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Kids, Computers And Authority
Spasemunki writes: "This link showed up on Ars Technica the other day. It's an article on Brill's Content on the sociological impact of a society where the younger generation has all the technical know-how, and parents are left to seek the advice of their kids on how to keep things running. It discusses patterns in computer use and knowledge, and the rising economic and social power of the young and computer saavy. Includes some words from Shawn Fanning of Napster fame."
Gosh, this is just like things were back in the 80's. I remember when I was about 11 or so (gasp, in 1981) and hearing about a 16 year old who had designed a VisiCalc type spreadsheet and made pots of money. And about two years later I was running the "computer system" at my high school (OK, two Apple ][ clones) with programs that tracked attendance and developed class schedules. It wasn't a Silicon Valley fortune, but it kept me in the office and out of gym class.
...".
But I digress. Even back then, there was all kinds of talk about Video Space Age Whiz Kids, movies like War Games were coming out, and every average adult over 35 shook their head and said "gawsh, these crazy kids are gonna run the world, I have to ask em how to program my VCR and
The point is, most people will look at a new technology and not try to understand how it works, they'll just use it the way they're told to. We take something like a PC and use it for doing spreadsheets, because even though the machine is capable of far more, our thinking has become limited to things we use every day. Kids don't usually yet have those mental barriers in place, so they're not afraid to take it apart and mess with it, and they don't have the mentality that things can only be used a certain way, so they come up with more creative uses for what the technology can do.
The only real difference is that today the technology is more pervasive than it was then, more people have PCs so when a teenager comes up with something like Napster it gets on the front page instead of being featured in a condescending human-interest article.
And that's generally a Good Thing. But let's not let it go to our heads: the cleverest ideas have always come from people who think outside the box, and it's always going to be easier for young people to do that.
To make a short story longer...
When I was in sixth grade, my school got its first computer, as Apple ][ (Pac Bell, black case). I was really fascinated by it. The library had one book about the computer, which was hand written, about very simple programming in BASIC. The last several pages covered the advanced topic of FOR loops, but only briefly. Whoever wrote the thing obviously stopped abruptly, but it was a start. The librarian said they didn't have any other books, and of course she was the only person at among the staff that "knew about the computer", which consisted of how to boot the computer and run the Oregon Trial game.
It didn't take long to go through the hand written book. One other guy, Will, also was really interested in the computer and read it all. There was a guy named Adam who was an expert and seemed to know everything about the machine. It turned out he had one at home. He was in 8th grade, and usually didn't want to help me and Will much. To me and Will, Adam didn't just have power and authority, he was a god, but nobody else, neither kids nor adults cared much about him.
One day I got to talk with Adam (who was working on a simple text-adventure to model an AD&D adventure module), and I asked him how he learned all this stuff that wasn't in the hand written book. He told me about the applesoft basic manual that came with his computer. He said the library had the book in the back room. The librarian lied to me... they did have another book, but they considered it part of the expensive computer equipment and not something they could check out or even let anyone read in the library. After all, we were just kids! The environment wasn't anything like what's described in the Brill's Content article.
That book was the first thing I ever stole in my life!
I started going to bed earlier, and I had a small light in my room. I'd spend all night reading the manual, and writing basic programs on paper. Time with the computer was very limited, and they had a strong policy to be fair to everyone, which meant giving everyone equal time slices to play Oregon Trial. I rarely had time to type more than a couple dozen lines in a session, and it was usually hard to remember what the code was supposed to be about. To make matters worse, Will got to the DOS (Apple DOS 3.3, long before the PC computer) manual, so access to the disk would have to wait for another couple years. Some parts of the applesoft manual, particularily the GOSUB, were "try this... now you see what it does". I couldn't possibly bring the stolen book back to the school and use it in front of the computer, so it took a very long time to really learn most of the material.
