I can confirm, it’s worldwide. 
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True. It always tries to answer, even when it lacks data.
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Super interesting topic Neville, thanks for sharing. Was talking about this the other day.
I think part of the issue is that exposure to tech, in it’s modern abstracted form, no longer necessarily creates a power user. Previously, someone who used tech a lot would’ve had to interface with it in a hands-on way and troubleshoot. You want to game online with pals? Okay, you need to figure out IP addresses, server vs client, you might need TCP/UDP port such-and-such, and so on.
You don’t need to do that today. You log in to Steam and Discord, join and call, and away you go. You can grow up surrounded by digital platforms and have a real fluency in technology interfaces; swiping, tapping, whatever, eg:
(great example, cheers Paul)
so there’s often an inherent understanding of a system interface due to familiarity/exposure.
But convenience tech exposure creates a consumer platform fluency rather than developing real digital skills. You don’t need to think about codecs, aspect ratios, or compression to post a TikTok. You don’t need to know if you need the x86 version of an application; you click ‘download app’ and away you go. Systems are designed for convenience, ease of use, and mass widespread adoption.
So I think part of it is cultivated, in a way. Tech Companies want mass adoption. More than that, they also want users who are comfortable, habitual, socially embedded, and dependent. If you’re YouTube and you make money on an ad-tech/premium sub model, do you want the user who understands how to block tracking, can self-host their own front end, and bypass your anti-ad-block measures? Or do you want the user who just waits 30 seconds for the ad to finish?
Someone who understand files and protocol, RSS, self-hosting, FOSS, is much more difficult to monetise and tie in than someone who interfaces with tech entirely via six bog standard apps on their iPhone.
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You have it. … making digital tech easy removes the learning opportunities and destroys the motivation.
How do we combat this?
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Now there’s the million dollar question…!
I’m honestly not sure. I don’t think introducing friction is the answer - people will just flock to a more frictionless experience. That said, some of the recent movement towards ‘age verification’ has prompted more interest in at least privacy and self-hosting. But the EU, other governments, and most massive tech companies who own the tech people use daily… most of these entities benefit from incurious, compliant users who can’t self-host and feel disempowered to try Linux.
I think contributing to FOSS is a great start, at least. If we can make the alternative less daunting, it’s definitely a much easier sell?
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I think it is possible to make a ‘Frictionless Linux’,
but,
what sort of a linux should we make if we want to help with technical education?
Is it possible to make a ‘Learning Linux’ or an ‘Educational Linux’?
It would have to be a ‘Growers Linux’ rather than a ‘Starters Linux’
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Saw this today on yahoo.news. It was about a book called “The Digital Delusion.”
The excerpt from the article said;
" The book, which he released last December, ties the yearslong downward trend in standardized test scores among American children to the rise of schools giving every child a laptop or tablet. With citations to academic research, Horvath argues students learn better on paper and through discussion, and schools are harming children by sticking them behind a screen."
You can real more about this story at;
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I very firmly believe that giving young people access to technology is a great idea. If we teach them how to use it, find information, put in a practical aspect. But not as a games tool, not as a parental distraction tool. How many young children I see at the table in hotels at meal times just watching a screen not participants in the meal.
Did we have the same problem when TV arrived ?
Or before that radio
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And widespread literacy - it wasn’t till the 19th century most “Westerners” learned to read and write… and there was divide, i.e. it was often thought unnecessary for women to be literate (thankfully many were! Else there’s be no Jane Austen, or Mary Shelley or the Bronte sisters) - this is one theme in Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” - a prohibition on literacy in women…
Or before that - printing - what? You mean you just print more copies instead of legions of scribes scribbling out more copies (with constant transcription errors) of stuff?
And written versus oral traditions…
But I do agree - there’s more “digital uptake” of tech today, but rendered in such a method, you don’t need to be “digitally literate” or need to understand how any of it works… Which is a shame I think… But there were earlier comments in this thread - you don’t need to be a mechanic to drive a car - but a little bit of mechanical knowledge of what might go wrong would be helpful…
Everything’s been dumbed down - when you go to the air pump at a “servo” (Aussie for “gas station” or “garage”) to pump up your tyres - its all dumbed down - I miss the old pumps that gave an analog PSI readout at the business end of the hose, and you manually monitored it till it reach the right pressure (whether PSI or KPa - Australia’s mostly metric, but I still default to pounds per square inch). The PSI readout is now on the “box” the air hose comes out of - and harder read when it’s maybe 3-4 metres away (and you’re over on the other side of the car)…
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I have a hand pump for both my paddleboard and another for my cycle, both are just marked in colour red amber green, they have numbers as well but not a clue the system of measure as it’s not PSI or anything else I can work out. So I pump till they go green. I wanted to do my motorcycle but the manual from Honda did not give it had to ask google but then got conflicting replies.
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I have two electric pumps at home… I have several bicycle hand pumps at home but don’t use them…
Both run off batteries… One’s portable and charges via USB and I carry it on my e-bike everywhere I go - and it’s helped me home on several occasions!
