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Rise Of The 15-Year Olds, Part II
Small wonder the kids believe that older people have little or nothing to teach or tell them. It's often seemed true. The Net fosters a "Hey, I can do this, too" value system.
Sometimes, the outsiders, younger than most successful business executives, score big -- with successes like Netscape, Gnutella, Linux, IM, WinAmp. Even though they're more than 15, Lewis would argue that such pioneers help drive the status revolution. But they're exceptions, too.
Look at the allegedly-overturned powerful institutions and their upstart rivals. The music industry is in less trouble than Napster. Microsoft still makes far more money than Open Source systems. The broadcast network's audience steadily erodes, but their evening news shows still have greater reach and clout than Matt Drudge.
The strengths of 15-year-olds are also their weaknesses. Certain traits of the Net-connected 15-year old form recognizable patterns. They tend to confuse hostility with communication; they shoot (or type) before they think. They can be arrogant and posturing as well as creative and energetic. They are sometimes narcissistic: they fixate on "me" media, blocking and filtering people and ideas they don't like or agree with. Too often, they see reality only as what they (or the people on their mailing lists, blogs or p2p forums) think.
Although they consider themselves ferocious defenders of free speech, in theory, in practice many find differing opinions infuriating. Online, they have not grown up in a civil culture. Often, their hostility is a posture, a veneer.
They have profound, impressive grounding in technology, gaming and software, but big blank spots in many other areas of knowledge, including history, politics, mainstream culture -- fields not necessary to navigating online but definitely helpful in running the world.
No question they're among the leaders of the technological revolution spawned in cyberspace. But they are also kids, unprepared for the political, civic, ethical and headaches of leadership, or the responsibility that comes with running institutions. The first generation of computer kids is now running the tech world, and they've been universally sobered by the realities of economics and politics.
Does childhood end when computers come into their lives, as Jonathan Lebed's father laments in "Next"? I suspect there's some truth to the idea that things can get lost and values skewed when any single value system or interest -- computing, sports, music -- overwhelms a person's days and nights and crowds out everything else. The computer geeks and nerds I know seem healthiest to me when other powerful things in their lives help keep them grounded: close relationships with friends and parents, religion, a passion for chess, dogs, hiking ... whatever.
Despite the widening cultural gap, I still think older people have some things to teach them. One of the surreal things about being a kid, of course, is that you have no idea what you don't know or might need. Life's lessons and experiences, along with history, ethics and context, can be invaluable, and they're hard for 15-year-olds to come by on their own. The reality isn't so much that kids are taking over the world, but that the world has sometimes made them technological orphans, abandoned them to sophisticated machinery that few adults bother to comprehend.
Margaret Mead wrote years ago that the pace of cultural change in the West was accelerating so rapidly that the young were coming to believe they had nothing to learn from their elders. And that was before the Net. Her prediction has been fulfilled, more than even she imagined.
(Next -- Your feedback.)
See, I think that back 15 years ago, you had to be smart to use a computer. You had to read through books and manuals thicker and heavier than your computer before you could even figure out how to start it.
I don't think that the kiddies are getting smarter... If anything, I think they are getting dumber (I don't mean stupid). Kids now live in a world where anything they want to know is at their fingertips. This all started with the Sesame Street attention span.
These kids may be called smart. But they couldn't tell you what they learned in school today. It's not that they don't know, but they can't remember. The "Script" Kiddies may be taking down corporate web servers, but they don't know how they're doing it, they don't understand what they are doing.
To them, Code is taken to be just that, a series of commands put together to form a code to take down www.bigbucks.com or whatever. They don't see it as self expression, nor do they understand what it means. They just know that if they hit the carriage return, the server will go down.
Look, the fact of the matter is that when I was 15 (only five years ago), I hung out with my friends around the city. Wandering the streets causing whatever trouble we could find. It wasn't that I was a bad kid. It's just that, someone tells you not to smash a window, and it makes you all the more curious.
I remember my first window, the sound was beautiful. All that glass splintering and falling to the concrete... it was very satisfying, mainly because I knew that I would get in the shite if I was caught.
I haven't heard anyone tell the kids not to break windows anymore, and I am not seeing too many broken windows. I do see people telling kids not to trade or pirate software, music, videos, and just about anything else that 15 year-old boys trade, and I see that the kids now have a burnt copy of Eminem, have the Matrix on VCD, and just about every software application and exploit ever uploaded... But I don't think this makes them smart....
