Techno-Mysticism and Chrome Apples
An App Based World is Destroying our Knowledge of Computers
Digital Natives.
It’s a term given to the generations who were born with ample access to information technology. Some experts say anyone born after 1980. In my amateur opinion, I’d push it farther forward. Semantics.
The idea goes, at least on paper, that younger people who grew up with computers will be more comfortable using and working with them than older people.
There was a fair amount of optimism surrounding this idea. So much so that some schools ditched their computer literacy classes. Why teach the kids what they already know.
However.
Recent research suggests that Gen Z and Alpha are more computer illiterate than previous generations.
They are falling for online scams more than their grandparents.
Pardon my arrogance, but I know exactly why this is the case.
Apps and Clouds
What is the first device kids are working with?
iPads and iPhones.
This may not seem like a huge deal unless you understand how iOS differs from a more professional operating system like Windows or the bizarre and esoteric Linux.
Right now, if I wanted, I could dive into any program on my computer and see what makes it tick. I can add mods, rewrite the config file, and permanently erase the file if I wish. I can fix older games with wrappers and fan-made patches. Not only that, but I can find fixes and apply them myself.
You can’t do that on an iPad or a Chromebook, the standard-issue laptop many public schoolkids are given to “do their schoolwork on.” Up until a while ago, I’m positive you couldn’t even download additional apps onto a Chromebook without a workaround.
This app/cloud-based environment doesn’t allow for curiosity and only permits very little customization. You have widgets and the layout of your apps, but nothing beyond that.
Instead of Legos, it's a prebuilt play set.
There is no file system. You can create one for photos and a basic one for apps, but there is no file system like we traditionally think of it. Many experts believe this is due to search engines. You can just type in what file you’re looking for. Many experts and reports call it a “laundry basket.” Reach in, look around, and grab what you’re looking for.
This may work on a personal level. To each their own. But what about a professional and technical setting? As the Verge article mentions, it's not a personal bias or a “controlled chaos” kind of system. These college students don’t know what a file system is. These people will be the inheritors of an information world they can’t comprehend.
What happens when they have to maintain a system they don’t know how to navigate? What happens when they leave a clusterfuck that the next poor soul has to figure out?
We’ve given kids computers and technology. But we’ve ignored what they are using the technology for.
Distractions
Video games, social media, YouTube.
Kids don’t spend their time learning how computers work or digging around in files. Maybe the early ones did, when there was very little to do on computers and they were harder to use.
But now? Video games, social media, and YouTube. Distractions that provide a dopamine drip. An easy way to burn time.
But maybe these kids are learning on YouTube and TikTok. Maybe they are playing educational games.
Haha, no.
They’re watching Skibiddi toilet videos, playing Fortnite, and wasting time. They spend so much time on their iPads which impacts their motor function.
MOOCs
Massively Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, were a development by universities for the information age that was expected to disrupt higher education as we knew it. Several major universities, like MIT, have them. They are available right now for free.
An optimist might believe that this would lead to an explosion of learning. High quality classes for free? Out of the sometimes 176,000 students that sign up for a MOOC only about 10% ever complete them.
Maybe if we had played our cards differently, things could be better.
Childhood is an important and effective time to learn new skills. We could be creating digital natives who are effective and knowledgeable about the technology that we surround ourselves in.
Instead, parents have fingered puppet videos and games like Roblox to babysit their kids. All they know is apps, autoplay, Fortnite and lie. They show up to school stunted physically, and the technology that raised them is basically witchcraft. They are digital natives in a world they do not understand. They are the pools of souls in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, watching shadows play on a wall.