@ copperfish:

This is very true.

I remember that when I was growing up in Poland in the 80’s there were about 2-3 polish gaming magazines on the market. All of them had devoted about a quarter of their volume to the “tips and tricks” section, 90% of which was instructions how to edit save game files in hex editors to give yourself more cash, lives, weapons, whatever. They would list byte offsets from beginning of the file, and max values you could put in at that spot. The best thing was that they never explained exactly “how” to do this stuff. They just assumed their target audience would know how to work a hex editor.

Hell, most of the content from these times was amazing. One time one of these early gaming mags published like a 6 page dissertation about exploiting that hyperspace jump bug in Frontieer. The guy actually broke out his math hat on and not only made charts of most efficient exploit routes between interesting systems but also taught you how to calculate them. Coincidentally that’s how I learned the Pythagorean theorem ahead of schedule. Then then I learned it in school I was like “holly shit, I used these equations to calculate hyperspace jump routes”. :)

Then that went away. As the gaming hobby got more popular it also got dumber, and gamers became more entitled. Editing saved games went from being a common-place trick to a lost art practiced only by few old-timers.

These days you open a gaming magazine and it is 100% ads. Even the reviews are paid ads – “Modern Brofare, score 12 out of 10, BEST GRAPHICS OF THE YEAR!”. Hell even the websites that claim to be knowledge bases for game “cheats” usually deal out advice like “beat the game three times for an achievement” these days. Sigh…

But I guess that’s something to be expected. As we make the tools easier to use the more people use them. This means that on the average the skill and intelligence of the average user is falling down. Early on, learning to work the computer was a bit of work. Only the most dedicated individuals became proficient enough to matter. Now that everyone has a computer in their pocket, the average user is less skilled, less patient and more entitled than in the old days.

It’s the law of averages I guess. As a whole we are more connected and more in touch with the technology than ever. But at the same time the skill and dedication of the “average” user is lower than it used to be.

In some ways I think the lack of fluency has less to do with hanging onto the old ways and more to do with user interfaces becoming far better at masking the underlying systems. Add to that our love of skeuomorphic design, are we surprised people are confused.

Having been introduced to computing in the 80s, I had to know about typing in hex-code to get games to run and managing memory for DOS bootloaders. Nobody has to do that anymore. Like it or not, they’ve been abstracted from the technology. Add to that a younger generation who have to deal with “floppy disks as save icons” when they have no idea what the physical object is makes computing more obscure. My “smartphone” is 2% phone, 10 % camera and 88% handheld computer – so why do we still call the things “smartphones”? Start calling things what they are (not that anyone in marketing would agree with me).

The plus is that younger people are comfortable with digital technology, but in some ways they understand it even less.

@ Morghan:

You know, I never actually had the “dinner table problem” with everyone texting and no one talking. Most people I interact with seem to grasp the fact that doing so is rude. I mean, you wouldn’t talk on the phone all the time while having dinner with someone so why would you text, tweet or email. Common sense… Actually, I should say common courtesy. I’m fairly sure that not texting at dinner is something we should teach kids along side other “good table manners”.

I think part of the “fluency” thing is finding the right balance. As I said in my post, we live in a day and age where we are bombarded with information. You either learn to filter and prioritize it to distil some of the signal from the noise, or the noise will quickly drown you. It’s all about tapping into the power these tools give you without allowing them to control you.

I find Facebook useful at times. I often take pictures at social outings and I post them there because it is the one place where everyone involves can be found. I sometimes check up on friends to see what they are up to – usually when people post pictures from events I either been to or missed (weddings, baby pictures, family functions, parties) etc. I mostly use it as a digital layer that adds more interaction to my Real Life social interactions.

Twitter or G+ – I follow a lot of people, but read my stream in random bursts. Sometimes I won’t check them for days. Sometimes I have these interesting exchanges on there with people I know or strangers. Sometimes I use them to broadcast my thoughts. It depends on the mood and time constraints.

These things are tools – I use them, but they don’t use me. A lot of people become overwhelmed by these networks, they feel like they need to keep up, and stay plugged in. A mature, seasoned user is one who knows when to unplug, and when to stay plugged in. :)

People should also bear in mind the opposite issue with technology. These devices being in everyone’s hands aren’t always a good thing. I remember going to the coffee shop or diner and actually talking to the people at the next table, now everyone is stuck in their blasted phones even to the point of texting people who are in the same bloody room with them.

I’m all for technical fluency, but lets keep an eye on becoming a society of social retards who would rather do their social networking online than spend time with people in physical reality.

I don’t see much of a balance being struck, from my observations people tend to fall into the luddite category, or jump to the opposite end of the spectrum and favor the aides we have created to social interaction and communities hundreds if not thousands of miles away over actually taking part in the world around them.

On a side note, many people have yet to learn how to filter their digital communication in the same way they do for older forms such as letters or face-to-face contact. I recently deactivated my Facebook account because it was nothing more than game spam, “I like tacos” style blips, and threats/insults in the e-thug style of posturing. These aren’t idiots, at least most of them aren’t, but put a keyboard in their hands and any sense they have flies straight out the Windows.

