...by extension, unless it's in your profession to know stuff... just Google everything else! 
Generation "D"
- Thread starter enaberif
- Start date
I believe that there are things that you don't need...until you need them.
Fire? Unimportant in a world with electricity...until the electricity goes out.
Doing math without a calculator? Unimportant when you've got your phone or calculator with you...until you don't have it with you, or don't want to pull it out every time someone gives you change to figure out if they're right.
Land line telephones? Nonsensical...except that cell phone bandwidth gets saturated during major emergencies and 9-1-1 calls don't always get through.
My Grandpa worked on buses for most of his career as a machinist and mechanic. Shortly before he retired, the company started sending the buses to have their alignments done by laser & computer. Grand. Works well, and very precise. My grandfather retires, but is called back in a couple of months later because a bus is chewing up tires and tie-rods, and the company that does the alignments has just closed their shop in our city. Nobody knows what to do. My Grandpa aligns the wheels using a board with a nail in it--because he knows how to do it the old way.
Progress is awesome, and new tools to make things easier are essential...but we shouldn't always be so quick to abandon teaching and learning the basics, either. If things go south, knowing how to engage social media won't necessarily get you out of it.
Fire? Unimportant in a world with electricity...until the electricity goes out.
Doing math without a calculator? Unimportant when you've got your phone or calculator with you...until you don't have it with you, or don't want to pull it out every time someone gives you change to figure out if they're right.
Land line telephones? Nonsensical...except that cell phone bandwidth gets saturated during major emergencies and 9-1-1 calls don't always get through.
My Grandpa worked on buses for most of his career as a machinist and mechanic. Shortly before he retired, the company started sending the buses to have their alignments done by laser & computer. Grand. Works well, and very precise. My grandfather retires, but is called back in a couple of months later because a bus is chewing up tires and tie-rods, and the company that does the alignments has just closed their shop in our city. Nobody knows what to do. My Grandpa aligns the wheels using a board with a nail in it--because he knows how to do it the old way.
Progress is awesome, and new tools to make things easier are essential...but we shouldn't always be so quick to abandon teaching and learning the basics, either. If things go south, knowing how to engage social media won't necessarily get you out of it.
This is one of the skills that I see majorly lacking.... exact numbers aren't necessarily needed without a calculator, but we seem to have lost the importance of estimating... folks might not need to be able to do exact calculations on the fly, but they should be able to look at grouping of things (be it pallets of items, or items in your shopping cart) and be able to come up with a rough estimate of either number or value. It's one thing to not know the exact number, it's a completely different thing (and unacceptable IMO) to not be able to recognize when numbers are widely different from expectations.
edit: and before anybody get's their panties in a knot... I don't see this as a generational thing, it's a societal / educational thing. This isn't about generation X/Y/Z vrs boomers, it's about things that society on the whole is losing.
I have mixed emotions about this. I have a 12 year old Autistic boy that thrives with the use of technology. He couldn't handwrite a complete sentence if you paid him, but he can type short stories at a 4th grade level. He can function on a PC. All he'll ever need to handwrite is his signature, and that is meaningless as long as it is consistent. When he entered his technology based special program in grade 4, he was assessed to be at a SK (Senior Kindergarten) level in all subjects and could not read. Now in grade 7, he can read. He is up to a 4th grade level in all subjects, albeit lowered expectations, but he's come a very very long way. Books and writing would not help him. I shudder in horror thinking of where he would be now without technology in school and the hindsight to forget about teaching him things he just does not need.
The world is changing. Sooner or later we will rely so much on tech we won't even have to wipe our own arses. Things move forward, not backward.
The world is changing. Sooner or later we will rely so much on tech we won't even have to wipe our own arses. Things move forward, not backward.
Read my 2nd paragraph...
Humans can't simply ''lose the ability to learn'', it's probably the biggest props of our species.
