My so-called cyber education
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- August
- 28
What blows me away about my son’s generation is how quickly they were immersed in computers. Don’t get me wrong, I spend the bulk of my day in front of a keyboard or online. Comes with the job. But my generation was so late in coming to it. I’ve often told the story of my first computer class in college, which takes us back all the way to 1981. I can’t recall what I learned, but I do remember the professor telling the class that one day every home would have a computer. We all laughed.
Yet, here we are. I’m 0-1 on computer predictions. The only question now is how many computers you have in your home. My son has his own laptop, and a computer at both his mom’s place and my place. At 9, he has more passwords to remember than I did at 29. I found one analysis from the National Science Foundation that reported that 21 percent of children 2 or younger have used a computer; 58 percent of children 3 and 4; and 77 percent of 5 and 6 year olds. And those are 2005 statistics.
Heck, I can’t even get over my parents using computers. If you told me 10 years ago that my dad would be computer savvy, I would’ve laughed yet again, as i did in that classroom in 1981. Yet, here we are. I’m 0-2.
Anyway, what got me thinking about all this is that my Internet access went down Thursday, and I haven’t been able to log in from home since. The repair guy came twice (to be fair, the second visit was because he left his tools behind the first time) to no avail. I even spent 20 minutes on the phone with my girlfriend’s ex, since he’s a computer programmer. Still, no fix.
So I started to wonder how my computer-savvy son is going to cope without Internet access when he gets back from vacation with his mom. He likes doing research online, playing games and checking out videos on YouTube.
Then it dawned on me: He’ll take it in stride. He’s got the neighbor’s kids and the playground to go play. He’s got books, games, sketch pads and, God forbid, X-Box in a pinch. Computers are just one part of his world, and a familiar part that will always be there again. I’m the one that’s going to miss the Internet: No checking email or the blogs; no online news from around the world; no YouTube (heck, I can waste a way an hour there myself). So even after years online, I think it’s still more of a novelty to me than it is to my son.
I mean, who would’ve thought in 1981 that I’d be missing my home computer. I guess I’m 0-3.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 5:04 pm by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon.
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When I was in college in 1981, you needed to go and buy punch cards if you wanted to use the computer.
That was pretty much the speed we were at, CR. I really can’t say I retained any of it. Computers seemed so bulky that the idea of having one in the home was comical. Now look at us.