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M'Bob
·Seems right on the money:
Agree?
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vbrad26
·Technology (of sorts) WILL end us one way or the other. I'm not really joking, I strongly feel that way lol.
Sort of ironic, I realize, while typing this on a computer after watching a video posted to the internet, and reposed on a forum by someone I don't even really know, though interact with almost daily.
Sort of ironic, I realize, while typing this on a computer after watching a video posted to the internet, and reposed on a forum by someone I don't even really know, though interact with almost daily.
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JwRosenthal
·Not to imply people are “stupider” than in generations past, but the ability for critical thinking and problem solving has definitely diminished- you can just look it up or there is an app for that.
I had a young photographer in my office (very talented and wickedly smart) and she had gone on a travel assignment and took some of my older flash units with her. She called me on the second day to tell me that the battery packs on my flash units were dying half way through the day so didn’t know what to do- they are “supposed” to last all day.
I asked if she took a lunch break, to which she said yes. So I told her to plug them in at lunch to charge back up…..”ohhhh”.
….yeah.
This is not an isolated incident. I have seen the younger generation get stymied by what is “supposed” to be versus what the reality is. Problem solving doesn’t seem to go beyond looking up the manual online or trying to find a how-to on YouTube. If it’s not online, then it must not be.
I had a young photographer in my office (very talented and wickedly smart) and she had gone on a travel assignment and took some of my older flash units with her. She called me on the second day to tell me that the battery packs on my flash units were dying half way through the day so didn’t know what to do- they are “supposed” to last all day.
I asked if she took a lunch break, to which she said yes. So I told her to plug them in at lunch to charge back up…..”ohhhh”.
….yeah.
This is not an isolated incident. I have seen the younger generation get stymied by what is “supposed” to be versus what the reality is. Problem solving doesn’t seem to go beyond looking up the manual online or trying to find a how-to on YouTube. If it’s not online, then it must not be.
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LesXL
·Not to imply people are “stupider” than in generations past, but the ability for critical thinking and problem solving has definitely diminished- you can just look it up or there is an app for that.
I had a young photographer in my office (very talented and wickedly smart) and she had gone on a travel assignment and took some of my older flash units with her. She called me on the second day to tell me that the battery packs on my flash units were dying half way through the day so didn’t know what to do- they are “supposed” to last all day.
I asked if she took a lunch break, to which she said yes. So I told her to plug them in at lunch to charge back up…..”ohhhh”.
….yeah.
This is not an isolated incident. I have seen the younger generation get stymied by what is “supposed” to be versus what the reality is. Problem solving doesn’t seem to go beyond looking up the manual online or trying to find a how-to on YouTube. If it’s not online, then it must not be.
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Donn Chambers
·I have found similar problems with students coming into my lab in graduate school. My research area can be generalized as “computational physics” so we do a lot of programming to turun physics equations into code to solve them computationally. Every student who comes into my lab has an undergraduate degree in engineering, physics, or some related degree and all have background/experience in at least some programming language (most recently, it is Python).
However, when I start giving them problems to code up in their first year, they don’t know how to do it! They know syntax of the language, they know how to use some canned routines, but they don’t know the basics of good programming - how to take an equation and set up the steps necessary in the code to solve it (including loops, logical statements, reading in different types of formatted data, and writing out types of formatted data). What they were taught was to pull in code that others have written, use it for their homework problems, and that’s all. They have never had to write a piece of code (including all functions/subroutines) from the ground up.
I spend an inordinate amount of time untraining their bad habits and teaching good ones so that when they graduate from my lab and go into their research life afterwards they can actually write code to solve the problem they need to, and not just rely on someone else’s code that may or may not do what they actually need to do.
However, when I start giving them problems to code up in their first year, they don’t know how to do it! They know syntax of the language, they know how to use some canned routines, but they don’t know the basics of good programming - how to take an equation and set up the steps necessary in the code to solve it (including loops, logical statements, reading in different types of formatted data, and writing out types of formatted data). What they were taught was to pull in code that others have written, use it for their homework problems, and that’s all. They have never had to write a piece of code (including all functions/subroutines) from the ground up.
I spend an inordinate amount of time untraining their bad habits and teaching good ones so that when they graduate from my lab and go into their research life afterwards they can actually write code to solve the problem they need to, and not just rely on someone else’s code that may or may not do what they actually need to do.
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M'Bob
·I still have a flip phone, but Verizon sent me a not too nice letter that if I didn’t upgrade by December, I will have no service. Apparently, 3G is going the way of the dinosaur. So now they’ve got me…
I see so many people taking a walk with their dogs or kids, in the gym, at work, repetitively checking those fυcking phones. How about looking at the trees, talking to the people around you, telling a lame Dad joke at the water cooler?
I see so many people taking a walk with their dogs or kids, in the gym, at work, repetitively checking those fυcking phones. How about looking at the trees, talking to the people around you, telling a lame Dad joke at the water cooler?
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Darlinboy
··Pratts! Will I B******S!!!Given our clearly superior critical thinking skills we all realize, of course, that right now there is a group of the "younger generation" on their whatever forum, discussing how "those old folk" just don't get the new way of doing things. 
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STANDY
··schizophrenic pizza orderer and watch collectorI still have a flip phone, but Verizon sent me a not too nice letter that if I didn’t upgrade by December, I will have no service. Apparently, 3G is going the way of the dinosaur. So now they’ve got me…
I see so many people taking a walk with their dogs or kids, in the gym, at work, repetitively checking those fυcking phones. How about looking at the trees, talking to the people around you, telling a lame Dad joke at the water cooler?