Still, it was great fun, to be able to create programs. I had been interested in electronics... I had a bunch of the kits from radio shack, with the scrings for connecting the wires. Electronic projects were frustrating, because I didn't have the parts and I didn't ever have money to buy them. With the computer, all I needed was my 5 1/4 inch floppy disk, and lingering around trying to get some time on the school's only computer.
The next year Will and I were the experts about the computer, but we really didn't end up being in a position of any authority, because for the most part nobody really needed to know anything, and "knowing how to use the computer" involved being able to boot up, type CATALOG, and RUN a basic program... almost always Oregon Trial.
In 8th grade, the school district was re-zoned, and I ended up at a much larger school, which had about 8 computers instead of one. I could almost always get time on a machine. They also had the newer Apple ][e, and they had lots of copies of the manuals, including the DOS manual the Will grabbed a couple years earlier. The larger school also had a "activity bus", intended for sports, so I could stay after school for nearly two hours and get some real time on the computer. With all the manuals, lots of time on the computer, and not having the hide the stolen property, I started really getting pretty good at writing code. Will was zoned to a different school, so I was certainly the only guru, but it really didn't matter. Only a couple other students were really interested in the computers, and they were always nervous about being a nerd. I was already there, and while it sucked, I more or less learned to brush off insults and hostility from my classmates. Back then, it was seriously uncool to be interested in computers.
Late in the 8th grade year, there was a science fair, and because computers were going to be the "next big thing", they had a computer science category. The school brought in some actual programmers, because it was well known that the one teacher who had the one and only (lame) computer class knew far less than I did, and was probably less knowledgable than some of the others as well. My little program was a tiny stats program, as I recall for track teams, simple stats for each runner per event. It loaded and saved data to the disk, had menus, data entry screens, on-screen data table display and some simple reports that went to the printer. I won the contest, and somewhere in the evening my folks talked with the programmers and they convinced my parents to buy me a computer.
I spent a lot of time with the computer... a lot of time. I finally had all night sessions in front of a real computer. My parents were concerned that I spent too much time with it. I spent a lot of time playing games, but also a lot of time coding. Like most other kids at the time, I spent a lot of time copying programs. It wasn't until much later that my parents got the clue that I really was knowledgable about programming, for a long time all their thoughts revolved around how much time I was spending on the computer. Of course, they never needed and certainly didn't want to use the computer, so they never needed any advise and never even had an opportunity to see what I could do.
High school wasn't much more accepting of being a geek, but there were more of us, and there were a bunch of people who were indifferent, so it was much easier to avoid hostility. Like before, there was one teacher that knew about computers, but much less than I did. Over those years I learned a lot, and I wrote a really nice database program, with bits of 6502 asm code, which was mainly used to track a collection of copied disks.
One summer my folks arranged for a special class about interfacing hardware to the computer... and it was a great experience. The instructor really knew a lot about both software and hardware, and the other guys (no girls) in the class were guys just like me. One guy was a master as asm code, and I learned several tricks, a couple others really knew quite a bit about electronics. I think I was the only guy without a modem. Every day at lunch they'd all talk about various BBSs. I got a printed list of phone numbers from one of them. The hardware portion of the class was a bit over my head, and it slowly sank in over last two years of high school. Like me, they were certainly gurus at versious technical subjects, but these relationships or authority that teen gurus experience today just didn't happen, mostly because adults generally didn't need to use computers and so they didn't need help.
After that summer, I had to get a modem. My folks were terrified that I'd break into banks, and they'd read some lame articles about "profiles" of hackers (I wonder it Katz it reading). It was nearly a year until I finally got a modem. A friend of mine got a 1200 baud modem, so he loaned me his old 300 baud.