No, the internet kiddies are hoarders, and they're doing it, because people are trying to tell them that they can't.
i think you are taking the point out of context. yes, we all fucked around when we were 15 and pulled girls hair or whatever. the ramifications of our actions were quite small, yeah?
now 15 year old kids are taking down corporate web servers, writing virii, writing software that negates copyrighting etc...
so, what i'm saying is that yes, we were all rebellious but the extend of our then-rebellion was nowhere near as far reaching and dangerous as "digital rebellion".
Our society has developed in recent years to assume that elders are superior, rather than expect them to become wise, and then share their wisdom with others.
I've got to disagree totally with this; first of all, the idea that elders are superior hasn't developed in "recent years"--it's an idea that's been around for thousands of years. And it hasn't really started to change until recently, when the mass media started inundating TV and movies with the idea that adults are clueless and kids can be totally independent, which is of course wrong.
People must command respect. They can't just expect people (even kids) to respect them simply because they're older. Many seem to have forgotten this basic truth of our instinctive culture.
Again, I don't think this is an instinctive part of our culture. And just about everybody deserves respect; it's polite to show it even if you don't feel it. Plus, kids are too inexperienced to even tell in many cases whether an adult has something to pass on or not; and in any case, EVERYONE has something to pass on, even if they're not some wise guru sitting on a mountaintop divulging the mysteries of the universe.
Here's one thing all 15 year-olds lack:
Judgement.
Put that in crack pipe and smoke it.
Think about it; when you were 15, what did you do? I'm willing to bet you snuck out of your house to go make some hell on the town, just like today's kids sneak down to their daddy's computer to do some packet sniffing. I'm willing to bet that you told your parents that you were going to a friend's house but instead went out joyriding with friends, just like today kids say they're using the 'net to "just look around" when they're downloading the latest 0-day exploits.
Come on, let's keep things in perspective here. Just like Brittney Spears, it's the same song, just with a different group of backup singers.
I know a bit about geeky 15-year-olds; I've written a book and a number of articles about them.
Once, I was at the Tower of London with a friend. We were looking at the crown jewels, and both of us were convinced they had to be fake. As we were discussing this, a woman in front of us overheard our conversation.
She turned around and looked at us very gravely and said, "Oh no, those are real."
To further cement her authority, she followed her assertion with a whispered explanation -
"I've been here before."
We found BBS's, which led to passwords into corporate computers, etc. We didn't hack anything, we were just seeing where we could go.
That IS hacking. You dont have to do any damage to be hacking. Its no wonder the rest of the world doesnt know what it means, when some hackers dont even know...
Yeah, but only an insignificant number of them will take up that opportunity. Those who want to learn, can, but almost none of the will. Which is really sad---imagine a nation of people that well-educated, that well-rounded. The promise of the internet, betrayed by lazy-ass, Jenna Jameson-leering at human nature. Bitch bitch moan...
These are the same kids who asked if they could learn next year's stuff if the curriculum ran out early in math class, instead of playing Jeopardy or Tri-Bond for the last month. Ah, nostalgia...
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I don't really consider writing a book, some articles, and exchanging e-mails as experience with 15 y.o.s. Raising children and spending a lot of time with them (i.e. 24/7/365 of dealing with the good and bad) will make you more of an authority on that one, but that's just MHO. It's a real distant view that you're talking from, Jon.
I think it should be known that 15 y.o.s who:
Think they know everything.
Can be arrogant
Are unprepared for leadership
Surprise everyone with their creativity
Need to learn from adults
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Thought that was relevant here.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
For the most part the adults of America are not very knowledgable about history and politics. Very few people have a deep enough understanding of anything to do anything outside of their daily lives and their field of interest, whether it be plumbing or tellamarketing. As as far as the statement, "They are smart, creative, and know the inner workings of the the Net and the Web better than any other sub-set of the species", I think this is true for a very small subset of the kids of the subset of kids that know more then how to use aol and check their mail on hotmail. Very few could program the router or design a packet switch network. . . as far as being able to download some songs from each other and stuff like that, wooop-d-doooo, they can run a client that someone else wrote that allows them to do something nifty. Sure some kids are advanced, some really are hackers, even back in the 60's there were kids at the MIT lab between the ages of 14 and 17 that were hacking on PDP machines and being brilliant, but a couple hundred years ago those were the same kids that would be doing it in math or blacksmith'ing'. Whatever though, I agree with the first guys reply.
