Kids Can't Use Computers

Excuse me.... :lol:

I do see where this article is coming from, but no, not all kids can't use computers. Here on the admin team at Sysnative, we have admins aged 15 (me), 17, and 19. So no, not al kids can't use computers.

Although some definitely can't - why do I spend half of my computing class helping other students! :lol:
 
I don't agree with this blog post so much. It's actually quite scary to me how technically articulate children are these days. I'm 20 years old and I still don't have a smart phone, AND I am in IT. If you handed me a smart phone or a tablet, I'd have no idea how to use it. Any kids I see as of late (even as young as 6) all have smart phones, tablets, and they are all using them to download games, install apps, text, etc.

I think learning things like that at a young age is wonderful and if it wasn't already obvious enough I foresee the next generation really influencing the growth of handheld devices and tablet computing, and technology in general.
 
I was torn when I read the post. In some ways it's very true, but I believe the children of today have a different kind of technical knowledge. As Patrick noted kids today have an unbelievable understanding of the user side of new technology but I feel they (for the most part, the people here like Tekno Venus, and Tom and others are an extremely small minority) have zero knowledge of how the user interface has been created nor how the computer is processing their "commands".

I am in no way considered technically advanced but I can without help build a computer, install an OS, connect it to a network, install a printer etc. I understand that those skills seem basic to the people on the site here but there are not many people that can do that. I think in the computer classes that these kids take there should be a hands on portion where they learn how to build computers. I'm sure there are tons of old Pentiums kicking around that they can rip apart and rebuild.

Either way I figured the blog post would ruffle some feathers here. :r1:
 
Tekno Venus said:
Excuse me.... :lol:

I do see where this article is coming from, but no, not all kids can't use computers. Here on the admin team at Sysnative, we have admins aged 15 (me), 17, and 19.
Click to expand...

Patrick said:
... I'm 20 years old and I still don't have a smart phone, AND I am in IT.
Click to expand...

I'll just say that I'm older than those guys & don't have a smart phone either. :0
 
The article is written by an arrogant twit, just like I was when I was a young sysadmin. I knew everything, and anyone who didn't know how to configure their network connections or run commands at a command prompt were STUPID! Until this twit realizes he has no idea how to actually fix his own vehicle if it breaks down electronically (that's a computer, right?), or his dishwasher (again, run by a computer), or his refrigerator (you get the picture)... Stating people don't know how to use a computer because they don't know how to ADMINISTRATE it is probably true if you have usage==admin in your mind, but that doesn't mean people are stupid for not learning how to do such things. I wish more people knew how to click the "fix this for me" button too, but I'm not gonna write a self-aggrandizing blog post about it either. Also, the fact he didn't teach the student because his time was important (just like hers probably was) means he's just another oblivious sysadmin who's better than anyone else. He perpetuated the problem he was railing about and apparently didn't realize the irony in his post, even though he WROTE IT DOWN and should obviously have had time to proofread (and re-read) it.

Did anyone else get that vibe from this? Maybe that's just learning from life as a grown-up consultant who used to be a know-it-all admin, or maybe not? I don't know, but that's the vibe I got reading this. It made me feel badly about everyone I used to interact with when I was a know-it-all PFY. I'm sort of tired of admins who rail that users don't know how to do the basics of their job - does their job title include being an admin on a PC or Mac (or a Linux) box? If so, then fire them. If not, then that's *YOUR JOB*. Stop whining and go do what you get paid to do - you aren't doing the business finances or HR, are you? No? Shut up and get to work, life's not fair, and welcome to the real world where we specialize because it allows us to be better at something than others, get paid for it, and it's better for business usually as it grows to do so.
 
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Bravo, cluberti! Well said. The author said he's a teacher? He's arrogant. If he treats his students and colleagues the same way he wrote about them in that article, he must be a terrible teacher.

I've seen two kinds of IT people. The first type is the know-it-all who keeps their knowledge close to them without the slightest thought of sharing even the most basic tips and assumes no one else has the least bit of a clue. The second is the opposite, willing to not only solve the problem but to explain what they are doing and why. So it would have taken a few more seconds to provide trouble-shooting steps to that student who said her computer wouldn't "switch on". He didn't ask what she had done. He assumed. Taking her through the steps on what to check would also be beneficial to the rest of the class.
 

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