AP Reports Young People Use The Internet

prostoalex writes "You read a lot of stories about older generation either adopting or having troubles with Internet. But some people in this world cannot imagine their everyday life without Internet. The kids who went to school during the early days of the Web are now going to colleges and are demanding broadband, downloading music, sharing photos and posting to Web logs, Associated Press says. Most of the everyday tasks, like homework and job search, have migrated to the Web as well. According to the latest data, 188.5 million Americans and more than 1 billion people globally are online."

Comments

I guess it depends on your country

[Viol8]

Here in the UK there seems to be a shift in younger children (not late teens) back to more sporting activities , outdoor games etc and away from the computer/console. Also the use of the computer and internet in schools seems to have been a bit of white elephant as letting kids just surf is no substitute for proper teaching.

Re:I guess it depends on your country

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because those younger children have always had access to the net, they don't think it is anything special just like the way people who have always had tv don't think that's anything special. However, I'd bet that if the Internet was removed from their lives they'd suddenly find that there was a large hole and they had to find ways to do the things that they did before or else do other things.

Computers in state schools have always been a white elphant due to the teachers having absolutly no technical knoweledge
(I bet you'd struggle to find one in 50 who had ever even written a hello world in qbasic, one in 500 who could do the same in C). Teachers do not let the kids just experiment with the computers like they should (after all computers are just another scientific insturment) becuase the teachers are scared of what might happen - after all it's easy to start a global thermonuclear war when you're just trying to play a game isn't it.

Re:I guess it depends on your country

[jav1231]

You're obviously a programmer. Technical knowledge doesn't always equate to programming. In fact, I'd say programming often doesn't equate to technical knowledge. On one of my past jobs, I'd get calls from programmers about an OS issue. I'd askt hem basic troubleshooting questions about their configuration. "I dunno, that's the OS" or "I dunno, that's hardware." I realize that's becoming less the case these days (and UNIX and Linux platform programmers are definitely an exception) but it happens, I imagine. I'd consider my technical knowledge pretty good but I can't program in C or any other serious language.

Poll

[xtracto]

What is the most sensless news post that has been posted in /. ?? any votes?,

One for this!

"These kids today"

[RealProgrammer]

More generally, each generation is more adept at using the technology it grew up using, and less adept at using what its forebears had.

My grandfather's generation toasted bread on a stove or in an oven, usually burning wood. They got electricity in their homes so they could go hi-tech and use a toaster. Well, they needed lights, too, but perfect toast was a big draw.

I'm a tail-end Boomer, born in 1963. My dad's generation could do trigonometry on a slide rule; I need a calculator.

Dad knew FORTRAN and BASIC. I know many computer languages.

I got my first computer, a TRS-80 Model II, in 1977. I learned BASIC and a little Z80 assembler. I needed to learn programming just to use the machine.

My kids have had, as long as they can remember, at least one computer in the house, usually networked together and with Internet access. They don't know any programming languages; they haven't needed to learn any to use the computer.

To my generation, computers were nerdy. To theirs, computers are more like TVs or toasters: part of the furniture.

Recently I gave my 16-year-old daughter, who's not a nerd, a new computer, running Linux. I told her it was different, but that it was Free. Being an idealist, she thought that was Just Totally Cool. A day later she told me proudly that she had her CD collecton "programmed in" so that it had all the information about the tracks and artists for all her tunes.

It's just part of the furniture.

Re:We need more stories like this!

[untaken_name]

That reminds me of my favorite tagline ever:

Studies show marriage is the leading cause of divorce in the United States.