Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

asahi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 365 posts

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#71

Post by astatine »

jdietrich wrote: post #45

It's worth bearing in mind that the source is Japanese. All input methods for the Japanese language are a compromise. Inputting kanji on a physical keyboard is nowhere near as fluid as inputting Latin characters - you're constantly toggling between inputting kana and selecting the kanji options presented by the IME. The prediction and correction technologies of smartphone keyboards are a very good match for kanji and…

This is insightful. I see behaviour which princely has similar roots. In India, I have seen people who never input any Indic language text on a regular keyboard do that many times on a phone soft keypad. The prediction and multiple methods to input, including phonetic Latin, makes it significantly easier than the older keyboard based methods. Besides there were several non- standard keyboard methods which didn't help!

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#72

Post by actsasbuffoon »

21 wrote: post #33
codingdave wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the age of the child. A toddler who is still exploring the world is one thing. A 14 year old who swipes at a book is a problem. (I don't know the age of the children from these anecdotes.) On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there.

> On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there. You are making quite an assumption here. People of many centuries ago would also say that we raise our kids in a wrong way, because we don't teach them how to survive in the wild or how to work a potato field.

I live in an agrarian area where potato farming is a major industry. It’s a hard life, and not one that I’d encourage my son to get into. I think he’ll be better off with a computer.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#73

Post by titanix2 »

scarface74 wrote: post #50
api wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more important is the nature of PCs vs mobile devices. The mobile platform is designed to commoditize the user and create a stark division between users on one side and content and software creators on the other. You can't easily create anything of any substance on a mobile device and the ecosystem discourages it by e.g. treating user data as unimportant. PCs were designed to be devices for people to create thin…

PCs were designed to be devices for people to create things. I think you have an idealized view of how most people use PCs. Even during the first era of PCs in the 80s, most kids used them for playing games. By the mid 90s, it was all about games and “multimedia” on CDs. Then Facebook and social media games. The geeks that looked forward to InCider, Nybble, and whatever the offshoot computer mag from 3-2-1 Contact we…

Of course, but having the technical possibility to create something on the machine make this minority exists in the first place. Now take the same demographic with a locked down class of devices and the basic programming crowd fall to 0%.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#74

Post by ModernMech »

dooglius wrote: post #10

>Given that they can write and submit their school reports with smartphones Would students really do this? I couldn't imagine trying to write an entire essay or a lab report on a smartphone. Maybe Japanese schools don't have to turn in longer things like that?

I used to write my reports on a type writer. A smartphone would have been a dream come true back then.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#75

Post by btschaegg »

An interesting part in the article:

> Lena-Sophie Mueller, of the German nonprofit Initiative D21, pointed out: “Timetables (for railways) are no longer available in paper form. More and more services are based on the Internet [...]”

This has been going on for quite a while. I distinctly remember being stranded in Düsseldorf a few years back. I was at the train station, looking for a train (I knew the destination but not which train I had to take). It was very late and since the roaming costs were horrendous (around 15 € per MB, I think), I had deactivated all mobile data on my phone.

I searched more or less the whole train station, failing to find some printed plan that told me which train to pick. You could see where the plans used to be, but they had all been removed. Luckily, a lonely waffle vendor still was around and helped me out with his iPhone.

I found a line/station map later on -- inside the train in question. How anyone can come to the conclusion that this is the place to look, is beyond me.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#76

Post by curun1r »

donretag wrote: post #19

In the meantime, services like Venmo are becoming mobile only since the majority of users only use the mobile app (so they say). Many new startup ideas are mobile-first since that is where their user base is.

> Many new startup ideas are mobile-first since that is where their user base is

The main reason it's smart to go mobile first is the transition from mobile to desktop is significantly easier than going from desktop to mobile. It's very easy to design a desktop product that's almost impossible to make mobile and almost impossible to do the opposite.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#77

Post by AndrewKemendo »

jdietrich wrote: post #45

It's worth bearing in mind that the source is Japanese. All input methods for the Japanese language are a compromise. Inputting kanji on a physical keyboard is nowhere near as fluid as inputting Latin characters - you're constantly toggling between inputting kana and selecting the kanji options presented by the IME. The prediction and correction technologies of smartphone keyboards are a very good match for kanji and…

Seems like there's room then for a touch based input system to augment/replace the standard keyboard for these users.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#78

Post by zenir_ »

jdietrich wrote: post #45

It's worth bearing in mind that the source is Japanese. All input methods for the Japanese language are a compromise. Inputting kanji on a physical keyboard is nowhere near as fluid as inputting Latin characters - you're constantly toggling between inputting kana and selecting the kanji options presented by the IME. The prediction and correction technologies of smartphone keyboards are a very good match for kanji and…

Sounds like finally a good usage for the mac touchbar

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#79

Post by codingdave »

21 wrote: post #33
codingdave wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the age of the child. A toddler who is still exploring the world is one thing. A 14 year old who swipes at a book is a problem. (I don't know the age of the children from these anecdotes.) On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there.

> On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there. You are making quite an assumption here. People of many centuries ago would also say that we raise our kids in a wrong way, because we don't teach them how to survive in the wild or how to work a potato field.

I might agree with them. I'm not saying we should be all out working potato fields, but knowing how to grow your own food is valuable knowledge. Likewise, knowing how to live in the wild, at least for a few days is a basic skill that I believe everyone should know, as it could save your life even today if something goes wrong while you are out hiking/camping.

But that is all just my own personal opinion, not something we need to argue about. However, the idea that toddlers should not have that much screen time is an official recommendation: https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/21/health/screen-time-media-rule...

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#80

Post by jdietrich »

xexers wrote: post #18
acutesoftware wrote: post #3

If you aren't actually creating content [art, software, serious writing, etc] then using a mobile is fine for just consuming and it isn't surprising that these groups don't know how to use a computer. It is sad though, that young people appear to be less computer literate in terms of creating content (as an overall percentage of previous generations).

> If you aren't actually creating content [art, software, serious writing, etc] then using a mobile is fine I've seen some serious art been made using ipads and even mobile phones alone. Hang out with creative teenagers and you'll see it too. There are entire video editing suites on ipad that can create slick videos entirely with touch gestures. https://www.imore.com/why-i-love-editing-video-ipad-it-can-s...

The iPad is a fabulous music-making tool. A lot of people with fully equipped recording studios prefer to use the iPad when they're sketching out ideas, because they find it easier to stay in a creative mindset. Several artists have recorded and mixed albums entirely on the iPad.

The BBC now routinely use iPhones for TV and radio newsgathering; they have developed an in-house app for capturing content and directly ingesting it to their media asset system. Many radio stations use the LUCI Live app for remote contributors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201604201...

http://www.luci.eu/products/luci-live/

Post reply on HN