Getting onto BBSs was great, and I spent lots and lots of time on-line, reading and posting in boards, and exchanging email. I met lots of people, all in the local area. The computer teacher at my school was intersted in these user groups, and together with a couple other students, we ended up going to lots of user group meetings. It all seemed very natural, and I didn't even realize I was staying out until 11pm or midnight until my parents expressed their concerns. By that time I'd learned most of the things there were to know about applesoft basic, 6502 asm, and the internals of DOS 3.3. There were some other kids, but it was really cool meeting with other geeks. Some of those times were the first times I was a guru, AND someone was actually interested. I had learned quite a few tricks to defeat the floppy-based copy protection schemes, and there were always plenty of people who really, really wanted to hear tips and tricks they didn't already know. The position of authority, though, was only with other hard-core geeks... never in my family.
In my last year of high school (1988), the school got a bunch of macintosh computers. For reasons I don't recall, a number of teachers were using them for various things, and while I quickly learned about mac (resedit, et all), there was another student who knew a lot more, and he basically took over a sys-admin role for the one server they had in the building. That was probably the first time I saw this whole teen guru thing in real action. He really did command some real authority with teachers and admin types, because he more or less controlled the network (localtalk) and was the only one who knew how to fix most of the conmputer problems.
Well, I finally got out of high school, moved to college, away from my parents, and into, for the first time in my life, into an environment where is was "ok" to be myself (a true geek, I suppose). Things have only gotten better and better every year since then, and every year it seems that more and more people need the services of geeks like me, fortunately including employers.
Now I'm an authority on many subjects technical, sometimes because I really know something, other times because non-technical people don't know any better. I'm certainly not a teenager anymore (currently 30), and now even my parents have to use computers, which I fix for them.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
>At 37, I'm starting to feel old while reading Slashdot. I'm a very young "baby boomer", but still a "baby boomer". My Dad (not my
;-)
>grandfather) was a WW2 veteran. My Grandfather was a WW1 veteran! Anyway, there seems to be concern here, that as you
>grow older and get to the advanced age of 35, your skills and knowledge will become marginalized by the next generation of
>techies who are 10 years younger.
Dude, I'm 42, & when I got my Bachelor's degree my college only offered 3 computer classes -- BASIC (which I didn't bother with because I taught myself about it out of a mincomputer manual, & ran thru the excercises on the mainframe), Fortran (which I took, but never used), & assembler (which I decided I woudl never need). otherwise, your story is the same as mine.
Having gone thru the routine, I can tell you why older folks tend to shun away from new experiences:
1) Lack of time. I doubt I can recall the number of occasions that I started on a computer problem, looked up after what I thought was a little more than an hour & found that it was after midnight. And I had to be at work at 8:00am the next morning. Or started on a project on a Saturday afternoon, only be interrupted every so often with a question from my wife (e.g., ``I saw this on t.v." or ``When do you want dinner?"). Or have to put off a computer project because the yard needed attention. And if I had kids, the distractions would be even worse . . .
I have a friend a little older than me who is currently unemployed. He is using his unemployment to teach himself how to create web pages -- & using his years of experience as a graphic artist to give him an edge. Damn, I envy the fact he has the time to immerse himself!
2) Worries. Most people 15-30 don't think much beyond the next paycheck. If a job sucks, just leave it & you'll find another one in a couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, by the time you reach 35-45, you have gotten a ways up the greased pole of success. You just can't drop everything to hare after something because it looks interesting. You have to prioritize your interests, be flexible to deal with emergencies, & then when it seems to be a quiet moment you can tackle the problem.
3) Bad habits. Face it, if someone's means for solving technical problems is to ask someone else the answer, she/he is not going to change at 35+. I, for one, have always read the instructions, played with the software to see how I could break it, & always take the time to watch over the shoulder how someone solves problems. (This very practice taught me a new Unix command last week!) Too many people leave high school with a fear of RTFMing, & spend the rest of their lives finding workarounds for this.
