Re: They don't need our stinkin' manuals??

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

John Fleming wrote:

> 
> All good points, Bruce, but can work with experienced programmers vis
> a vis new programmers really be extended to the general public?

To some extent, anyway. When the internet first started becoming
popular, some of the earliest enthusiasts were professionals -
especially academics - in their late fifties and early sixties. And,
just recently, I saw an article in the local paper saying that
seniors were getting connected in record numbers.

Also, I think that computing is like radical politics. People think
that it's a young person's game, but they forget that some people
have been at it for decades. Just as you can find socialists in
their eighties, you can find computer enthusiasts in their sixties
and seventies.
 
> It's really only been within about the last ten years that the
> personal computer has really started making inroads into the lives of
> the common garden variety members of the general population.  So the
> level of experience in the general population is a lot lower.

But the computer itself has been in fairly wide use for over thirty
years. True, to the knowledgable, the difference between a mainframe
and a personal computer is vast, but there are millions of people
who have spent their working life on computers. To them, any
computer is just a glorified typewriter and filing cabinet, to be
approached matter-of-factly.

> Also, kids are getting a lot of computer training in school, and
> starting at an early age.  

For all the hype about computer literacy - surely one of the great
marketing ploys of all time - the training doesn't seem to have been
very effective. When I was teaching a few years ago, I calculated
that about 85% of first year students didn't know how to use a word
processor (although they sure knew how to play games; I remember one
student, in the last class of the semester, loudly proclaiming that
he couldn't get a good mark on an essay, but at least he knew how to
get through all the levels in Castle Wolfenstein).

At any rate, most people don't bother with extensive knowledge about
computers, any more than they bother to learn how to assemble an
engine when they drive a car. To teach someone how to use a GUI, get
e-mail, and write and print a letter (probably the most basic tasks
most people do) takes less than a day. 

 
> So there is probably more than a grain of truth in the observation
> that "when parents have trouble with their computers, they ask the
> kids.."

I think a lot of people are intimidated by computers, and that this
attitude is fed by a constant stream of scare stories in the media
about viruses, pornography, child molesters and crackers. I also
think that many people believe the idea of the wiz-kid, since it's
widespread and fits in well with our society's cult of youth.

But, to paraphase "Henry IV," yes, when parents have trouble with
their computers, they ask the kids - but do they get any answer when
they ask?

-- 
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair,
There came Queen Mary's spirit and It stood behind her chair,
Singing, 'Backward and forward and sideways may you pass,
But I will stand behind you till you face the looking-glass.'"
- Rudyard Kipling, "The Looking-Glass"

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