Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you

[Eddie W. Shore]

(04-26-2023 09:11 PM)David Hayden Wrote:  To me, the article is just arrogant nonsense.

The mechanic complains that nobody knows about cars.

The farrier complains that nobody can shoe a horse.

The medical coding specialist complains that nobody knows the right terms for medical procedures.

Here, the tech specialist complains that nobody can modify proxy settings and recognize when a firewall blocks access to an embedded file. Give me a break. He's just another jerk who thinks everyone should know his specialty.

Dave

You got a point.

If everyone knew everything about cars, why would need mechanics?

If everyone knew everything about all the medical terms, would there be a need for a medical coding specialist?

If everyone knew everything about proxy settings, the tech specialist would just complain that there is no job market for that profession.

If everyone knew all the tax codes and the complex accounting procedures, I sincerely doubt that the accounting profession would be big as it is.

I also doubt that that most tech specialists would know everything mechanics know and vice versa. We can fit almost any two categories of occupations in the last sentence.

[Siegfried]

(03-07-2023 05:30 AM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  Blog: The Duplo®code Fallacy, how industry & academia make it harder today for kids to start programming

While that blog post might not really be relevant due to its age, I think it errs on several points.

"We", the teenagers who learned programming in the 80's without a computer class were but a small part of the overall teenage population. We did have the occasional club and except for a few geniuses most of us would not have got very far without our monthly magazine listings or a copy of David Ahl's books.

One could even dare to say that we programmed because it was the only thing we could do if we didn't get a game to start with or got bored with those we had before we had saved enough money to buy a new one.

Once computers became more ubiquitous there were enough teenagers (and by that time younger kids) who did not program at all but were content to play whatever (pirated) games they could lay their hands on. I assume that population moved on to consoles after the 8-bit era.

I do concur that accessibility is an issue as the first 16-bit generation usually came without a built-in programming language and it became much harder to utilise all their features (windows, etc.). I remember wanting to write the occasional program on my Atari ST (16-bit, windowed GUI) but found it much more daunting than hacking together something on its 8-bit predecessor.

Accessibility is where the "duplo" programming environments shine and clicking together a program in Scratch has a much lower entry barrier and quicker rewards than programming the same even in Python. While the mere three hours my daughter's "digital education" class dedicated to Scratch are woefully inadequate, it was enough to introduce her to basic coding stuff like loops and - as she wanted to animate more than one object - even messaging between objects. I'd venture to say that object orientation is much easier to grasp moving spaceship or animal objects in Scratch than by typing up code, yet the concept remains the same.

I don't know whether the fact that the kid who learned programming in 8-bit BASIC is the only one who continued programming and had little trouble moving on to C++ proves anything but general interest in programming. The others had the same chance but didn't find it interesting enough. The jury is out on the programming future of the Scratch animation talent.

I didn't pursue a career in IT partly because I thought programming would become obsolete as advanced computers would be programmed by users just stating their needs in near plain language. The only time I regret my poor forecast is when I see software invoices.

[Garth Wilson]

You bring up a good point that makes me wonder what percentage of early programmers did it for games.  It's probably pretty high, and I cannot deny that games are a major part of what made the Commodore 64 the highest-selling computer model of all time.  I myself though am not a games person at all, and in fact games have no business being on my computers.  I never did any actual programming until I was in my early 20's, and then it was with calculators, primarily for my interests in amateur radio and stereo, for doing iterative processes that my slide rule was not suitable for.  I started on TI calculators, where going into programming mode involved nothing more than pressing the LRN (Learn) key.  Later I got into HP-41 where it was the PRGM key.  Then it was almost the same thing as doing the steps by hand, but the calculator remembered them to run later, much faster (a lightning-fast ten steps per second, LOL) and without mistakes, even if a program ran all night.  To this day, I have never learned to program a PC, only calculators, and my HP-71 hand-held computers, and microcontrollers, and my home-made workbench computer which I use as kind of a Swiss Army knife of the workbench, in Forth and assembly language.

[Siegfried]

I‘d assume the proportion of 80s kids who programmed computers but shirked games to be even smaller yet. A lot of type-in-software was games and while word processing and spreadsheets were available, the former needed a printer which then was a rather expensive peripheral. I think most non-game type-in software was graphics and sound demos or small utilities.

The gaming percentage was most probably lower for calculator programmers (although there are quite a few versions of Lunar Lander) but kids with programmable calculators were even fewer than computer kids. Calculator programming is arcane compared to BASIC for all but the simplest programs and feels more like programming in assembly for branching and looping.

Ham and electronics probably attracted roughly the same type of kids as home computers before home computers became a practical proposition.

I agree that all kids should be exposed to programming, probably quite a bit more than what is offered today. I think it’s also perfectly natural that only some will enjoy it and like breaking down a problem into small pieces to solve it. We don‘t expect everyone to enjoy the analytics required for law, to cut up animals (or later humans), to do the talk of a salesman or to play the piano, so why should everyone enjoy (or even grasp) programming. School should expose kids to a multitude of things, teach them basics and let them find out what they like best, then help them to get good at it so they can be part of our society that’s based on shared specialist labor.

I think it’s much more of a problem that there are too many „false“ role models around who instill kids with the idea that exhibiting one’s life and/or modified body features on YT is a viable career option for more than a handful, some of whom even promote their ignorance of MINT subjects.

[Garth Wilson]

Posted on another forum:
Book: "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30)" by Mark Bauerlein
https://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generatio...143&sr=1-1

Description:

This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings.

The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture.

For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures.  But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children.  The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

That was the promise.  But the enlightenment didn’t happen.  The technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect.  According to recent reports from the National Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote.  They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map.  The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American culture and democracy.

Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own space in society, wholly separate from adult life.  This change in adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to disengage from the adult world, they have built their own, acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7.

Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?  Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.  The Dumbest Generation pulls no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age—and our last chance to fix it.