And a last note here: Anybody who tells you all of the reasons why they can't accomplish something (especially if she or he numbers those reasons) is probably just lazy, & doesn't want to admit the fact. My stepmother -- for example -- spent my teenage years complaining that she never had any time to herself. But she never said what she would do with this time if she had any. It really got old. Thank God no one in my life does the same thing.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
> I think it is unfortunate but I don't believe that the younger generation
> has much incentive to look under the hood. With the lack of interest in Computer
> Science that colleges are seeing as of late, I can imagine that the population
> that understands how things work, how to make them work, and how to fix them
> when they are broken is getting smaller and smaller.
I don't really see it that way. You're right that it appears that fewer people are interested in CS degrees lately, but there are really at least 2 good reasons for this.
To begin with, computers are being so thoroughly integrated into all disciplines in college and high school and elementary school that there's less need to take any computer courses at all in order to be able to understand them fairly well and use them proficiently. In college, for example, pretty much all students have to use computers in order to do their papers for any given class, and while that doesn't require more than basic knowledge of how to use a word processing program, it gets people to use computers from day 1 even if they've never before touched them. E-mail is just as pervasive and, on campus, usually requires a bit more know-how than just starting Word: my first experience with computers was my first week at college, when we went to the Computing Center in groups to learn the basics of telnetting to our campus VAX and logging in to our new accounts. Many schools now include the cost of a laptop or PC in first-year's tuition, like mine now does, and that gives all students at least a fair familiarity with computer use. Just being around computers for those two functions will give most users a slow but steady learning curve into how to use a computer, and when people learn about all the cool games and video clips you can play on a PC or Mac it usually makes them learn enough to get around fairly well. But if you expect them to learn CLI beyond maybe telnet, you're dreaming, because it's becoming obsolete for all but programmers and old-school "power users".
But it's going to be increasingly rare for college freshmen to need to learn these things, since computer labs are commonplace in high schools, and even in many classrooms. I was shocked the other day to run into an ex-neighbor who became a fifth-grade teacher--she told me that she had three iMacs and two G3s in her classroom, and lesson plans for the students to learn the basics of navigating a GUI and using educational games and an encyclopaedia program. Not bad for elementary education; beats the hell out of the one Apple ][c we had in my elementary classrooms, running useless LOGO...
Of course, what you're specifically referring to is CS type people who know all the inner workings and would be comfortable if dropped to a command prompt in Linux or maybe even VMS. But as computers with high-level user interfaces permeate other disciplines, and the general school and home experience, there is quite frankly less need for such people. The average person will know enough to do all of the things he really wants to do, like e-mail and websurf and maybe get in a few rounds of Q3, but there is zero reason for him to *need* to know how to tinker under the hood. That isn't bad, it's just fine. Not everyone needs or wants to know how everything works, and I think that's a problem with some slashdotters: they think people should have to or want to learn what works a machine, when in reality all most of them need to do is learn to use the Win32 or MacOS shell. That's why we call these people "end users"--they use the end result of programmers' hours of toiling, toiling which is done so that end users can do thing quickly and easily. It's not laziness on behalf of the average person which keeps them from learning something like the Linux CLI--it's the fact that they prefer to do other things with their time, to use software with virtually no learning curve because it allows them to have all the benefits of computers with none of the time-consuming in-depth stuff which they really don't need to know to perform the few basic tasks they ever will need a computer to do.
I think there was an upswing in CS enrollment in the 90s because of the perception that computers were the future, high-tech CS jobs would pay very well, and that the emerging Net was cool and by learning CS you'd learn more about it. But after that brief surge we're returning to a more level state of growth commensurate with the fact that you don't need a CS degree to operate a computer, just to program for one. The population of people who "know how to fix" computers isn't getting smaller, it's just settling into a post-boom level, while the number of computer users in general continues to increase.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
This shows a complete lack of understanding of the "Way things work"
Colleges are seeing a lack of interest in Computer Science because computer science classes are seen as "old school" Everyone knows that you don't learn computer skills in school. You don't learn how to program in a classroom environment. You DO learn by DOING. Staying up all night hacking. If you look at the technology leaders today, a large porton of them have never attended college. Those who have/are didn't bother with CompSci, but instead learned business management skills (something you CAN learn in school) The Computer Skills they have they learned in their spare time.