For somebody who likes to bash mass media - you sure love to cater to their stereotypes of the internet today dont you? I mean most 15 year olds on the net are either sitting on AOL (some on
The Net does not cause this. Children have always been this way to a certain extent (as our society gets more liberal - the children become more uncontrollable it seems). For you to simply point the finger at the internet and say "thats why" all while assuming that this is the product of some deviant open source, copyright infringing lifestyle - is fickle to say the least. And yes that if anything would be the deviant lifestyle. You seem live under this wonderful assumption that all children today have access to computers and all of the kids are up and coming computer scientists willing to work for free. Bullshit.
Jon - come back to earth. The Net is not life. Life is not the Net. Perhaps you should begin writing fictional stories (some might argue that you do already) instead of editorializing. I believe you might find more acceptance on that platform. The fact is most kids online just sit around and IM their buddies on AOL or yahoo all day long. Some look for MP3s. Some check email. Most of them are not future Fortune 500 CEOs.
Get back in touch man.
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
On the other hand, I'm glad to see you only need to know "a bit" about a subject to write a book about it.
This is profound ... how? When I was 15 I didn't have Internet access. I was still many of the good and bad things listed above and I can bet that 15 year olds for many decades if not centuries could be akin to this description. For once Jon is right. 15 year olds are arrogant. The reason that they are arrogant on the Internet is because they grew up with it. Oh well simple minds, simple concepts. At least Jon is dead on with this article, he's just stating the obvious :)
The Anti-Blog
If you reread the Katz post you will notice that he actually refrained from lumping all 15 year olds into the same boat. He did state that while some of them are into the hostility and posturing that gives them a sense of superiority, he also mentioned that some refrain from such acts.
I work in computer sales and I see many diferent people from all walks of life. I can agree with you about how that statement can refer to some older people.
For instance there are these two punks that are near my age that come in every once in a while. They believe that they know everything and everyone else is just not worth their time. They are abrasive, rude and generally dificult to talk with.
A very wise man told me recently that a truly inteligent man knows what he doesn't know. Basically, all that means is that you can learn something new every day, there will always be someone that knows more about something than you do.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
> The Net fosters a "Hey, I can do this, too"
> value system.
Computers in general give kids a feeling of power and ability they might not feel elsewhere. I was that 15yr. old geek reading "Byte" (the one good computer tech magazine) in study hall. But since my dad worked at an engineering firm and nobody there knew how to code, I was hired.
Somebody else said they haven't met a project manager under 40 that's any good...well, I'm tired of "I've been doing this for twenty years, so I know what I'm doing." Give me a REAL, rational reason for what you're doing, instead of claiming experience. I've been doing this for almost twenty years, too.
Most adults today have the perception that it's ok to just be a member of society, work, save, have a family, and die, and that's it! They don't think about the fact that they have a chance to really gain some profound knowledge during their lifetime, and pass it on to others... They don't have a concept of the "Elder", because most of them didn't have anyone like that to guide them.
Does anyone realize that this is precisely the problem with our schools today? Why don't kids respect teachers or other adults? It's not really because they don't understand technology or the latest game. It's because they don't have any profound knowledge to pass on. They're not wise. They don't have the self-confidence of a proud grandfather, so kids don't feel any reason to respect them.
Some of this has become clear to me through my practice of martial arts -- my teacher is truly wise, and his son respects him, not because he's his father, but because he knows so much, and knows he knows it ;) He is a shining example of the wise old man, and he can beat the crap out of any frat-boy football player in his prime...
People must command respect. They can't just expect people (even kids) to respect them simply because they're older. Many seem to have forgotten this basic truth of our instinctive culture.
Once again, John Katz continues to exploit and over-glorify so-called "geeks" and "geek teens". After this and another recent article of his I read in Shift, I'm convinced that Katz's opportunism has truly peaked.
