There's been a lot of discussion in this group recently about how
newbies, or even so-called "average" users, "need" certain aspects of
their computing experience to be childishly simple (ref: "cli V gui").
Then in another thread (ref: "Windows sucks...") I read this:
Verily I say unto thee, that JEDIDIAH spake thusly:
> When people aren't paralyzed by fear whole new worlds open up to
> them. Although feeling free to explore the computer is not just a
> Linux thing. It's also something that Apple has been good about
> fostering (certainly better than the Lemming crowd).
It occurred to me that this notion of being "paralysed by fear" at the
prospect of discovering something new (complex or otherwise) is wholly
unnatural.
I don't know what the average age of the posters is in this group, but
I'm old enough to remember some of the first computers ever used in the
home, such as the Sinclair ZX80 (no I never had an Altair, but I still
remember the cover story in Practical Computing).
With no GUI, only a limited manual, and no experience of even using a
computer whatsoever, much less /programming/ one, I sat down at this
machine and started using it.
Was I "paralysed with fear"?
No,
Did I scream like a little girl because there was no GUI?
No.
Heck, this thing didn't even have a /mouse/ (what's a mouse?).
The sensation I felt was not /fear/, it was /excitement/ and /wonder/.
I learned, and learned quickly, because I was /enthusiastic/ about doing
so. I knew absolutely /nothing/ about computers (beyond what I'd read in
Practical Computing), and yet I joyfully /learned/ about them on this
little machine. It was utterly compelling.
So I ask quite bluntly, what in God's name is wrong with the whining
idiots that supposedly comprise /newbies/ in today's world, that they
cannot use the CLI, and seemingly cannot even /learn/ the basics of
using a computer, without being guided through it like an infant being
spoon-fed baby food?
Is it that they are not really newbies at all, but have been dumbed-down
by Windows, lending credence to the axiom that "Windows makes you stupid"?
Is it that today's "average" person has an IQ that is greatly diminished
compared to people in the 70's (perhaps as an accumulative and
genetically inherited result of consuming decades of junk food, and
perhaps only a largely geographical phenomenon)? This may also account
for claims by those like Barry Schwartz that in certain cultures the
prospect of having to make /choices/ causes "paralysis and fear".
Or are these claims of stupidity merely hyperbole, and such people would
in fact have no difficulty in learning how to use computers /properly/,
were it not for the incessant propaganda that indoctrinates certain
expectations?
Are curiosity; wonder and excitement no longer sufficient motivational
factors to learn computing ... or anything else for that matter, in
today's society?
If that's true, then its a very sad state of affairs indeed.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
| armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
| neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate
| technology, led them into it in the first place." ~ Douglas Adams
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
03:28:15 up 211 days, 3 min, 4 users, load average: 0.27, 0.28, 0.25
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