The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#41

Post by kijin » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #16

ddebernardy wrote: post #8

It's not clear to me why they should be "digitally superior" - whatever that means. Kids just need to tap icons on their touchscreens nowadays. They seldom need to tinker with or troubleshoot computers. Just spitballing here, but I'd expect peak tech-savviness to have occurred in the 80s and early 90s. If you were old enough to want to play resource intensive games released in the run-up to Win95, you'd sometimes nee…

Well, nowaday most people drive but can't fix their cars. Makes sense the same is happening with IT.

Yup, not having to fix your own car happened one generation ago. Now it's happening to computers.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#42

Post by II2II » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

traderjane wrote: post #6

dbg31415 wrote: post #2

Consumer tech has been refined and dumbed down to the point where everything just sort of magically works, and since it's "magic" you never have to dive into the nuts and bolts. By making it so easy to use, we are depriving people of their opportunities to organically learn like people in my generation had to. Exceptions exist. * Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe - YouTube || https://www.youtub…

In what way were people able to introspect into their computing devices for learning? By being able to poke around OS details or the filesystem? Doesn't it sound more important to have an IDE + fluid building so people don't have to care about the details?

Whether you are talking about old or new, it depends upon what you are trying to accomplish as well as how you go about it.

Think back to the computers of the early 1980's. It was quite easy for someone to pick up BASIC and create simple programs. Their understanding of programming will be basic and their understanding of the machine will reflect that. That is quite similar to today.

Someone who whetted their appetite will move on to more advanced concepts. With early computers, that typically meant learning about the hardware or learning about algorithms. You either had to squeeze more performance out of your software or you needed to extend your reach beyond the language (and libraries). Today's programmer is, more likely than not, going to dive more deeply into libraries or learn more about their programming language. Yes, there will be exceptions based upon the domain that interests them or what they wish to gain from their learning.

Let's say that they decide to dive deeper into how the computer works. In the case of an early personal computer, the task was relatively easy. From a programmer's perspective, almost everything can be viewed sequentially and shuffling data across a bus. If they were more interested in electronics, it was relatively easy to see what was going on by looking at a circuit diagram or the board itself coupled with reading (admittedly more difficult to obtain) datasheets. With that knowledge, it was possible to modify the existing hardware and practical to build new hardware.

The notion that we are abstracting our understanding further and further from the workings of the machine while letting that limited understanding decide how what we can do with it isn't exactly a new one. My first real encounter with that idea was from one of the pioneers of digital computers, who described the machine as fundamentally physical and analog. In other words, making the physical world digital is in some sense and abstraction in its own right.

Granted, the article's author had relatively little to say on the fronts of programming and electronics design. It was more of a critique about younger people using software with very little understanding of its features or how it works, the sort of thing that can get you into trouble when things are not working as expected. While I disagree that this problem is specific to this generation, it is a solid reminder that the stereotype that younger people are better with technology is just plain wrong.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#43

Post by colmvp » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

alephnil wrote: post #13

ddebernardy wrote: post #8

It's not clear to me why they should be "digitally superior" - whatever that means. Kids just need to tap icons on their touchscreens nowadays. They seldom need to tinker with or troubleshoot computers. Just spitballing here, but I'd expect peak tech-savviness to have occurred in the 80s and early 90s. If you were old enough to want to play resource intensive games released in the run-up to Win95, you'd sometimes nee…

In fact, it is much harder to tinker with technology than it used to be. Not only is it more complex, but phones are also locked down so you are not really able to control your own device, or it does at least require quite some effort to do so, and can't be done using the device itself. Both Apple and Google in practice discourage people from tinkering with the device.

Maybe.

I remember having a hard time searching for information when I was young, as it was pre-internet and I was reliant on my parents on driving me places like the library to access information.

Nowadays, if you want to learn the ins and outs of something, you can order books online or watch informative video tutorials made by people who have been in the tech field for a significant amount of time.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#44

Post by dkersten » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #38

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." This is the biggest difference between then and now. In the 70s and 80s computing was all about details, all the way down to the hardware, which most developers understood at the register level. 8-bit amateurs grew up with simple toy machines. They learned enough detail to allow a natural transition to professional development on mainframes and minis -…

> There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." The whole point of the many abstractions between the user and the hardware is so they don’t have to care about the details.

Not caring about the details leaves us with people who can't fix simple issues and with applications that use way too much cpu, memory or energy than they really should. Sure, a lot of people don't care and just want to do the thing, but if you at all care that your computer that is 1000x as powerful as the one you had years ago, but doesn't really do a lot more, then you have to care. If you care about the users of your application and don't simply pass your lower development effort on to them in terms of performance cost, then you have to care. If you want to be able to fix your own issues, then you have to care.

Yes, the abstractions mean people can do more without caring, which in turn means more people can use them, but it comes at a cost too.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#45

Post by dkersten » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

auxym wrote: post #35

fmajid wrote: post #33

It has nothing to do with generation. About 5% of the population has the neurological wiring that makes a good programmer. The rest are just passive users of technology, just as clueless politicians and educators seem to think teaching Excel (a useful skill) somehow constitutes Computer Science.

