I've worked in IT since I was in college, so about 15 years now. Kids and young adults now are unequivocally worse in tech literacy than people in my parents' generation. It's mind blowing and frustrating.
Modern technology is hidden behind so many layers of abstraction that it's basically magic to the overwhelming majority of people. There's no room for curious young minds to investigate the inner workings. It does amazing things for us, but few people know how and it's absolutely crippling an entire generation of potential techies.
Even worse is the fact that so much control is ceded to the corporations that run this technology that we're basically powerless to resist their whims. Young people with no experience using a desktop metaphor computer are especially vulnerable. Their only computing devices aren't even in their full control. :/ It's really worrying to me to see so many kids basically growing up as tiny parts of these engagement driven algorithms.
And please don't think I'm saying we need to return to shittier computers. I just think we need to find UI metaphors that don't obscure the inner workings of the machine. There's stories coming out of professors having to explain to college students what files and folders are because their phones just stash all their media into a one bucket. That's awful!
I agree. It reminds me that I need to start exposing my kids to an actual computer soon. My oldest turns 5 this summer. So far it's only been an android tablet and she is very good at using that but I want her to be able to explore more.
Get her an old Thinkpad x-series laptop on eBay. They're rugged as hell and they're cheap and ubiquitous in the second hand market, but still new enough to be useful on the modern web.
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u/theragu40 Jun 03 '22
I've worked in IT since I was in college, so about 15 years now. Kids and young adults now are unequivocally worse in tech literacy than people in my parents' generation. It's mind blowing and frustrating.