it, either.
Of course, any attempt to improve math education gets screamed at ("New Math! Common Core! Blah!") and the whole thing just becomes political.
I think we just have to accept that we all are different. Some have it easy, other don't. This comes doubly with all subjects that we are not trained for or not interested in. It might take a lot more to learn or a teacher that understands the problem and can guide around it. Only the individual can say if the added time and effort is worth it. This insight can take many years though, it's hard to get a teenager to believe they will ever need math (or whatever other subject) in their life.
Part of the problem is cultural - it's socially acceptable to "not be a mathsy person" in many circles, and almost a badge of honour in some.
Another problem is that the discovery learning approach can lead to some horrible failure modes for math. I've seen cases where an hour of proper instruction can go further than a whole term of trying to see if they can find it out for themselves. Case in point: the rule of three. If 10 apples cost $20, then 5 apples cost ___? You can spend ages thinking about what it "means", or you can learn that you write down a 2x2 table, multiply across the diagonal and divide by the number in the corner.
Commom core seems just fine overall to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the generation that grows up with it has much better math comprehension and number sense.
This is a key insight. It's why I hate when we refer to "non-technical people" -- I don't believe possessing the technical skills is a meaningful differentiator in users. The more important categories are those you mention; the non-fearers will eventually figure out a solution, becoming technical along the way if required. The fearful stop trying to do that.
it seems like most people can get pretty good at discrete or fuzzy (for lack of a better word) types of reasoning, but rarely both. I'm not sure if it's just avoidant behavior, relying on whichever mode developed faster to the exclusion of the other, or something more innate.
given enough time to read and debug, I suspect I could eventually figure out how any piece of code worked. but if you give me a book and ask me to pick a good topic for an essay, I might not finish before the end of time.
A lot of capable people are mathphobic, and it's strange to watch (as someone who took naturally to math). The expressions on the page (or the attempt to produce those expressions from a model in their mind) causes them to seize up. It's like watching an anxiety attack happen. Something about math (the subject, their experience when taking the courses, whatever) has left them with a severe discomfort or level of fear when dealing with it.
Computers illicit the same response from many people, regardless of background, education, level of experience with computers. They develop an understanding by rote, or with a rudimentary (but likely totally wrong) mental model. As soon as something is slightly different, the fear or discomfort rises and their mind blanks. They cannot figure out the next step. At an extreme, a color changes and they think it must mean something, but really it's just that that control is now "transparent" (pulling in the background color but blurred) and they happen to have a bright red object behind it, when normally it's a more neutral gray or blue. For some it's that things are no longer in the right place or that display differently (think of the changes in the Windows start menu over the decades). They'll have different thresholds, but once they hit theirs they cannot proceed without great difficulty.