> People born after that date are the digital natives; those born before are digital immigrants, doomed to be forever strangers in a computer-based strange land.

That's a ridiculous notion anyway. If you put in time and effort, you can learn pretty much anything, and computers and programming are no different, no matter the age. And if you do not put in time and effort, you always remain ignorant. It really is that simple.

Just because you're not getting into low-level hardware interrupts or vector tables or memory addresses, does not mean you "don't know how to use" a computer. I'm glad you have that knowledge, I enjoy stuff like that too.

But a lot of kids are "really good at facebook" and use that as inspiration to get into web dev. They want to create the next social network, or the next cool website. Maybe it sparks their interest in big data, or databases, or the math behind social networks.

This is just one example. I don't particularly care about or use facebook personally. But there are a million different facets to computing.

Maybe they end up as a graphic designer for a video game.

Maybe they learn they enjoy the machines themselves and build one some day.

Maybe they learn they don't quite care about computers, and just learn to become literate in an essential tool of the Information Economy. That's good too. shrugs

I grew up with computers, and unlike now, when things were starting out, you actually had to be a little bit clever to use one. I rolled my eyes at my dad as a kid when for fun he typed "DEL ." at the C: prompt of his new DOS machine. Doing command line stuff like that, while not at by any means an advanced level of computer sophistication, is a far cry from people growing up with extremely user friendly things like Ipads, only having to press a few buttons to get things done, and very idiot proof.

But at the same time, since it comes so naturally to me, I do tend to forget that the skills I have are that technical or unusual. Reinstalling Windows? Installing Linux? Putting together a computer from scratch? I mean..even if you don't know how to do it, you can Google it. But then I get snapped back into reality, like when my parents call me up and say they hired their friend's son to fix their PC, a "computer whiz", who obviously about a minute or so into the conversation has no real or deep understanding about computers whatsoever - probably just some gamer or something.

It's awful too, since I'm a woman and I see other non tech savvy women perpetuating that sterotype. I went to get my hair cut, and one of the employees was trying to get a Netbook to work. "This thing is so slow. It doesn't even have any RAM!" she claimed, loudly. Since I was waiting on the stylist, I told her that I could take a look. "No thanks," she said while barley looking my way, "My husband's in IT, so I'll just call him." I then had to to listen to an excruciating phone call while she called up her husband which made it pretty clear also that the husband also "can't use a computer".

Sigh.

I follow the logic here, and intuitively agree, but anecdotally it was almost the exact opposite experience that started my interest in computers.

We got a computer mainly to help with personal accounting type things. Beyond what my mother knew of Excel, my parents were not at all technically savvy. Probably because of this (that is, that they didn't know how to restrict/follow what I was messing with) they gave me relatively free reign to tinker on our family computer from the age of about 8 on. After a few years I just fell into the de facto IT of the house.

I wonder if the problem now is that computers are used for so much more by adults? As long as I could fix/hide whatever I broke before my parents needed to update their budget or check their email, hardly even a daily ritual at the time, I was in the clear.

The author makes his point pretty clear here:

> Not really knowing how to use a computer is deemed acceptable if you're twenty-five or over. It's something that some people are even perversely proud of, but the prevailing wisdom is that all under eighteens are technical wizards, and this is simply not true.

He then offers some suggestions for how to help kids become more technically proficient with computers because he thinks it's a useful skill to have.

I told a colleague, whom isn't tech savvy, that contrary to her belief, most kids aren't digital natives. They all can't use computers. Examples of people who can't use computers are mostly the obvious (plug in the ethernet cable; turn on the display; turn on the wireless switch in an OS of your choice); one is a bit harder (reinstall Windows). Parents did it all wrong, fixing everything for their children without teaching them how to do it themselves. The UK asked the industry what should be taught and Microsoft told them Microsoft Office, so now that's what they know. People aren't used to a command line anymore.

Why should we care? Tomorrow's people are going to be creating laws regarding computers, enforcing laws regarding computers, educating the youth about computers, reporting in the media about computers and lobbying politicians about computers. All while not being able to use a computer.