Here are some realities that Katz needs to grasp:
-The grand majority of "geeks" he is placing on a pedestal are merely antisocial teens who play too much Quake and spend most their time in UNIX changing their window managers. I know this because I was a wise-cracking teenaged "UNIX geek" only a few years ago.
-The most knowledgeable (sp?), clever, annd innovative computer people out there are the same people who are married with children; the normal men and women who don't get a great deal of attention in the media. This is mainly because "computer smarts" comes mainly from knowledge built from years of experience, not any kind of magical teenaged link to the wonders of bits and bytes. Anyone with both an academic and production backgroun in software will confirm this.
Please, Katz, realize the above points and move on. A couple articles a couple years ago was OK, but you've been milking this for far too long. Just move on and find some other subculture you can leech on; at the very least teen geeks arent even worth it.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
Maybe if people didn't run such horribly insecure websites, then they would get taken over by 15 script kiddies. Here's a hint admins: try those bugtraq scripts, etc out for yourself on your own servers. See what you can do and learn. And then secure the damn things. I know your time is precious, and the web server currently "works as is". But seriously, take a few days a month to try hacking stuff, that's your job.
Exactly! Just because they know something their parents don't, doesn't mean it's useful.
And I can't tell you how infuriating it is every time I hear someone declare themselves l33t simply because they found more Jenna Jameson porn on the SMB network, or kick ass at Half-Life, or anything that doesn't require any significant self-education at all. It's sad; if more people wanted to learn this sort of thing, it's easier than ever, but a lot of folks just don't want to dig deeper into the mystery.
The scary part isn't how many kids become hackers, it's how many don't.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
go mow a lawn unfortunately, i have to work with a few of these "child prodigies" who have a rudimentary understanding of what they're doing, but not enough to actually get them through anything the point of having shit-jobs when you're young is to teach you appreciation for the decent jobs you get when you've served your time (HS, college, etc.) these kids who think they ought to be sitting in tech support because they know how to hex edit a doom WAD should be serving up fries at burger king
The tendency of geeks to be narrowly educated, self-serving, smug, and intolerant effectively relegates them to the margins of society. Their technical knowledge is impressive, but from a political/change-the-world standpoint, it is about as useful as knowing the names of all of the Pokemon. If you want to change the world - even a little - you have to be able to engage in intelligent, educated debate. This is a social skill that comes with education and - yes - age.
Margaret Mead wrote years ago that the pace of cultural change in the West was accelerating so rapidly that the young were coming to believe they had nothing to learn from their elders. And that was before the Net. Her prediction has been fulfilled, more than even she imagined.
There is a long held stigma that teenagers have no respect for their elders, teenagers think they're invincible, teenagers know everything...the list goes on. Not that it doesn't have some truth, but the fact is, this idea has been around long before everyone flooded the net.
The net isn't making kids any more disrespectful of their elders, or any more invincible, or any more knowledgable. It is, however, making them more of a presence. 30 years ago the geek in the corner was the geek in the corner. Now the geek in the corner has met up with hundreds of others.
It's quite possible that this isn't such a negative thing -- for every obnoxious, annoying kid on the net there's another one who is getting a lot of support from it.
It's just easier to focus on the troublemakers -- they're the ones that want to be noticed anyway. But to say that the net made them that way isn't really correct. It just made them more obvious.
Are hiring. Youre not going to get much else as a 16-year old unless a parent or someone else you know hooks you up. Companies do not hire summer workers and after-school part-timers into career-type positions.
The fact is, your first job is not going to help you down the road. Its very rare that it will be on your resume. You learn about the job market and workplace in general. You develop a work ethic and learn to appreciate the value of the money you do earn. Its supposed to be a type of real-world extension of your education.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
The reality isn't so much that kids are taking over the world, but that the world has sometimes made them technological orphans, abandoned them to sophisticated machinery that few adults bother to comprehend.
The same can be said for any interest a teen has, and the peer group that surrounds that interest. This is part of being a teenager. They haven't been orphaned to technology (or sophisticated machinery), so much as orphaned (or abandoned as you say) to puberty. Teens are angry because they're awkward, misunderstood, touchy, and frustrated by their lack of control or freedom. Music can be just as much of an escape as technology, and fewer adults attempt to comprehend The Sonic Death Monkeys, than try to understand computers.
