Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You

[nicholaswillems]

I cba to read it on my phone at midnight now, but I suppose it's about something I see every day. My sister uses facebook on a computer (12 y/o) and whenever I tell her something about a computer and how to use it more efficiently, I'm a 'nerd' and she doesn't want to listen. But when she needs a song on a cd or on her phone, she asks me to do it and doesn't want to figure out how to do it herself. I'm also part of this latest generation I think and I'm happy to be one that has interest in computers, less and less kids seem to do so :(

A problem I encounter as well is with my teachers informatics (we just get a hour a week learning' word etc.). They have knowledge of office. And that's it. One of those teachers called office 'windows'. As someone said, they should teach the more "advanced" stuff like programming etc. That's useful. Office is something that is learned by fiddling around in it imo, but yeah :L

[andrews013]

It seems you have plagiarized the whole thing...

 

Edit: Aaaand it's gone.

 

I wrote "SOURCE: " Not plagiarizing if sources are given.

 

Edit: saw other posts about how you didn't see source.

[qwertywarrior]

i just skimmed threw it for 5 mins

didnt find anything new here

doesn't every body know about this already ?

 

 

 

i liked this part though

After Snowden’s revelations first came out, I went into school on Monday to find that most of my colleagues and students had either not heard about the scandal, or if they had just didn’t care.

this reminds me of Huxley's  brave new world

"Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

[Emkryan]

I read this (yea all the way) agreeing with it the entire time. I plan on giving my kids their own computers with coding,editing,etc. programs loaded up for them to learn early to make a living. I know it's not 100% but It's better than them being on social and porn sites all day.

[Emkryan]

i just skimmed threw it for 5 mins

didnt find anything new here

doesn't every body know about this already ?

 

 

 

i liked this part though

this reminds me of Huxley's  brave new world

"Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

Personally I think this entire situation is a clever mix  of both that work in tandem for maximum effectiveness.

[Calavera]

Read the whole article, last year I thought I was tech savvy enough to study IT - turned out I am only good with looking stuff up on Google, not so much smart or innovative what concerns fixing things.

I myself am guilty to quite a few of these things, yet I am here on the forums, managing my own PC for 4 years now without much help - glad I am not so dependent on other people.

The guy who wrote that is right though, although everyone uses this technology nowadays it's stupid how little they actually know about it.

[tobben]

Read the whole article, last year I thought I was tech savvy enough to study IT - turned out I am only good with looking stuff up on Google, not so much smart or innovative what concerns fixing things.

I myself am guilty to quite a few of these things, yet I am here on the forums, managing my own PC for 4 years now without much help - glad I am not so dependent on other people.

The guy who wrote that is right though, although everyone uses this technology nowadays it's stupid how little they actually know about it.

that goes for almost everything though .. the power coming out of your wall, the water coming out of your sink, when someone flushes something down the toilet, when people put something in the microwave to heat it up, everyone can't know everything, hence we have people who specialise in certain things.

[TechSage]

This is, extremely long. Too bad I have the attention span of a goldfish

[rashdanml]

I plan on buying a (current generation) Raspberry Pi for my kids when they turn 5-6 years old, and simply giving it to them with basic instructions (either my own, or any manuals available), and let them figure it out. If they have trouble, they can ask me. If not, no big deal.

 

"Give a man a fish and he'll eat it for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll feed himself for a lifetime". 

 

Why a (current gen) Raspberry Pi? (Assuming I'd have kids in 3-4 years and add on 5-6 more, it'll be way outdated) I want to teach them to not only learn to use technology by themselves, but to also learn to appreciate the power of outdated technology, and to understand just what computers CAN do with the available resources. Sure, programs outgrow hardware all the time, but even old hardware is capable of doing so much more than people claim it can do. By using a high end computer from the get-go, you end up taking computing power for granted and not appreciating the true power of even the most basic of computers. 

[miyabwah]

I'm 12, and I read that whole thing. I got offended by parts, because I know all my computer specs by memorization, I bought my own graphics card, (But was scared to install it :S) learning scripting in Lua slowly, and have my own user for this computer. I don't have my own computer because I'm not as spoiled as other 12-year olds.... I also know the dangers of Malware and do Malwarebytes scans whenever it seems something's wrong. And yes, I do want a cookie.

 

EDIT : Oh, and I also forgot, I signed up for this forum.

[bcredeur97]

On the PC's that i dont keep any personal info on i just dont use anti-virus..... if I do run into an issue, i just reinstall windows lol only takes like 30-40 minutes

[bcredeur97]

I dont think its because the kids dont know how to reinstall windows (anyone can figure it out really) its just that they are too scared :P

[Lil Chillbil]

I am our ENTIRE family AND friends AND friends of friends of THOSE friends. 

 

 

I am constantly getting phone calls from my brothers idiot friends...

 

even my best friend is computer illeterate, heres a little story of what happened last week

 

 

the phone rings*

 

Me: Hello?

