Category: Let's talk
How many of you teenagers or similar age are actually curious as to how your electronic gadgets work? Or what's inside them?
A bit of perspective: Growing up in the 70s and 80s, we - at least some of us - might take apart a broken digital watch or pocket calculator just to see what was inside.
I read recently that teens now seem to take a lot less interest in how stuff works than previous generations, specifically their parents.
My own experience would speak to that. I got my daughter an iPod a couple years ago and she's about due for another, I guess. Anyway, I asked if she wants to see inside her old one once she's got a new one. She eewed as though I offered to show her a spider.
Her friends, too seem to have the same lack of curiosity about how stuff works. They're well-read, like exploring their universe in general, but ... maybe it's just that they have always been around it. Most of them weren't in school before Google became popular.
Thoughts?
Well I'm not a teen anymore, (I'm 22 as of this writing), but that doesn't put me that far beyond it timewise. I definitely liked taking things apart, seeing at least what different components looked like, etc. I didn't get a ton of opportunities to do so, but there werea few radios and some old telephones that ended up in pieces from the efforts of me and my screw drivers. Then I got into computers, and I was actually supposed to take those apart, in order to fix them.
It is interesting though, in my last job, we rarely opened up a case, partially because our machines were on the older side, and because most components are so cheap, that we didn't feel the need to salvage them like we once did. Still I think there will always be some people wanting to take things apart, just to look at what is there. IT's just in some people's nature.
hahha. this is how I've learned to fix my computer by my own. while I was studying in school, I use to get radios for cheaper prize and it's just for the purpose of opening it and in fact dismandling it and re-assembling it again. but many times I've got failled in re-assembling the radio because shaldering the wires is really a tough job for a totally blind.
But, I'm very much interested in that. and now, since almost all the wires are just as a plug in type with the computers, I can open and even change the componants by my own. and my next interest is to learn how to make a laptop.
Raaj.
Do you all think this reflects a large or significant population of teens? I'm curious as to why or why not, why the 'ew' - type response. I've asked others in my immediate space, and they've been puzzled by the same thing. Only they're not technical now, but were curious about electronics as kids, and liked seeing what's inside.
Do you have any non-geek friends who would "look at the guts" of one of their electronic devices - worn out no doubt - just out of curiosity?
You all sound pretty tech-savvy, so naturally you would. However, unless I and that article writer are way off, when we were kids many different types of people were curious enough to see what's inside, or on some level find out how it works.
Now I realize, an iPod or a WII isn't all that sexy to look at inside; a board with a few chips, some capacitors, a few resisters and some diodes.
I'm curious then about your non-techie friends, or those of you not real technical.
The article - I wish I could find it now - said kids now don't know how to install their own software, configure user accounts, set up Outlook, or other tasks taken for granted even ten years ago.
The claim was that with cloud-based apps like Gmail and social networking software like Myspace, they basically just know how to use their browser.
What do you think your average peer knows or does?
The article had said that most average (non-technical) teenagers don't know where to find something on their computer if it's outside of My Documents.
I realize this is an example of one, but my daughter saves all her favorites as notes in Google, I think it's the Notebook. So when I set up their new computer and put their data back on, she told me "Oh, I haven't used that stuff in a long time ..." when I came to Favorites.
Do you think your non-techie friends know the difference between what's on or offline? Do they use apps like Google Documents?
Thanks for your responses
- rz
I think there are, at least, two factors going on here. Firstly I think mostof the modern/computer style devices are too, logical or digital. By this I mean they do not have mechanical components that turn so even if you take the device apart you don't get the flash of recognition or understanding how something works, because mostly the technology is based on circuits way too small to possibly ever be seen by the human eye, so I think a lot of the satisfaction of discovery is lost with modern devices. I also think people born in to the digital/internet society take this for granted rather than marvelling at its complexity and the achievements mae to create these devices, they're as mundane as running water by now (and, heck, running water is a marvellous thing, if you think about it).
I saw an article o the long term effect on human brains with technical innovations that take many of our memory or brain intensive tasks away (have you noticed how you've stopped remembering phone numbers once you get an accessible cell or mobile phone with address book, I find this frightening myself and I am truly lostif my phone breaks down, whereas I used to remember every phone number ever given to me, pretty much). Experts are worried that our reasoning, logical and memory abilities will be negatively affected in only few generations. I don't hve a link handy since it's a while since I read this, I believe it was on the BBC web site. But it's true, the amount of daily tasks we deligate to electronic devices is only going to increase.
I don't really find the trend you mentioned in my friend's group but I am a comp sci major and know people who either work as financial analysts or at Intel and various software companies, even the girls in my group are amazingly tech savvy. But I think my friends do not really count as a good sample of the population at large.
cheers
-B
Hey, good points.
As to your first one, well, digital watches and pocket calculators or worn-out pocket football games had nothing mechanical in them either, but then again, as you pointed out, it was all brand-new to us, while my daughter, for instance, was born in 1994, kinda a difference.
As to your other points, well, without my PAC Mate I'd be lost too.
However, is it that we remember less or that we have chosen to allow these devices to be our virtual slaves, while we apply ourselves to other tasks? That's the raging debate, but as a Comp Sci major you know the difference between using interfaces to the OS to do things like write files, rather than do all the file-write code yourself. That doesn't make you a worse programmer, it makes you a programmer whose focus now is on more of the high-level architectural and bridging of software, or should I say softwares? The huge thing today is to get different environments to talk to one another - a bridge between SQL and XML / SOAP could be one business example.