While I too fear a scenario à la Idiocracy (look it up, great movie) sometimes and do see more signs of it everyday, I also see more people interested in learning things, knowledge is made available more and more with the expansion of the great tool that is the internet and there's great imaginative minds that are just asking to be put to use. Don't forget that while North America may be on the decline, other continents are on the rise constantly. Humans are far from done.
If some skills are lost along the road, it doesn't mean that we won't be able to find them back in times of need. There will always be bright minds amongst human population just as there was always mass of stupids, this is nothing new.
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While things move forward society as a whole moves backwards.
As a lot of people have commented when people rely on things far to much it causes a degression in us because of the ability to not know how to do anything and have to find an answer for everything.
If a person had a choice of starting a fire using some electronic means compared to using wood, paper, and a match I bet more people would be willing to use that eletrconic means. Myself I am old school and like the hands on approach and the smells that come with it.
There is nothing like the smell of smoke from a good burning fire.
Generation D because they like the D. Or the like to S the D....
Anyone see that outer limits episode where they had everyone connected to a version of the internet through a chip in the brain and everyone had forgotten how to read?
It was called Stream of Consciousness
It was called Stream of Consciousness
I can say with a certain degree of certainty that younger people now have lost the ability to focus on one task for longer than a few minutes. This is what I think is the biggest problem with the younger generation now.
Needed skill-sets for tool use will change as the tools change. I don't really care a whole lot if a younger person is better able to use a touch screen to write as opposed to a pencil. As long as they can communicate with their fellow humans in a sophisticated manner when required...that is whats important.
But I can tell you that kids are having a tougher time sticking with a task for longer than a few minutes. The ability to troubleshoot and methodically run through a tough problem or scenario is being lost. I see it every day and each year it gets worse. Technology is a great 'distractor', and offers a very easy escape. A symptom of this would be if the answer is not found on page 1 of Google, then the answer cannot be found. Just as well check Facebook/Twitter, etc.
A related issue is one of 'grit.' Kids give up way too easy now when faced with a relatively minor issue. If the problem cannot be solved with little effort then it is unsolvable, or worse, someone else's problem. A symptom of this would be seen in those who cannot seem to find a job in mom's basement, etc.
So tool-use and skillset are minor issues in my books. How often do 5 year-olds 'fix' issues with grandpa's home theatre system? You don't see the child berating grandpa's skills. During the latest blackout Twitter was a great resource to find out when the power might be restored, and how to inform the power utilities that you are still without power. But the skills and grit involved with solving tough problems is being lost, and will be the problem that will affect us as a society (especially economically) in the long-term. I see it every day and it scares me as society does not have the willpower to deal with it.
Needed skill-sets for tool use will change as the tools change. I don't really care a whole lot if a younger person is better able to use a touch screen to write as opposed to a pencil. As long as they can communicate with their fellow humans in a sophisticated manner when required...that is whats important.
But I can tell you that kids are having a tougher time sticking with a task for longer than a few minutes. The ability to troubleshoot and methodically run through a tough problem or scenario is being lost. I see it every day and each year it gets worse. Technology is a great 'distractor', and offers a very easy escape. A symptom of this would be if the answer is not found on page 1 of Google, then the answer cannot be found. Just as well check Facebook/Twitter, etc.
A related issue is one of 'grit.' Kids give up way too easy now when faced with a relatively minor issue. If the problem cannot be solved with little effort then it is unsolvable, or worse, someone else's problem. A symptom of this would be seen in those who cannot seem to find a job in mom's basement, etc.
So tool-use and skillset are minor issues in my books. How often do 5 year-olds 'fix' issues with grandpa's home theatre system? You don't see the child berating grandpa's skills. During the latest blackout Twitter was a great resource to find out when the power might be restored, and how to inform the power utilities that you are still without power. But the skills and grit involved with solving tough problems is being lost, and will be the problem that will affect us as a society (especially economically) in the long-term. I see it every day and it scares me as society does not have the willpower to deal with it.
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