Do you have a source for that 5% figure? I mean, I suspect as much from my own experience, but I'm curious to know if there's actual research out there.

From my own personal experience, I believe that most people can learn most things, but they need the motivation to do it. I find that most learning material for programming (especially courses/lectures) don't do a very good job at providing motivation. I also believe that most teachers are simply not that good at teaching, sadly, which makes learning hard. For example, often you're given an example, but not enough information to get from a blank page to the example by yourself. I do believe that its mostly nurture and only a tiny bit nature (the nature is mostly in our tolerance for certain things, especially problems we face, rather than in our ability to tackle them).

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#46

Post by ghaff » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

fmajid wrote: post #34

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed it was coined by a manager somewhere who was impressed by his teenage intern's ability to set up his email. There are a lot of people who aren't just not technical but actively phobic of computers, I think 'digital native' is more like knowing how to drive than knowing how to fix a car.

AFAIK it was introduced by Don Tapscot in his 1999 book Growing up Digital.

Here's a little more background on the term. Tapscot seems to have had the basic concept in the book but didn't use the exact term. Douglas Rushkoff probably coined the precise term.

http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Origins_of...

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#47

Post by goldfeld » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

dkersten wrote: post #44

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no such thing as "don't have to care about the details." The whole point of the many abstractions between the user and the hardware is so they don’t have to care about the details.

Not caring about the details leaves us with people who can't fix simple issues and with applications that use way too much cpu, memory or energy than they really should. Sure, a lot of people don't care and just want to do the thing, but if you at all care that your computer that is 1000x as powerful as the one you had years ago, but doesn't really do a lot more, then you have to care. If you care about the users of…

Every user application doesn't have to be written in C.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#48

Post by Yetanfou » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #39

Yetanfou wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put the top more or less at the rise of Linux, the BSD's and similar systems. While fiddling with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT might have given people the impression that they were 'programming' their PC's in reality all they did was find the right incantations to get their games to work. Porting one of the free OS's to new hardware is at a different level from shoving some drivers in high memory to make room for…

> I'd put the top more or less at the rise of Linux, the BSD's and similar systems. I'm not sure the two compare so well. Kids that fiddle with Linux do so out of curiosity. For the other kids, the closest you'll ever get to config file fiddling might be when they're forced to use Linux -- which could happen, for instance, when their techie parent refuses to have a Windows box or a Mac in the house. By contrast, take…

I'd rather compare it with one family which bought their children a box of Lego or a similar construction toy while the other gave them access to a scrap heap with broken mopeds and lawnmowers. The Lego-endowned kids will make interesting constructions which don't really serve any purpose but stimulate their creativity while the scrap-heap kids repair the mopeds and build go-karts with the lawnmower parts, maybe one of them puts a chain saw engine on a skateboard or something similar. This also stimulates their creativity with the added advantage of them gaining access to a whole world of possibilities while teaching them skills which can - and often will - be of benefit later in life. Nothing against Lego, mind you, but I know from personal experience which of the two gives more satisfaction in the end, at least for kids resembling the one I was.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#49

Post by ghaff » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

high_derivative wrote: post #17

I have long thought the term 'digital native' is a sort of filter for people who are not actually technologists but avid consumers of mostly social platforms. I (as a computer scientist) have never heard people actually working in tech refer to themselves as that.

It's a term and concept that came out of essentially sociology writing by a number of different people in the late 90s and early 2000s.

As the linked article suggests though, it's not clear it's a particularly useful term. The digital immigrants are often more tech savvy in at least many respects than the natives because they once had to be. And most of the people I work with in tech have had absolutely no problem fully incorporating the rideshare, social media, video/ music streaming, and mapping apps into their everyday lives even though many first encountered them as adults.

Are there age-based differences in media consumption etc.? Sure. But that's much more about generational preferences and habits than having grown up before the Web.

Re: The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent

#50

Post by ghaff » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

c22 wrote: post #25

alephnil wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, it is much harder to tinker with technology than it used to be. Not only is it more complex, but phones are also locked down so you are not really able to control your own device, or it does at least require quite some effort to do so, and can't be done using the device itself. Both Apple and Google in practice discourage people from tinkering with the device.

It might be harder to tinker with The Device , but tinkering kids these days are not bereft of options. When I was a teenager I remember badly wanting a "386 single board computer" which I saw advertised in the pages of Popular Science for hundreds of dollars. Imagine the things I could do with a whole computer small enough to hold in one hand! It could breathe new life into my projects and bring my tinkering to a wh…

It may be worth observing that the window when teenagers and younger were messing around with config.sys files and routinely building DOS computers from parts was actually pretty narrow.

I'm a bit older and didn't touch a computer keyboard (actually a teletype) until late in high school and didn't even do much with computers in college. (I'm an engineer by training but not CS.) I was working when I got into PCs, initially as a way to do some engineering calculations and project tracking on my job.

I agree that although consumption is the norm, the options and information available for those who want to go under the hood is pretty amazing today.