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The Rise Of The 15-Year-Olds
Lewis' latest book, Next: The Future Just Happened, is getting some enthusiastic applause from the popular media, whose binary view of the Net holds that it's either destroying the world or changing everything in it. In a similiar vein, Time asks in its cover this week "Do Kids Have Too Much Power?" The magazine, along with many so-called experts, seems to think so, and cyberspace is a big reason why. There can't be a better place on the Web to have this conversation than here.
Lewis argues that the Net has spawned a great status revolution, one that especially affects the technologically skilled young. The insiders are now out, and the outsiders in; high school sophomores and juniors are in charge and the people who have always run things are doomed and irrelevant. Lewis sees one powerful institution after another, from Wall Street to the music industry to the legal profession, being transmongrified by kids who, thanks to the Net, can do for free what many professionals have been charging tons of money for.
Kids, with sophisticated technology skills and more time on their hands than almost any other segment of the population, are fighting to get hold of traditionally proprietary (thus valuable) information. It's giving lawyers and corporations fits. Companies wonder how they can possibly survive as new media technologies -- open source among them -- make information cheaper and more available.
Is this a revolution, and is it really upon us?
To make his case, Lewis visits a series of casually-dressed, informally-educated teenagers in the U.S. and England, including the celebrated Jonathan Lebed of Cedar Grove, N.J., who rocked Wall Street and the SEC by turning himself into a master online stock manipulator in a few short months, though that's supposed to take years of high-intensity experience and training. Lewis also profiles Marcus Arnold of Perris, Calif., who joined the knowledge-sharing Web site AskMe and shortly become its most popular legal expert, dispensing wisdom he gleaned from many hours of Court TV watching, humiliating attorneys everywhere.
These kids, says Lewis, are destroying the "old priesthoods" of lawyers, investment gurus, academics and CEO's. Technology has "put afterburners on the egalitarian notion that anyone-can-do-anything, by enabling pretty much anyone to try anything -- especially in fields in which 'expertise' had always been a dubious proposition. Amateur book critics published their reviews on Amazon; amateur filmmakers posted their works directly onto the Internet; amateur journalists scooped the world's most powerful newspaper."
In my opinion, Lewis stumbles badly here. It's true that amateurs have gained access to fields once closed. But how many best-selling books are propelled by Amazon reviews? And who did Jonathan Lebed's parents call when he got into trouble -- Marcus Arnold or a criminal attorney who'd passed the bar exam?
The idea that anybody can become an instant expert at any age in any context is pretty creepy. It doesn't even apply to programming or Web design, let alone law or finance. Besides, expertise isn't power. Publishing houses, bar associations and medical groups still wield enormous influence, not only over their respective fields but with with regulatory agencies and, viat hordes of lobbyists, with lawmakers. Entrenched insiders have great win-loss stats.
Lewis believes such insiders are as irrelevant as the czars. What they know isn't so important, and it's obviously been over-priced.
But like much of the media, he focuses on the exceptions more than the rule. Most 15-year-olds on the Net are not making millions or dispensing legal advice; they're gaming, coding, downloading music, talking to their friends, surfing. You will never hear most of their names on the news. It's true that younger people now have access to once-restricted enclaves like the stock market, and they are forcing institutions to change. But that isn't the same as overthrowing them.
It's the nature of media to focus on aberrations, which makes for good stories but poor social reality. When a plane crashes, the wreckage is on TV screens 'round the clock for days. But planes rarely crash.
The flip side to that is that many kids are becoming well rounded because of the net. Kids that are introverted and used to spending time mostly alone and indoors can now spend that time on a computer and internet. It's an outlet to interact with others (to a limited extent) while still being introverted. It's better that the shy kids are on the internet, learning to use computers, maybe learning to program, rather than doing nothing.
But what's the overall picture? I think most kids who are active and outgoing remain active and outgoing; I doubt most of them trade in sports for the internet. And I would imagine most kids who are introverted, but have a computer at home, use the computer and become more well-rounded.
Developers: We can use your help.
I'm a bit of a geek myself, but wouldn't it be better if the children of the world were a little bit more well rounded. I don't want to see any meat heads run the world, but at the same time I don't want someone that only knows Quake and sendmail to be on top of the chain either.
I think it would benefit the world if children were well rounded! Technical skills, People Skills, along with things like a social life are all important!
First of all, as noted, we hear the exceptions, not the rule. Most fifteen-year-olds I run into on the net certainly aren't stupid, but I doubt they're running things. My 20 to 30 something friends do a lot on the net because we also have the money and the access to make our own servers, buy domains, etc.
Secondly, let's be honest about "kids running things" - the adults have the government, and the military, the police, and the money In short, brute and economic force. Until the kids have that, they aren't running things - and by the time they do, they'll be adults.
And, ironically, probably wonering if THEIR kids are running things.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
The Internet is about equalizing opportunity, and if children take advantage of that, so much the better. But it also alows those outside of traditional conduits of society and education to level the playing field. A reactionary discussion of tots using the Internet to learn about finance, programming, and web design is ultimately myopic.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Wrong. Not too many years ago (late 1800s), children grew up under the tutelage of their parents, and for the most part did not think their elders were "clueless".
