80 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
80 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
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title: Do kids not know computers now?
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date: 2022-03-28
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---
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> This post is day 7 of me taking part in the
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> [#100DaysToOffload](https://100daystooffload.com/) challenge.
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One discussion point I've seen around is that kids nowadays don't know how to
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use computers. Okay that's a bit of a strawman, but this article titled [File Not Found](https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z).
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The gist of the article is that Gen-Z kids are too used to search interfaces.
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That means they don't actually know about where files are stored, or how they
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are organized. They only know that they can access the files by searching for
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them. The article talks about how professors ended up having to teach them how
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to navigate directory structures and file extensions.
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As the article claims, it seems to be related to how modern user interfaces are
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designed. Our UIs nowadays are more focused around search capabilities: you just
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type in a search bar and find what you need.
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In some sense I do like this sort of interface. I use something like that when
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launching applications, both on my Desktop and on my laptop! It's actually a
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better interface compared to hunting for icons on your desktop. I use similar
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interfaces in VSCode to switch between open editor tabs.
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However, this is a complimentary interface to hierarchy and organization. Going
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back to the file systems example discussed in the article, being able to search
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through your files and folders is useful. But it's not a replacement for
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hierarchy. You can't just throw files into a folder, and expect to always find
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them accurately.
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Let me give an example with Google Photos. I have been keeping all my photos on
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Google Photos, and between migrating photos from old phones and ones I have
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taken on new phones, I have over 8,000 photos. This is completely disorganized
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of course, but Google Photos has a search functionality. It even uses AI to
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recognize the items in the photos, which you can use in the search. A search for
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"tree" brings up photos of trees, "cat" brings up cats, and you can even tag
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people and pets and then search for their names. Very useful, right?
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Well, it is sometimes. I recently had to remember what my wife's car license
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plate is. A quick search for "license plate" on google photos and luckily, I had
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taken a photo of her car that included the license plate in the frame. Success!
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On the other hand, I was trying to find some photos from a particular gathering
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with my friends. Searches for their names, names of the place, or stuff I know
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are in the picture turned up with nothing. I eventually had to painstakingly
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scroll through all photos to find the one I wanted.
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This reminds me of 2 things. One is this article named [To Organize The World's
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Information](https://dkb.io/post/organize-the-world-information) by
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[@dkb868@twitter.com](https://nitter.net/dkb868). One thing I found interesting
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on that article was that the concept of "the library" has been lost over the
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last few decades as a way to organize information. They define the library as a
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hierarchical, categorized directory of information. The article also talks about
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other organizational methods, and is worth a read.
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The other thing is the note taking software we're building at my workplace,
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[Dendron](https://dendron.so/). One of the core tenets of Dendron is that the
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information is hierarchical. Something the founder Kevin recognizes was that
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other note taking software make it easier to make new notes, but they don't
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support hierarchical structures which makes it hard to find those notes later.
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I've also experienced this, when I used other note taking software (or sticky
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notes!) I found that it was easy to just jot down a few notes, but they very
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quickly get lost or hard to find when you need them. A hierarchical organization
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makes it possible to actually find and reference the information later.
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Requiring organization creates a barrier of entry to storing information, but
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what good is storing information if you can't retrieve the information later?
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This seems to work pretty well with Dendron. Would it not work for other things?
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Why not for taking photos? You of course want to be able to quickly snap a photo
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so you can record a moment before it's gone, but perhaps you could be required
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to organize your photos afterwards. Before modern cellphones & internet
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connected cameras, you'd have to get your photos developed or transfer them off
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an SD card: a step where you would have to (or have the opportunity to) organize
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your photos. I wonder if we cloud services could ask you to organize your photos
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before syncing them as well.
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