Andrew
I'm generally no fan of Jon Katz, but I have to applaud the following:
Except that I'd draw the line closer to 25 than 15, I couldn't have said it better myself. It's an almost perfect description of the majority here on slashdot or in the other forums Katz mentions. Web-connected young techies seem very acutely aware of how much they know, and insistent on that knowledge's importance, but startlingly (disgustingly) unaware and dismissive of all that they don't know. It's like the urge to learn is short-lived, taking them only so far before that curiosity disappears and their opinions harden into stone after only a few years. Few and far between, seemingly, are those who continue to admit the limits of their knowledge and set about making new discoveries after those first couple of years. I'm sorry, but as long as I can meet dozens of people a year who have performed and innovated at a high level for a decade or more[1], I will remain unimpressed by people with only a couple of years of less-than-stellar achievement under their belts. Enfants terribles are a dime a dozen, and their inflated sense of their own worth and importance is what brought us the dot-bomb crash.
[1] Yes, such people are also a small minority. Far more ten-year guys[2] have "one year ten times" and not ten years of continuous learning/innovation. That's kind of the point. Just about everyone has a few good years in them. The two-year guy hasn't proven he has anything more than that and, statistically, he's far more likely to fall into the "one year ten times" category, so why does he think he's so exceptional?
[2] It is pretty much just guys I'm talking about. I've known some female developers in my time, including my wife, but the patterns of performance and stagnation among them seem quite different than what we're talking about[3].
[3]Any Pratchett fans out there?
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
here's the problem for you.
You're 23. You do know more than teens do, but you've still got a lot to learn. Wait. When you're 33, 43, 53... etc.
This
Give the "15 year olds" time, and they will have experience. What was I doing at 15? That was over half my life ago, it is hard to remember. Worrying about getting a driver's licence, if I would ever get laid, why I couldn't get all the points on the bonus levels of Galaga, how to throw a curve ball, etc.
I didn't really have a life, and now kids have one online, even though it isn't real. They'll figure it out, or they won't make it. Eventually they will have to interact with real people, and will be in for a shock. But they are willing to jump in with both feet, and by doing so make mistakes. They can learn from them, and get better, or crawl into their own little world and become outcasts.
We had the same thing, technology is just an added pressure. Does anyone care that I sucked at Defender? (not now, but I felt like a dumbass then)
Bottom line is that people still have to learn how to interact with other people, that is what our society is based on. They'll grow up, they don't have much of a choice.
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visit http://www.poundingsand.com for cool Tshirts - check out Micropoly!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Thanks -Ryan, Salamander and szomb for the kind comments. I believe that the subject deserves considerably more attention than the occasional threads on Slashdot- which tend to focus on symptoms of this problem rather than the problem itself. The sad consequence of treating symptoms, in medicine as in addressing societal maladies, is that the sickness remains.
The ironic difficulty here is that many partipants in the Slashdot community are themselves unknowingly victims of the sickness of an inability to contextualize information and/or an ignorance about the indispensability of values in the life of an individual and a society. Hence, the tendency of threads about the symptoms (school shootings, etc.) to deteriorate quickly into futile but sometimes compelling arguments about first-amendment-versus-second-amendment freedoms, etc.
I hope a lot of you will give Postman's work a read. He is a brilliant, lucid social theorist- and he touches on many profound subjects in his works. It is, in my opinion, his most intriguing work.
If you find the premise of childhood's eradication to be engaging, do also help yourself to his other works.
"Technopoly" discusses the eradication of culture by technology itself. It was written in a pre-Internet age (by this I mean before the Internet had reached outside of the academic/institutional/research worlds and into all of our daily lives). Postman had no foreknowledge of the Internet's upcoming capacity to accelerate the trends he describes, so the work is feeling less like prophecy and more like history every day.
Also consider "Amusing Ourselves to Death", which discusses the corrosive effects of our modern media structure on everything from attention span, to literacy, to capacity to reason, and so forth.
All of his books will leave you with new lenses by which to view some of the more vexing of what are (currently) American societal ills. (If "Technopoly" is currect, we are currently exporting the problem to other highly developed nations and we can expect to see them experience similar societal problems within a generation or two...) You may find (as I did) that you do not agree with particular theories or concusions, but that you agree with and are edified by the broader observations and disturbed by the potential longterm societal consequences of the trends in media, education, and culture. They are ultimately, and I don't use the term loosely, "apocalyptic" in nature (in a secular sense of the word).