I’m trying to find a balance raising my kid, not sure how well it will work out, but I’m making sure she learns how to use technology while cautioning her against becoming completely absorbed in all the flashy new toys. Not only do they pose the threat of disconnecting us from those around us, but buying all the latest gadgets gets really flippin expensive :P

@ astine:

Well, yes – our minds are adopting to the environment in which we exist now. Instead of storing random data points and relying on our fuzzy, failure prone recall mechanisms we become adept at performing quick search queries using available tools and “outsource” remembering large data sets into silicone.

To me this transformation is akin to how we mostly lost the memorization methods of the ancient bards when literacy took hold. Homer and his predecessors had to memorize the Illiad along side with bunch of other epics, and be able to recall it piecemeal or in it’s entirety. That was the only way to preserve it and “record it”. Nowadays we don’t have to do that – it has been written down, and so we can refer to text if we want to hear it again.

Granted, we lost something in the process – the Illiad no longer mutates. It does not change as it passes from bard to bard, from storyteller to storyteller. It has been fixed in time. But as a tradeoff we have gained something new – accuracy and permanency. Not only that – storytellers of modern times have gained unprecedented freedom. No longer must they concern themselves with meter, rhyming and mnemonics that were essential, and fundamental part of the oral tradition. No longer do they have to construct their tales in ways that lend themselves to easy memorization. Now we can tell abstract, difficult, challenging, non-linear stories and preserve them that way for eternity.

We traded memory capacity and recall accuracy for high level abstraction because we found a better, more permanent way to store and organize data.

Now once again we are making that trade – we can remember less, because our technology got better at indexing, categorizing and fetching data for us.

Multitasking is another problem entirely and I agree it is the deep thought killer. However most programmers, and most creatives for that matter learn to zone out when they work. When I’m coding, or writing an article I usually don’t get distracted by the web because it mostly ceases to exist for me. You get in your groove and you work – you do the deep cognitive processing, then you disengage and multitask when it’s time to goof off, read emails and etc.

I get this at work sometimes:

“Did you get my email?”
No, I was coding.
“I sent it three hours ago…”
Yes.. Well, I was programming.
“You don’t check email when you code?”
No, I mostly write code or look stuff up.
“Well, check your email when you code too cause it’s important”

Is it still a choice if we become dependent? I can’t find the link, but I remember reading at one point about a study which suggested that certain segments of a persons brain deteriorated when that person spent a significant portion of their time online because their brain found it could suplement those functions with services like Google or Wikipedia.

I’m not a help desk guy. I’m a programmer with sysadmin duties and never have to deal with luddite types. But I do find that the availabilite of the Internet is often a hindrence to me. To think through a difficult programming problem I generally have to leave the room with the computers in it and prefereably go someplace with greenery. If I don’t, my brain starts multitasking, and that’s terrible for cognative performance.

@ astine:

Uh, yes. You are renting higher brain functions from corporations, but only small parts of it, and only by choice. Facebook, despite of what it claims to be is only a small part of the online experience.

Hmm… Smartphones as an exocortex. Well, I could already record my thoughts with a pen and paper notebook, but now I can share everything instantly, and I can “remember” anything someone has decided to record on the Internet, accessibly though Google or on Wikipedia.

Then again, if Google and Facebook really are extensions of my mind and memory now, does that mean that I now lease my higher brain functions from corporations who now have the ability to beam advertisments right into my thoughts?

Maybe I should go bomb some looms…

@ StDoodle:

I think you are right. I wouldn’t expect a lot of people to be able to open up their computers and for example replace a hard drive, or remove one of those nasty bastard malware suites that hooks deep into the guts of the OS and prevents you from running binaries. But I would hope that a person would know how to print documents, and maybe know how to fiddle with Word documents and fix the layout when it breaks. That’s the difference between a competent driver and a mechanic.

Fun fact: I lived most of my adult life in NJ where all gas stations are full service by law. I hardly ever travel out of state, and when I usually don’t drive. As a result I have never actually pumped my own gas. :P

If you see some people behaving like they have never used a gas pump in their life, chances are you are observing us New Jersey denizens.

Love it! Now, if you could just re-write the second-to-last paragraph in such a way that makes me able to present it to my boss without getting fired… ;)

But yeah, I don’t get it either. I’m not a grease-monkey type. I have friends who are, and I respect their abilities to tinker with vehicles, but that just isn’t me. Sometimes it feels odd, because the mechanics and such are the type of thing that should appeal to me, but they don’t; not when it comes to vehicles. Yet, I’ve still made sure I can operate one just fine. Not racecar-driver or master-mechanic level by any means, but I can perform the basic functions without having to call someone every time I need fuel and ask “How do you fill this thing up with energy juice, again?” Were I to do that, I would be looked at as an embarrassment by most of the people I know. Yet, it’s completely socially acceptable for my co-workers to ask me “how do I print this pdf to scale?” every time they run into the issue.

To be fair though, I think that a lack of standardization among technology interfaces is partly to blame. If you’ve only ever driven a 1980’s ford pickup truck, you may have a bit of orientation to do when getting behind the wheel of a brand-new hybrid compact car, but most of the basics will be about the same. Yet, show me two printers, made at least two years apart by two different companies, that share nearly that amount of similarity when it comes to maintenance or preferences. When your skills don’t transfer well — and in technology, they often don’t at the user-level — it’s easier to adopt the defeatist attitude of “why bother learning this, when next year I’ll just have to start over on the next piece of equipment?”

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on that part.