[janetmissed]

It's kind of funny how far back this whinging about kids not being able to use computers goes, especially how condescending this blog is. Most people will only learn as much about computers to do their work and nothing more, because isn't it normal to only learn the bare minimum about something you don't care about?

[dhosek]

The kids these days don‘t know how to use their cars. They go to mechanics to do something basic like change the oil or replace the brake pads when they could spend a few hours doing it themselves in a half-assed way.

[asdff]

It should be said that changing oil does not take hours and however you half ass it, the average lube tech uses even less ass than that.

[baby_souffle]

I know how to change the oil and do the breaks in my car.

I pay a mechanic to do them because I don't have a lift and disposing of used oil is a pain.

Kids these days are growing up into a world where breaks rarely need changing and oil is something you use in the kitchen, not a car.

[onemoresoop]

Maybe they have money. The kids who don’t have money and are somewhat more intelligent that the average learn that doing it themselves saves them some money they can spend on other things. There’s a cultural aspect of it that changes over time but that’s possibly influenced by changes in technology. When I was a a teenager you could comprehend how a car worked and have modest success debugging and fixing a car. I doubt that’s easy to do these days.

[AnimalMuppet]

I started going to the oil change places when I owned a car that I couldn't get at the oil filter. If I crawled under it, I could just barely touch it with my finger, but at the price of pulling a shoulder muscle. I still can't figure out how you're supposed to change the thing, but after one attempt, I was content to let someone else do it.

Yeah, I know, not very "hacker spirit" of me. But I've got a finite amount of that, and there are other places I want to spend it.

[onemoresoop]

While true, the computer as a general purpose machine has become a bloated incomprehensive, somewhat hostile affair to the user and that pushes newcomers away. There was a time when more newcomers stayed.

[sras-me]

I once asked a 20 something kid "do you know why computers are a big deal", and he said, "because it is a communication device"?

Computers are so good at being programmable that now a days people don't see it as a programmable device, but only as the thing that it is programmed to be. Today there are computers everywhere, but people see a workstatinon, a web server, a gaming rig, a tv, a phone etc, but never the computer is behind all those things.

[asdff]

And not only that but kids aren't even interested in computers any more. They want a cell phone and an ipad. That's even more abstracted.

[j45]

The underlying theme of knowing how things work, or how they are put together, at least conceptually to not get taken advantage of is what remained standing out to me.

There has been some thought about students who grew up mostly with touch screens and aren't that great with keyboards and mouse, although I'm not sure how widespread that might be.

Being a consumer, instead of a creator, or knowing how the creation is doen (what goes into it, how it could be maintained).

Optimistically, I'm looking forward to diy food (gardening) among other things being rediscovered if it isn't already being.