If you have a religious worldview (as I do), you may also find these trends to be apocalyptic in the religious sense, as well. I know I may be checking my intellectual credentials at the door with many of you by stating I am a Christian- and so be it. I say this because my own religious worldview, a filter which lenses "meaning", "purpose", "morality", "judgment", etc., is one of the means by which I contextualize the information we're discussing. And it suggests (to me) that the outcome is pre-determined and the course of mankind unchangeable- even as it is our duty (as Christians) to call others to awareness of the outcome (as well as the purpose of man, the holiness of God, the nature of sin, etc.). When you read the works of Postman in the context of the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel (Old Testament) and Revelation (New Testament), the overlap is perfectly congruous- which is simultaneously terrifying and comforting. (I know I just lost the majority of you on this point, but what can I say? These are my beliefs.)
I know I could be 100% incorrect in my interpretation of these separate information sources (secular social theory and biblical prophecy). Nevertheless, I am grateful to have had a real childhood, to have learned how to reason, to believe in God and Christ, and to have a brain that can process information and contextualize it well enough to have confidence in my beliefs, and a hope that life may have meaning, despite the pain we experience and the senseless acts of evil we witness. And I hope for everyone who reads it, the same peace-of-mind and sense of purpose in your own lives.
Bah! When I was fifteen, I couldn't take pride in myself because people told me I had an ego problem, so I shut up. I'd shamble up to the front of the auditorium, shyly accept `x' award, and shuffle back down, hoping no one saw me and would think I was being big-headed for doing well at `x'.
Never occured to me that the dozen Mr Steroid contenders didn't mind constantly crowing that they were the greatest. Somehow it must have been less threatening to people.
It's taken me until now to be able to say ``I'm clever, I'm capable, and I don't have to be ashamed of it.'' I feel like some sort of Ayn Rand hero saying that, but it's true. It was always ``Shut up, Drago, no one cares what you have to say.''
I have this odd feeling that some crackhead moderator will mark this as a troll, but it's the unvarnished truth---I had the opposite of an ego problem.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I also used to read Kats on HotWired He seemed pretty insitefull then.
But not so much anymore.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you, ANY of you, are interested in the subject, you owe it to yourselves to read Neil Postman's very thoughtful analysis of the sad subject, "The Disappearance of Childhood".
Postman posits that the phase of human development we commonly refer to as "childhood" is a social construct, one that came about primarily as a result of the public educational system created in America only a couple hundred years ago.
Childhood was a period in which the institutions of society (from schools, to government, to families, to churches) actually "protected" children from information. (I can hear you squints groaning already, but please, let me finish). This was easily managed because there was a rather universal morality that the various institutions that made up our society subscribed to- and- terror-of-terrors, it was pretty much the Judeo-Christian one that most of the founding fathers (Deists, Puritans, Christians, Agnostics all) believed in. Children, brought into the public education system, were not only taught math, science, etc.- they were taught the ten commandments, the pledge of allegiance, etc. (They were taught patriotism and morality- by the schools! ARGH!!!)
Childhood, then, was a period in which children were taught a standard of right-and-wrong, and were also kept innocent from much of the harsh realities that their minds were deemed not yet ready to contextualize.
Information was tightly controlled and regulated. There was no ratings-driven-and-and-advertising-subsidized-mas
I know, it seems terrifying. There are a million bad things to say about such a society, and I've no doubt that hundreds of you will re-appropriate all the bile and vitriol you've stored for diatribes about the evil menace that is Microsoft in eviscerating the evil menace that was "America" until recently. We know too well that such a system is capable of legislated racism and sexism (truly and inarguably terrible legacies of America 1.0). We know it is capable of gross violations of civil liberties, with impunity (government-sponsored biological experiments on its own citizenry, wiretapping, etc...).
But there are benefits and advantages to having universal standards in a societal system- and I don't just mean for those institutions determining the standards. I'm talking about the people. One of the greatest benefits of such a societal system was a public education system that was, in its time, unparalleled in the entire world for providing a quality of education to any willing citizen. Another benefit was that shame was a powerful psychological force for discouraging behavior that was not in the society's best interests. Seem puritanical? It was! But many of today's societal ills- especially those that affect children- were all but unimaginable then. Teenage pregnancy? School shootings? Drug-addiction in teenagers? They weren't a problem. Why? Because it was "WRONG" to have sex before marriage, "thou shall not kill", and "what are drugs", respectively?