Now I was not a Comp Sci major, but came into it after I finished college so my entire experience has been commercial and not academic, so I'm sure my analogy has flaws.
But consider this very real problem and solution for us blinks:
We now can look up anything in a dictionary or encyclopedia we want. We can now look up and read manuals online, read instructions, do full-scale research into a professional or home project, or any number of other things.
I frequently use my PAC Mate on the net when helping my daughter with homework.
Some of us remember when all you could get was what was doled out by a given agency or organization, and you'd better be damn grateful for it at that!
Extremely primitive and colonial thinking. The Internet and screen readers for us have amounted to what the Printing Press did for print users in 1407.
So while over-specialization by necessity (a problem you'll find on your second or first software job ...) is a negative consequence, and for the most part, we may be deferring to electronic devices for menial data, at least for some of us, our ability to gather more information - and sort it properly - about our universe is much improved.
And it was in fact Einstein who said: "Why bother to remember what you could otherwise look up?"
I personally think schools ought to heavily stress researching capabilities, and not memorization. Of course one has to memorize certain things, but the body of knowledge that one is expected to have access to is far greater now than ever before. If one can research, one can in theory anyway, have access to and use everything out there.
I contend we're simply using a new skill set, or at least one that was less-used before.
Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" - ten years old now - posits some rather interesting theories on this.
But back to the original topic, I guess if one doesn't need to know why, perhaps they won't find out. And maybe not because they're lazy, but because they're finding out the why of something else.
While Da Vinci was an expert in all the sciences and arts of his day - no doubt a genius - the body of acquired and acquirable knowledge was much smaller. I say acquirable, because there was no network or database to compile and organize the results of research. Even the modern discipline of research, practiced in its elemental forms by students, would have seen arcane and very rigorous to a people of even three hundred years ago.
I just think we're applying a new skill set.
Yu consider these nomadic peoples who can travel thousands of miles and remember how to get back, or can recount word for word lengthy oral histories. Makes for a great show, and probably keeps a culture without a writing system stable, but aside from ten minutes of fame, what use is that in a modern world? Ask them to apply your level of discipline - when you were in sixth grade - to testing out new plants or minerals for their uses, and they would no doubt fail. They may be "in touch" with nature - a religious constitution - but don't really understand how it works, or why it does what it does.
Perhaps we're in a techno-revolution greater than devices, but now we have to move to a new way of thinking about what is intelligence or "smart". Evolution is rarely so much a steady crawl as it is a series of leaps and jerks.
This is very true. I guess it is up to us to apply ourselves in new ways, it's both a curse and an opportunity (aren't most things really?), you can choose to shut down your brain, play computer games and not apply yourself, or you can take these new tools and technologies and do something with them. As a comp sci major with 2 software jobs, so far, I agree with you on both the need for encapsulating and for the danger of specialization, the chances are what you specialized in last month will be absolete, if not now than by the end of year. The skill you need is to understand the general principles of software and programming and then go into the specifics of the products you work with. I did an awful lot of sql server/xml mapping on my first job, the software latform we maintained was written in C and Perl on the Unix side and .net, sql server 2000 as well as vb6 on the Windows side. Then Ijumped straight into a job whee Excel and vba was the name of the game as well as PL SQL scripting for Oracle. Now I am trying to catch up on the latest and greatest from Microsoft with the MCPD certification, but sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't study Java or Oracle business objects or any of 10 or 20 other products out there.
But that's straying far from the original subject. I think, like I said, it's up to us what we do. The cheap recording software, for instance, has allowed almost anyone who knows a couple of chords and able to play the accordian to record a professional sounding demo and even a record, and I think it's great, the effect is also there's a lot more awful music out there, but still, once you sift through it, there is a lot of great music out there that'd never have been recorded 20 years ago when major label contract and $200 an hour studios for months were necessary to get together a professional sounding album.
But what led us here is the curiosity, the desire to understand and simulate and analyze, if technology causes us to lose these basic desires we'll also lose our minds, but if we keep the desire we can use the technology we've already invented to invent something even greater (sort of reminds me of the ""I Robot" stories, not the movie).
Cheers
-B
Well, I'm not a teen but I know what you mean. I've got a friend who's in his mid 30's who's interested in all of that. I'll ask him a simple question and he'll go into a whole explanation of background before getting into the answer. His theory is that you should everything about the thing that's giving you the problem so you can fix it in the future. Usually, I just like a simple answer and am not interested in all the extras. However, I love mechanical things, and always wanna know how they work, how to put them together etc. So on that accound, Wildebrew, you're right. Everything today is too small and computerised and it takes the joy out of it. Same with cars. I personally try to avoid using phone books and prefer to remember phone numbers. However, my spelling is horrible because I usually do everything on the computer and of course, I don't have my screenreader read letter by letter. Another annoying trend I find with computer usage is netspeak. I hate it when people use visual imoticons or numbers for letters. Words are there for a reason and unless you have a handicapt that makes typing difficult, you should use them.
Technology has certainly helped the blind and visually-impaired and I am very grateful for it. Still, I think we all take technology for granted in a way. Things like television, radio and telephone have been around for such a long time that most of us don't even blink when we hear about them. I think it would be really interesting to find someone 80 or older and ask them about the first time they heard a record, heard the radio or saw a moving picture. I bet their stories would be fascinating. Asto the last post, I really have to wonder now cause I know that many recordings were made in garrages or other amateur settings in the 50's and 60's.
The most I've done is take apart my desktop to look around inside it, but I wouldn't mind looking in other devices to see what makes them do what they do.
I started trying to look at what was an anything mechanical when i was about 7 years. old.