How to fix it? Stop fixing things for your kids. Schools should teach not to install malware instead of locking down machines. Teach how to stay safe on-line. Adopt a responsible disclosure model instead of punishing kids in school for hacking things. At least play around with Linux and powershell and stuff.

I've owned a car for most of my adult life yet I wouldn't know how to fix one. It's a recurring problem with computers. Yet I want to build a generation of hackers. Who's with me?

--- End of TLDR. ---

That took the author 4165 words in story mode (and me about 30 minutes to read, including this summary). This, author, is why you were probably asked for a TLDR in the past and why you write "gtfo you stupid fuck" as a TLDR on top: it takes forever like this. And be honest, author, did I miss anything? Other than clipped sentences, should anything more be included to get that message across?

Now as for my own commentary, I more or less agreed up to the "Why" part. I mean, yeah, digital self defense is important but not for everyone. If a subset of the population in every country knows it, we're good right? You even admit to not knowing how to fix your own car, yet without explaining how this is different you expect us to understand that it is different somehow?

I'd like to see people be a little bit more tech savvy, but not as much as you seem to think is necessary before not calling someone computer illiterate anymore.

I mean, thinking back to the '80s, I was probably one out of maybe 3 kids in my entire class who even had a home computer, let alone knew how to do anything more than play games.

Back to the '90s, many more classmates had computers, but only a tiny, tiny few of us knew how to program and edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Back to the early 2000s, I was the only person I knew with greater than a dial-up Internet connection or who knew the difference between a local and public IP address.

99.5% have always been laypeople, and that's OK. For every 200 kids today who only know how to ask their mom for the WiFi password, there's one who is setting up a home lab, and that's enough for the world's tech needs in twenty years.

I have a brother who is 15 and he doesn't know how to use a computer more than using youtube and facebook. And I constantly hear things from my parents about viruses and sketchy stuff ending up on the family laptop. Granted, not all of that is him or my other siblings, but it seems a lot of kids are missing a sort of digital literacy that many in my age group grew up with. I somehow know what a sketchy download button looks like. He has no idea.

"It said download so I clicked it" is often a response I hear.

What's more frustrating though is that my brother is not a great student. He was adopted and is getting to the age where he's starting to act out and I totally understand why. He's disillusioned with his own education and can't be bothered to care. For someone in his situation, digital literacy could give him access to a good job and a healthy adult life by learning to program, and I could help and mentor him along the way, but I know already it's going to be hard to convince him to take it seriously. I've hinted at it but I've only gotten sideways glances that scream "yeah right, I can't do that."

I'm not saying every kid needs to learn to be programmers, but we've abstracted so much technical learning away from them that it seems they're less prepared for a digital world, despite growing up surrounded by technology. Even the kids who are into tech stuff are being pushed into commoditized silos. Eg. Minecraft, etc.

But, on the other hand, I've met teenagers who lacked confidence even using a browser to navigate to an unfamiliar website. They've learned how to navigate particular apps as silos.

This reminds me of my parents and grandparents' generation using computers. Comfortable with what they know and use regularly; no concept of what happens outside of that narrow window.

Prime example of juvenoia and biased stereotypical thinking right there. "Back in my days ..." ™

I know more kids in the ages up to 13 who are interested in actually exploring and working with technical stuff (programming and electronics for example) than kids who spend their most time just "consuming" and using these things. The main reason is that these things are much more accessible these days. YMMV, depending on your social and demographic environment I guess ...

We (Late X, millenials) did have to struggle just to operate a computer. We had to build a mental model to work around inadequate tools in the OS and beyond.

Younger people have had adequate tools to interact with computers, so they've never been forced to build that mental model - to build an intuitive understanding of how a computer works. So, yeah, it's not too surprising to me.

They can absolutely learn such models, but it's going to take more effort and intentional digging for rough spots to do so. For the most part, it's not like we can just give them a '95 PC with Windows 95 and say "go for it."

My dad refused to learn to use a pc for years (until he wanted to research some architecture and suddenly he got the point of it all). But he still hasn't made computers or the Internet part of his life in the way most 18 year olds have.