The human mind is, in a very real sense, akin to the computer it ultimately conceived of in its image. The best and most productive minds are like the best and most productive computing systems- the have a tested, feature-rich operating system controlling the activities and information storage/retrieval of information itself. When humans don't get taught a worldview (a comprehensive perspective on right, wrong, truth, value, etc.), they are less effective when it comes to contextualizing information. You can have the biggest hard-drive in the world, and if you're running DOS 1.0 on an IBM-PC, you're pretty much going to be limited to a dull-ass computing life.
In answer to the original question, "does childhood end when computers come into (kids') lives?". No. Childhood ends when children are given unrestricted access to uncontextualized information. So often, when the subject of school shootings comes up on Slashdot, it descends into arguments about gun-control, videogame violence, first-amendment issues, etc. But every so often, someone nails it by saying, "Parents should teach their children right from wrong". Parents now are the sole institution with the authority to teach their children a worldview. And sadly, more and more parents are abdicating this profound responsibility by turning their kids over to be taught by television sets and now, the Internet. (Divorce happens in half of all households, showing children that even the parental institution isn't reliable or trustworthy). Childhood, as we've known it, is going to become an outdated concept. And it is more fitting to ask, "can childhood ever begin?".
I've hardly done justice to Postman's wonderful book- go and buy it now if you've any interest in a thoughtful, NON-CHRISTIAN examination of the issue of the eradication of childhood.
Even worse is our recruitment of student workers for ITS. Out of an incoming class of 600 students or so, at most 10 will have the problem solving mindset that makes them any use to us. That's the big factor; aproaching a problem with an open, inquisitive mind. We all know users who freak out as soon as they get a print error or a 404 on a web page. To the majority of computer "users" out there, the computer is still a vague box full of piss and voodoo, just waiting to rain all over them.
After having a problem solving attitude, the next thing a 'hot' computer geek needs is a desire to see the big picture when dealing with the various systems that make up 'tech'. Too many techs seem content to master their small domain without looking beyond. Again, we get some students who are ''Win95/98 wizards" but balk when they are put to work on DOS, Mac or Linux machines. Finding ones that enjoy the challenge of learning a new system and aren't afraid of appearing clueless about something they've never touched before is also a hassle.
Oh well, as more young people have access to computers, more hot geeks will be showing up. Think of all the computer genuses who lived and died before computers came along or are in the other 2/3's of the world and might never have a chance to shine.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Teenagers in other parts of the world aren't necessiarily anything like the negative stero-type painted by you and others. I've seen levels of dedication, intelligence & humility among teenagers & children in some ethnic groups that would make Americans' jaws drop in shock.
People think humans are a certain way, from the behaviour they observe in their own society, & from what they know of other societies. In a highly insular society like in the USA, other behaviour-sets are unfamilia, & thus people believe certain behaviours are inherant to humans, when they are infact 90% cultural.
Please, quit idolizing the new "Tecnically-Savvy" generation. It's killing me. This is the same sort of common-knowledge-myth which makes employers thing that people over 30 do not understand technology, never mind they may have been coding for 15 years.
Yes, most teenagers know their way around a computer enough to operate a web browser, listen to MP3's, and play a first person shooter. I also know the overwhelming majority could not write a program or simple script. No, that would involve a bit of time, motivation, and curiosity. Most teenagers are too busy fighting hormones and following popular culture to do anything intellectual. Okay, a generalization, but a largely accurate one.
There are very bright 15-year-olds. There are many more dullards who come across malicious scripts and fancy themselves Hollywood-style hackers. This crowd, especially Katz, out to know this. Stop perpetuating the insane myth.
I would love to corner one of these self-professed 15-year-old wizards and ask them about various data structures, logic, or compiler theory. I can picture the blank stare I would receive. I'll bet, however, he could tell me the URL for a good warez site.
Still, he has the edge at the next job interview. You see he is under 25 and sports a goatee(sp?). The human resource manager conducting the interview has seen the movies and documentaries. He knows the magic today's youth possesses.....
-- Posted from my parent's basement