[pumblechook]

Am I the only one who is as tired of the 'kids can't use computers' meme as the 'digital natives' meme?

The vast majority of people have never been able to 'use' a computer like the author describes because the vast majority of people don't understand computing. And that's ok - I would consider it a triumph that we've been able to create such effective illusions in the form of UI that people who have no interest in computing can share in the incredible power that it enables.

But at the same time, it is a mistake to assume that mastery of the illusion equals mastery of the thing is abstracts. This is why the digital native meme is so misguided - kids don't know any more about computers than their parents did, they just know the walled gardens that sprang up around them.

[javajosh]

Aren't we just masters of different illusions? Our illusions are lower-level, consisting of "file systems" and "kernels", "processes" and "TCP/IP", and "drawing calls". (And indeed, being able to upgrade a hard-drive and reinstall an OS hardly denotes mastery of anything, and never did. It denotes being able to follow directions.)