The other one is powerful enough to pump up car and motorcycle tyres - keep that one at home… I’d never attempt to pump up a road vehicle tyre by hand… It has a “generic” remov-able recharge-able battery that can also drive my tree-branch-lopping electric saw… I just call them “Aldi” appliances and you can get the batteries at Aldi stores here
Both of them give a digital readout, and can toggle between PSI and kilopascal (KPa) - but I “know” PSi and never got my head around the metric version… Our “family” car has 32 PSI on a compliance sticker thingy on the door pillar… I usually keep my Harley on around 40 PSi… The tiny little tubeless tyres on both my scooters recommend 50 PSi.
My e-bike recommends 30 PSi - but I have foam puncture prevention inserts between the tyre (they’re “fat tyres” 20"x4") and inner tube, so I only pump 'em up to 27 PSi…
I have a few tyre pressure readers too - which work fine on a car or motorcycle - but on a scooter or bicycle - they let out more air than you should need to get a pressure reading - so pointless - as everytime you try to gauge the tyre pressure - you lose about 5 PSi…
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I have a very nice Makita pump … powerful enough to do a truck tyre, It has a digial readout.
Before I got that, around the farm I used to use a portable compressed air cylinder.
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Yes, my wife would agree. A lot of studies show people learn better on paper -including taking notes etc.. (even more memory retention writing it down vs typing it ) She mainly teaches English, but also Research - And the discussion and thinking process to come up with the solution or answers is very important. It is so important to be able to deduce an answer instead of rote memory. Unfortunately both are being lost in students.
I look at the internet like a calculator. When calculators came out people lost a lot of math skills. (didn’t have to think just type it in). Same with internet- don’t think just type it in and look for answer. AI- is same problem but on steroids. Internet & AI can be great learning , but the individual has to want to learn- not just “spoon feed me the answer”
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That definitely applies to me personally. I cant learn from a video or a live presentation … I need a book or paper notes
I can learn from AI … because I use it like an encyclopedia.
One thing that internet has definitely improved is access to information. The days when only professionals had information access are over. We dont pay professionals for information any more, we pay for services like medical diagnosis or legal advice.
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I agree that hand writing on paper is ultimately much better for learning and retention, and I remember hearing about that study awhile ago. That was of course how I learned back in school a long time ago (over 50 here).
However, I will admit, these days I rarely take notes on paper. For me, I can organize my thoughts much better in something that allows me to format, reorder, and so on. Plus my handwriting is bad enough, and I am so rusty on writing the “old fashioned” way, that I don’t write enough, and so badly, that a day or two later and I have no idea what I wrote down. None of this is helped by my ADHD.
Now, in my opinion, what would work best for me would be to take hand-written notes in the meeting, class, or whatever, and then soon after the fact transcribe them to software where I can format, etc. I suspect that would be best of both worlds. Takes the extra effort that I have not done yet.
I am of the opinion that no one (but especially children) in the process of learning a brand new skill should in any way be allowed to touch LLMs (AI). AI can be a game-changer to build upon a foundation of what you have and expand your knowledge base, but using it will short-cut any chance of you actually building out the fundamentals.
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Interestingly, yeah, we did. Was listening to a podcast the other day that touched on this, funnily enough. They discussed a study which compared the measured IQ of young men in Norway (with the usual caveats about what IQ measures) as commercial TV was rolled out across the country. And consistently once an area received TV, IQ scores declined.
Interesting you mentioned this. Naomi Alderman discusses this somewhat in Third Information Crisis in that she frames our current digital shift as comparable in scale to those earlier revolutions like the printing press/widespread literacy. I do think there’s definitely parallels there in how it fundamentally reshapes the way people interact with and receive information (and even the volume of the information they interface with). I think the difference with consumer convenience tech though is that instead of shifting towards an increase in cognition and active engagement with information like widespread literacy did, we’re shifting the other way toward easier, lazier interfacing that doesn’t require/reward the same depth of curiosity or understanding. Which is why:
I suppose declining tech literacy is part of a wider conversation about how we interface with information and ensure that the technology we use daily augments rather than replaces our own curiosity and thinking.
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Me too. Way back when, air pump used to be free to use.
I now carry a portable air pump in the trunk of my car that plugs into the old cigarette lighter for power.
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An interesting concept I first read in Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer” (science fiction, cyberpunk) - nearly everyone’s digitally literate, and aware, and it’s ubiquitous, except a significant group of the population are illiterate when it comes to text - they read some sort of emoji or iconography only - like heiroglyphs but simpler…
I’m sure there are already people who only use, and understand, emoji and shorthand things like “RU” and LOL et cetera…
I’ve heard of servos in Australia charging to use their air pump - but never seen one - the ones around near me are free… But they do have big signs saying “NO BICYCLES”… Most bicycle valves are not compatible the car type “Schraeder” valves - fortunately my e-bike, and my scooters all have motor vehicle sized “Schraeder” valves… I did once take my scooter to one in the back of the car to inflate the tyres after sitting flat for months…
When I was kid - I’d sometimes try and use service station tyre pumps on my tredley (bicycle) - I’d have to put a piece of rag (or the bottom of my jumper/ windcheater) over it to pump air into my tube… it sorta worked…
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