I did a further degree (not tech) just a few years back at my local uni which put me more in touch with regular, non-techy young folk than I'd had for years. I was assured by everyone (despite their knowing that I'm a programmer) that the digital natives would run rings around me with their mad internet & computing skills. I've also done a fair bit of "Code Club" style volunteer teaching at a local library.

What I find is cohorts of young people most of whom have desktops covered in files not because they're intrinsically messy people, but because they have no idea how to manage files elsewhere (and would lose them if they tried). And whose internet-based research skills are no different from my 83 year old mother's. They're more confident, and hence more willing to try things, but no more knowledgeable. What intuitions growing up with computers has equipped them with mostly relates to a few narrow & specialised corporate interfaces (Facebook, Instagram et al).

Our educational institutions (here in Aus anyway) do a lousy job of teaching people to use computers. And our computing industry's approach to human factors is an unmitigated shitshow.

Kids today seem to easily get confused if something doesn't just work, seem to rely more on voice commands to do things, and get easily confused by context menus and other desktop-UI elements not common on touch devices. They're also awful typists.

None of the teens in my family have a computer, nor do they want one. They have their phones and tablets, but they don't see any need for a computer. Again, I contrast this with my generation where everyone wanted a computer for MSN Messenger and MySpace.

For me a laptop is my "default" device – 99% of stuff I do I'll want to do on my laptop. Emails, web browsing, even Signal / WhatsApp I'll connect to my laptop because I find it quicker and easier to type. I almost never use my iPad unless on holiday. I think kids today are the opposite – they see phones and tablets as their default device for all that stuff and tend to see laptops and desktops as just work machines for word processing, etc..

I disagree, and think that adults who grew up before computers were commonplace are skewing your perception. I was a teenager not too long ago, and as I remember it, personal computer ownership was about even between the sexes in middle class youth, perhaps even biased towards girls a bit because "a boy will just use it for porn." In spite of this, pretty almost every young boy I knew that had a computer, whether or not they were really a "computer person" or grew up to do anything related to technology, was interested in tinkering with their computers in some way. From playing games for long hours, tweaking their configs or even making maps or modding the game, running their own game servers from their desktop (Minecraft is especially popular for this today), to having the spiffiest desktop and theme, to building their own PCs, hanging out on forums/irc channels/etc. and the good ol' fashioned standby of amassing a huge collection of pirated music, movies, and pornography, there were a lot of opportunities for otherwise "normal" boys to get experience in playing with computers and learning something about them along the way. Being good with computers could even be somewhat cool, in a "you're a fucking wizard, dude" kind of way. And to be clear, this is the perception I got from hanging out with kids on all levels of the social spectrum, not just super computer dorks like myself.

In contrast, most of the girls I knew used them mostly for IMing friends. The most "hardcore" girls I knew were involved in communities themselves like Deviantart or the various MMOs, which gave them plenty of their own opportunities to play and learn (for instance, Photoshop is a very complicated program, and sites like Neopets and MySpace taught basic HTML to a lot more girls than boys), but in general a larger proportion of the girls seemed more interested in study, their personal lives, relationships, and "drama" (the "dickhead teenaged boys" I mentioned in another post ITT would blush at the shit that girls do to each other), than in the computer itself or the internet outside of their "small world." I'm not a girl, though, so obviously I don't have the whole story.

With the younger generations, the situation looks similar to me, but with smart phones. It's common and "cool" for a guy to have a rooted/jailbroken phone, get a buttload of apps for free, and customize the crap out of his phone. But while I obviously don't have much contact with teenaged girls nowadays outside of family, the ones I have talked with are more interested in instagramming and snapchatting with their friends than the phones themselves.

People often say that women naturally have more emotional and social intelligence on average than men, so I don't really get why those same people get offended by the idea that men could naturally have more more "systems intelligence" or general interest in tinkering than women on average.

He complains all the time about how he can't assume that kids know anything fundamental about computers.

Things such as manually saving files go above kids heads since the modern auto-save is so ubiquitous. Kids assume that all monitors are touch screen at first and will poke the screen before touching the KB&M.

File directories might as well be a magical black box. Good luck trying to get anyone to figure out how to print something if the default printer doesn't immediately work.

He wants to help, but is always shocked at how much kids simply do not know any of the primitives of a computer