Berners-Lee Says Internet Will Make Kids Creative

ErikPeterson submitted a story where Tim Berners-Lee (if you need explanation, you're reading the wrong site) is interviewed about how on-line life will make our children more creative than us. He makes various points and predictions about what the internet will do.

Comments

Presentation

[Big Nothing]

For those unfamiliar with Tim Berners-Lee, he is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Re:Presentation

[op12]

And inventor of the World Wide Web.

Re:Presentation

[MythoBeast]

On the internet and creativity thing- I will play devil's advocate- What about situations where instead of having to figure out on their own what something is/does/means, a kid can just look it up on the internet? What does that do for creativity?

Creativity is fueled by the complexity of one's environment. Developmental studies on children are pretty clear on that. The more pieces you have to recombine, the more likely you are to recombine them in original and interesting ways. The internet just allows people to avoid the work behind recombining of things in ways that others have already done so, while still providing the benefit of learning the results.

Please, please explain something to me about these hyphenated names. I live in the midwest, so we don't see much of this silliness. But please indulge me

Indulgence granted. When two people with separate names get married and one decides to hyphenate, she generally places the new name at the end of her original surname so as not to disrupt alphabetization. For children, this results in having parents with two distinct and separate last names, and the child generally chooses between them whenever they decide to have a professional life.

Marriage between two people with hyphenated names is generally cause for negotiation. There are no hard rules on whose name gets changed when you get married. Usually the female will drop both of her last names (hyphen included) and take the male's pair. Sometimes she won't bother changing her name at all. I haven't heard of any men taking a woman's hyphenated name, but it does happen for normal names, so it's not impossible. I have heard of couples who just dump the entire mess and invent their own new, legal last name.

So the answer to your question is that it's entirely up to the couple to make it as complicated as they feel appropriate.

Well let's educate just in case

[Anonymous Coward]

This is who Tim Berners-Lee is.

I disagree.

[CyricZ]

Take a peek at the GameFAQs.com forums. They are frequented by youth and young adults. Notice the terrible grammar, horrible spelling, and the inability of many posters there to post coherent, sensible content. Whether this is caused by a lack of proper education, or whether it is just the nature of message boards, is questionable.

Personally, I would never let my children or grandchildren post at the GameFAQs forums without proper supervision. It's not about protecting them from the content there, but more the presentation of the content. I support creativity, and to be truly expressive requires intelligence and at least the ability to read and write with clarity and correctness.

All a child will learn at GameFAQs is how to type and compose written works very poorly. While the Internet can help children become very creative, it can also lead them to become lazy in their communication habits. Frankly, I'd be adverse to letting a child, or even a teen, post frequently at forums like those at GameFAQs, just because of how their creativity could be negatively affected.

Revenge of the English Teacher! Muahahaha!

[Analogue Kid]

Would you use the "cannibal" sentence? I don't think there's anything wrong with how I used like at all. I'm sure it was grammatically valid.

Why is it so ridiculous to use object pronouns for objects and subject pronouns for subjects? Is a sentence SUCH AS, "The next generation will be more creative than we are," that pompous?

There is a difference in the meaning of the following two sentences:

1) I like video games more than her.

2) I like video games more than she does.

The first compares my like for video games with my like for her. The second compares my like for video games with her like for video games. These two sentences could be expanded to the following:

1) I like video games more than I like her.

2) I like video games more than she likes video games.

Notice that the subject in the first clause of each sentence is "I". The subject is the one doing the verb. The object is the person or thing on the receiving end of the verb. In the second clause of the first sentence, the object is "her". The action (of liking) is received by "her". However, in the second sentence, "she" is the subject and "video games" are the object. "She" is doing the action (of liking), and "video games" are receiving the action (of liking). Unless there's a good reason not to, you should use the proper pronoun.

I think the issue of splitting infinitives is the same. If you make a habit of splitting them, it will be easy to, for the reader, get confused. Sometimes it sounds strange not to split an infinitive, and in those cases it's best to split them. The biggest "rules" about writing are to be clear, well organized, and persuasive.

Instead of just "asking anybody on the street" about any given topic, maybe you would do better to ask someone who is educated about it. Would you ask "anybody on the street" how to file your taxes or how to sing? If I were the one asking, I'd be a bit more selective. Nothing is lost by using the proper pronoun, unless your goal is "street cred". If that's the case, then by all means you can flame me hairless with Mr. T. English, gangsta slang, l33t w3rdz, or whatever.

Personally though, I think people who want to learn something about grammar should read the "grammar Nazi" posts, and those who don't should just skim over to the next post and let it go at that.