The concept of "clueless" elders is a thouroghly modern idea, propogated by an edutainment industry devoted to selling Mars bars to kids. Watch Saturday morning cartoons and the commercials in between. Adults are regularly presented as boobs, idiots, and morons, while the kids are all beautiful people doing exciting things.
Most cultures all over the world have a tradition of respecting their elders. It is only a modern America that automatically thinks they are clueless.
If you're lucky enough to have a grandparent alive, do yourself a favor and spend a day with them. You'll be amazed at how much they DO know.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
We should all encourage, and monitor, our children's internet useage. For that matter, kids should be encouraged to learn regardless, but the Internet is what makes learning beyond traditional means possible. I know my library has very few books on Linux, or Eagle Talon's, or case modding, or religious persecution, but thanks to the Internet, that info is easy to find. Make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't, but encourage learning, and a self-motivated desire to learn. It will aid them greatly in their lives to 'love to learn.' It's helped me, and I didn't even have the Internet until I went to college. Just think what I could have learned in grade school if I had.
Go to any chat room and you will immediately and desperately hope that there's more to the net than 15 year old geeks. Collecting warez, MP3s, and whining that everything should be free--because you have no income--is not any kind of revolution.
The only real revolution here is that experts will no longer be identified by education or experience, but instead their ability to market themselves; to find a way for people to look at what they have to say.
The Internet is generally stupid
Jon, you hit dead on this time. Actually, again. I'd be quick to point out that Amazon's "reviews" are the best reason society has for professional critics.
But the stock market... well, people are just as well off getting advice from 15 year olds as they are MBAs because the entire system is a big ponzi scheme/slot machine already. It takes little effort to reccomend a stock you think will do well, and whether or not it is doing well is fairly subjective. Remember that during the dotcom crash only 2% of real advisors said "Sell!" 2%!
And as far as "legal advice" goes, you can't use legal advice you get on the web anyways. It would be like taking a Dear Abby to court as your evidence.
So, thanks Jon, for giving us a good review of a poorly thought out book.
skye
As I seem to remember it, even after being exposed, a lot of people still asked his advice..
This indicates that in, at least an area where Lawyers were practicinf, and perchance gaining a lot of money, the actual basis was common sense. As they say, even a child could understand it.
Now, the idea of being in a profession is to know things that others really don't, thus providing a great use.
It says something when you have to sell something that everyone knows really, but they've been conditioned to ask a particular person, so they can have an arbitrary rubber stamp.
This creates an artificial surplus of this profession that is really counterproductive.
The more like this kid that think for themselves, and answer stuff for themselves that they can, the better.. It's what free thinking society is about.
And incidentally, I seem to remember that the kid in question actually only answered the questions that made sense to him.. Not the really detailed ones that actually required a lawyer...
I can remember, as a kid, understanding a lot more than most adults gave me credit for.. At least until they looked back years later, and said "You really DID understand all that, didn't you.."..
This kid seems to do that too.. It really is just called "thinking for yourself". It's been happening since the first thoughts. It'll (hopefully) be happening until the last.
I don't condone him claiming professional qualifications like he did for a time, but.. He makes people happy, and apparently gives good advice... As long as people accept that's what it is... I say go for it...
Now, if a programmer came to me, and wanted work, I'd see what he was capable of doing.. If it was very little, but kept a fair part of a customer base happy, then, there's no problem with hiring someone like this, at a fair price for the work, doing work for the ones that are happy with it.
After all, it'd let me get on with doing the real code for the people who pay far more and expect far more.
I really DO have far more of the real magic to do than worry about the stuff that an untrained teenager (not, of course, the hardcore teenagers, many these days who could prolly run rings round me in some areas) could deal with.
If the yunder generation can do something, and they offer their skills, then, fair renumeration for fair skills.. It's what a meritocracy is all about.. And I'm all for meritocracy..
Malk
I don't think these '15 year-olds' are really THAT brilliant. I was one of those 'computer wizz-kids' when I was younger, and I wouldn't say I'm of above-average intelligence. It's just that computer science was so easy to pick up. It's all pretty new, compared to other sciences. I could see something cool in computers and learn it pretty quickly. Like watching those cool ASM demos? You can teach yourself to do them in probably a 5-6 weeks. The bleeding-edge information is avaiable via the internet (or BBS's back then), and not horribly complex. The tools you needed were readily available at Radio Shack... The older generation didn't understand it (having their own hobbies - my dad was into Ham Radios and electonics.. ) so they didn't leap into it as easily.
Compare it to, say, physics. 100-200 years ago a lot of young people were doing that bleeding edge work, in their basements. Today you would have to be a brilliant 20-year old in order to learn all of present day knowledge about physics to start discovering something new. You'd also need access to multi-million dollar equipment.
As computer science matures it's going to get out of the grasp of the 'average' person. It will begin to take years to learn enough to specialize in one area of computers, and you'll need access to expensive technologies to try them out.