Case in point: Myself. I am a high school dropout. No college. No interest in EVER going to college. I am 27 years old, and I just got re-located (all expenses paid) to New York City to work for France Telecom as the Linux Network Administrator for voila.com. I am making upwards of $60k a year (not millions, but its a good start) and have full benefits. I get to play with Linux boxes all day, everyday, and I make money doing it! Talk about your dream job. How did I get here? No CompSci for me. I was one of those "wiz kids" back in the 80's. You know, I had a Commodore 64 in 1982, I learned BASIC on a TRS-80 Model III in first grade. I learned 650x assembly by the time I was 12. I was all over BBS's in the last half of the 80's, and ran my own BBS throughout the first half of the 90's (Till about '93/'94 when I learned about the internet.) Why would someone like me need college? What does CompSci have to offer me?
It is this attitude that is why colleges are seeing a lack of interest in Computer Science, not a lack of skill. In fact, the lack of CompSci interest shows an INCREASE in the skill levels of the younger generation. These kids are working outside of the traditional structure. They don't go to college (or if they do, it's to learn business management skills, not computer skills that they have already mastered)
-CZ
Younger people have always been more in-touch with contemporary times than older people. New technologies are always emerging. Social norms are always changing. And, always, the people most able to embrace new technologies, new social norms, new ways of life, are the young.
;-)
Young people make their own worlds as they grow up, forging thier own moral and social views (sometimes similar to their parents', sometimes radically different), experimenting with new things and not being afraid to try something new or different. Older people, though, are already set in their ways, they already have lifestyles, morals, and recreations based on the things they discovered when they themselves were young. The world changes, but usually, adults don't change much at all. I'm only 23, and already I find myself annoyed whenever things I really liked are changing; I can only imagine how people in their forties must feel, since the world has moved forward 20 years since they reached adulthood and started getting their own ideals set.
The young have always been a force of change, both technological and social, while the old have always been a force of stagnation. Look at Henry Ford as an example: in his younger years he revolutionalized not just the auto industry, but every industry, by popularizing the notion of putting together standardized parts on assembly lines to drastically reduce costs over those of one-off manufacturing. And then as he got older he foolishly kept pushing the Model T even after newer, bigger, faster cars were becoming popular, and would have ruined his company if his advisors and family hadn't dissuaded him from bringing back a simplistic Model T like car in the thirties.
That's just the way it's worked, probably for the whole of history. You see it at work everywhere: in the 1950s older people instituted censorship of comic books because they had cartoonish gore, yet today the same mild gore which was prohibited in the 1950s has become a staple of comics and few older people care, because the older people of today were the children of the 50s who grew up wanting to see that comic violence which their parents thought was so bad. Elvis was considered positively satanic early in his career, because older folk thought his hip swaggering walk was sinfully provocative, yet today people don't complain about hip movements at concerts they complain about Marilyn Manson and a bandmate having oral sex on stage.
Technology is no different in that respect than forces of social or political liberalism. Older people get along just fine knowing little about computers; they have no reason to learn, they've already developed their own careers and hobbies. Thus more young people getting deeply into computers than adults who do so. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo!, and most of the other companies which have been instrumental in bringing the personal computing and Internet revolutions to the masses, were founded by young people in their twenties or teens. The Information Age is a revolutionary thing, and revolution is the pursuit mostly of the young. Old people and companies have established ways and markets, and don't want change--thus the RIAA vs. Napster mess, the MPAA vs. DeCSS affair, and the USPTO's complete inability to handle Net-related patent claims in a reasonable manner. They're just old and out of touch, and it's time to get rid of their outdated foolishness. But, I digres...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*