I take about 10 people a year fishing where their phone doesn’t work 30 minutes out of town. Then drive another 2 hours away from civilisation. The younger they are the more they check their phones to see if they have service during the day…I always ask if they have any service 👍 It’s like they are hopeful there has been a team of mobile phone tower builders 250km away from town building a tower in the bush just for them….
(funny thing is there is a spot about 1 hour out of town on the way back where they get service for about 2 minutes…..enough to receive all their messages but not long enough to reply….Then it’s another 30 minutes until they have service….love it as it is technology fuc#ing with them just for my pleasure)
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Dan S
·I take about 10 people a year fishing where their phone doesn’t work 30 minutes out of town. Then drive another 2 hours away from civilisation. The younger they are the more they check their phones to see if they have service during the day…I always ask if they have any service 👍 It’s like they are hopeful there has been a team of mobile phone tower builders 250km away from town building a tower in the bush just for them….
(funny thing is there is a spot about 1 hour out of town on the way back where they get service for about 2 minutes…..enough to receive all their messages but not long enough to reply….Then it’s another 30 minutes until they have service….love it as it is technology fuc#ing with them just for my pleasure)
They will have service soon thanks to low earth orbit satellite networks. It's a mixed blessing for us. It will mean that I can ditch my satellite communicator and my wife will be able to make an emergency call if she crashes her bike in the mountains. The downside is that we won't be getting off the grid anymore.
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JwRosenthal
·I see @Mad Dog is watching this thread- hey Colin, can you disable the inflight wi-fi so people actually have to talk to each other again or read a book? Look at it as a contribution to the greater good of society.
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Mad Dog
·…those fυcking phones…
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Spruce
··Sunburst dial fanI see @Mad Dog is watching this thread- hey Colin, can you disable the inflight wi-fi so people actually have to talk to each other again or read a book? Look at it as a contribution to the greater good of society.
What?? They have wifi on planes?? Since when??
I thought ‘Airplane mode’ was to prevent mobile phone usage 😲
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Mad Dog
·I see @Mad Dog is watching this thread- hey Colin, can you disable the inflight wi-fi so people actually have to talk to each other again or read a book? Look at it as a contribution to the greater good of society.
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Archer
··Omega Qualified WatchmakerA phone, or Google, is just a tool. The issue isn't that they exist, but how they are used...
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Scarecrow Boat
·I see so many people taking a walk with their dogs or kids, in the gym, at work, repetitively checking those fυcking phones.
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vbrad26
·A phone, or Google, is just a tool. The issue isn't that they exist, but how they are used...
Agreed. And talking specifically about phones, computers, internet...humans just aren't wired for the sort of connection we currently have to information and/or each other.
Any time time this topic comes up I always think about this quote from of all places, a video game...
"In the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander. All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down social progress, reduce the rate of evolution. The digital society furthers human flaws, and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths."
"Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth." And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper."
That was from 2001. And It could not be more true today.
Just go have a look on Facebook...
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Tony C.
··Ωf Jury memberI still use a "stupid" phone, and rarely carry it with me when I am out of the house. But as I am, regrettably, no longer in the 'spring chicken' category, I can recall signs of this path well before the internet. Decades ago I noticed that (young) cashiers were unable to do the simplest math in their heads, and if the magic number didn't appear on the cash register display, they'd be lost.
I think that the comedian in the original post is being too kind when he suggests that Americans are no smarter as a result of the easy access to quick answers on any topic. Here is some anecdotal evidence, which is simultaneously amusing and damning, to support my view:
https://twitter.com/BomsteinRick/status/1568613300610662401
I think that the comedian in the original post is being too kind when he suggests that Americans are no smarter as a result of the easy access to quick answers on any topic. Here is some anecdotal evidence, which is simultaneously amusing and damning, to support my view:
https://twitter.com/BomsteinRick/status/1568613300610662401
Edited:
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bananapeanut
·I have found similar problems with students coming into my lab in graduate school. My research area can be generalized as “computational physics” so we do a lot of programming to turun physics equations into code to solve them computationally. Every student who comes into my lab has an undergraduate degree in engineering, physics, or some related degree and all have background/experience in at least some programming language (most recently, it is Python).
However, when I start giving them problems to code up in their first year, they don’t know how to do it! They know syntax of the language, they know how to use some canned routines, but they don’t know the basics of good programming - how to take an equation and set up the steps necessary in the code to solve it (including loops, logical statements, reading in different types of formatted data, and writing out types of formatted data). What they were taught was to pull in code that others have written, use it for their homework problems, and that’s all. They have never had to write a piece of code (including all functions/subroutines) from the ground up.
I spend an inordinate amount of time untraining their bad habits and teaching good ones so that when they graduate from my lab and go into their research life afterwards they can actually write code to solve the problem they need to, and not just rely on someone else’s code that may or may not do what they actually need to do.
Back then I learned to code writing algorithms on paper using formal language without touching a computer. Thanks to that training I can code in any programming language. In my days you needed good coders because computers had limited processing power. Now poor coding will do. If we applied the rigor we had then with the computers we have now, the apps we use would be so fast, it would be unbelievable !
As a society we can create things more complex than ever before but as individuals our skills have become limited.
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