Friend: I just got a new computer, come over and set it up

Me: Cool, i'll be over in 10

 

click*

 

I walk over to his house and I see that he has a gateway box sitting on the floor

 

 

Me: You know I could of built you one for cheaper?

Friend: Yeah but then I wouldn't get word

 

facepalm*

 

I look at the side of the box and its got an i7, 8 gigs of ram and a 650 ti

 

Me: So what do you plan to do with it?

Friend: Facebook and stuff... Its not like its an alienware

 

facepalm*

 

Me: You know you could game on this

Friend: What?

Me: Its got decent specs.

 

I finish setting up the computer in silence, 

 

the next day*

 

the phone rings*

 

Me: Hello?

Friend: I thought you said I could game on this!

Me: Yeah, you can play games like crysis and junk

Friend: There are no games on this!!

 

facepalm*

 

I explained to him that you have to buy the games on steam or gamestop, so we somehow end up going to the mall to buy a game. I go home and everything seems swell

 

 

the next day*

 

the phone rings*

 

Me: Hello?

Friend: This game is not working, I think the disk is scratched

 

I go over to his house and he shows me that its not working. by putting the game disk into the tray, turning the computer off and then on again. And expecting the game to pop up like on xbox...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are not enough facepalms in the world....

[bcredeur97]

OMG at the post above..... ^^^^ made me crack up laughing! lol

[TheBLOODYTOXIC]

"The technology just killed philosophy" screw Skynet with all the militar things The Technology just turned against us

[Night]

A lot of customers say that kids can operate cellphones and tablets and are amazed at how they do it. From what ive seen, kids just dont have a grasp of being embarased for not knowing what they are doing, so they look confident in what they are doing. In actual fact they are just pushing every single button.

[Jebonia]

Are people really that stupid? Or is he just over exaggerating for the entertainment value? My god!

[Blackterror25]

He's right but I have a feeling he's kind of being a dick about it.

It's the same about other professions. I'm an electrician and there are lots of people who don't know the first thing about it.

Then there are also lots of people who know a little about electricity, try to fix something them self and then screw up everything even more.

[BigRedOK]

I read the whole thing too. I appreciate you posting it. It was as entertaining as it was informative. haha I really like the comparisons with the auto mechanics. People literally have no idea what is happening with their vehicles. Most people don't even know that 90% of GMs newer vehicles have at least 30 modules (separate processing computers) on board all communicating together. It's a pretty cool system. And the way that girl treated him when he was trying to fix her Macbook is the same way customers treat mechanics. "Fix it and do be quick about it". lol Yea right.

[Jebonia]

ohh god i agree with this article. i also have a story about tech illeterate people .I have kid in my year (yr 10) that thinks he knows everything about computers because he knows how to pirate movies and make LAN servers. One day, he goes up to me and says' omg i have so many movies that i only have 2gb left on my hard drive'. I ask him to show me and he clicks on the apple logo on the top left and clicks 'about this mac'. I facepalm myself so hard because it said '2gb of ram'. 

[Langdon]

Pretty true. I try to talk tech to my friends and they have no idea what I'm talking about. "What's a graphics card?" "... Motherboard?" 

I think techies like us should encourage our friends to know more about computers, seeing as they're using them pretty much everyday. Even just teach them the fundamentals, the CPU does this and the RAM does that, the OS works like this.

Being bothered by our friends/family when their computers are overheating, opening their computer up, and seeing that it's completely filled with dust is a complete bother. 

[evgeni43]

I just graduated Grade 8 so I'm not really a kid, but I'm definately techsavvy. I was always the one to call when there was a problem because the IT guy was working at other schools.

Another thing I don't like about school, which he said was that kids can't screw around with computers. The IT guy gave me his admin password to play around with our Macs, but it wasn't fun. What was fun however was getting a Linux distro on one of our Windows Vistas machines because it was a resorce hog (system was 1GB RAM and an Athlon X64 at 2.0 GHz). I almost got suspened but that computer was fast compared to Vista.

[Guest]

This is a good read, my sister who is 16 has a laptop, time after time she installts toolbars and bloatware.

 

Screw that, I won't remove it anymore, too much time, no results, she doesn't learn, I told her but it keeps coming back.

[bcredeur97]

Are people really that stupid? Or is he just over exaggerating for the entertainment value? My god!

Its a sad, sad world.

[bcredeur97]

I read the whole thing too. I appreciate you posting it. It was as entertaining as it was informative. haha I really like the comparisons with the auto mechanics. People literally have no idea what is happening with their vehicles. Most people don't even know that 90% of GMs newer vehicles have at least 30 modules (separate processing computers) on board all communicating together. It's a pretty cool system. And the way that girl treated him when he was trying to fix her Macbook is the same way customers treat mechanics. "Fix it and do be quick about it". lol Yea right.

sad how people tell you when you specialize in something to do it 100% right and very fast; yet they do not even know how to do it themselves.... in a world where people had to fend for themselves 99.9% of people would die. lol