I’d say it’s less so a decline and moreso a lack of literacy to begin with. The number of relatives I have that are fucking stupid with the internet is insane. And surprise the kids are just as stupid with tech, since the parents are dumb and companies made tools for them and the kids.
Yeah, I think the late 20th century and then some of the 00s were a sweet spot where there was finally cool stuff to do with tech, but you still needed to learn some skills to do them. Though even those skills were pretty basic.
I remember a kid in high school coming to me to see if I’d burn him a custom CD and he’d pay me and I was surprised because I thought it was all pretty basic shit that all it took was trying to figure it out. Though on the other hand, that was during the era where many discs were lost to buffer underflow and you had to be patient enough to not really use your computer for anything else while a CD was burning at like 2x speed (the hardware would go faster but then the underflow was more likely).
Though in hindsight, that might have just been my family’s shitty computer at the time. My dad was semi tech savvy but generally bought shitty computers, compaqs with Celeron CPUs and no graphics card. Though we did at least have a dedicated 56k line (which would only get speeds of like 48k, though later when the line was switched I do remember seeing the occasional 64k which confused me because I thought 56k was the fastest a connection could be).
I used to think the next generation was going to out code, design, and trouble shoot me in five years, and that the one after that would make me feel like a dinosaur in my 30s.
Now I’m almost 50, and the army of tech savvy teens coming for my job simple hasn’t materialized. With the ease of use of so many devices, a world where “plug and play” actually exists, the effort and skill requirement for most things has gone way down. On top of that, the battle for attention is so great that there is always something easier to go play with, and if it requires a bit of noodling to make it work, screw it.
For a bit I thought “Great, job security!”, but now I’m at the point where I need to think about finding interns and replacements, and unless they come from one of the historic tech pipelines like PC gaming or the makers community, not a lot of kids have that kind of background.
There are great programs now in the schools for making app, 3D printing, graphics, music, etc, that draw kids into technology. However, like everything else it’s all slick and user friendly. You don’t have to spend hour after hour figuring out how to make the thing work.
I watched my two year old nephew trying to swipe on the pictures in a magazine and was confused why they didn’t move. He was basically born with an ipad in his hands.
I agree completely that a basic computer class covering those things and more should be standard in schools. Now we have niche tech courses akin to the woodshop and autos class of my high school, but they are electives, and don’t cover the fundamentals.
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I’d say it’s less so a decline and moreso a lack of literacy to begin with. The number of relatives I have that are fucking stupid with the internet is insane. And surprise the kids are just as stupid with tech, since the parents are dumb and companies made tools for them and the kids.
Yeah, I think the late 20th century and then some of the 00s were a sweet spot where there was finally cool stuff to do with tech, but you still needed to learn some skills to do them. Though even those skills were pretty basic.
I remember a kid in high school coming to me to see if I’d burn him a custom CD and he’d pay me and I was surprised because I thought it was all pretty basic shit that all it took was trying to figure it out. Though on the other hand, that was during the era where many discs were lost to buffer underflow and you had to be patient enough to not really use your computer for anything else while a CD was burning at like 2x speed (the hardware would go faster but then the underflow was more likely).
Though in hindsight, that might have just been my family’s shitty computer at the time. My dad was semi tech savvy but generally bought shitty computers, compaqs with Celeron CPUs and no graphics card. Though we did at least have a dedicated 56k line (which would only get speeds of like 48k, though later when the line was switched I do remember seeing the occasional 64k which confused me because I thought 56k was the fastest a connection could be).
I used to think the next generation was going to out code, design, and trouble shoot me in five years, and that the one after that would make me feel like a dinosaur in my 30s.
Now I’m almost 50, and the army of tech savvy teens coming for my job simple hasn’t materialized. With the ease of use of so many devices, a world where “plug and play” actually exists, the effort and skill requirement for most things has gone way down. On top of that, the battle for attention is so great that there is always something easier to go play with, and if it requires a bit of noodling to make it work, screw it.
For a bit I thought “Great, job security!”, but now I’m at the point where I need to think about finding interns and replacements, and unless they come from one of the historic tech pipelines like PC gaming or the makers community, not a lot of kids have that kind of background.
There are great programs now in the schools for making app, 3D printing, graphics, music, etc, that draw kids into technology. However, like everything else it’s all slick and user friendly. You don’t have to spend hour after hour figuring out how to make the thing work.
I watched my two year old nephew trying to swipe on the pictures in a magazine and was confused why they didn’t move. He was basically born with an ipad in his hands.
I agree completely that a basic computer class covering those things and more should be standard in schools. Now we have niche tech courses akin to the woodshop and autos class of my high school, but they are electives, and don’t cover the fundamentals.