A colleague recently recounted some comments the principal at her son's high school made before assembled parents, touting the school's computer-education courses. His comments went something like this:
Students are learning that program... what do you call it? The one with the slides. The slides that move. Scientists use it.
Yes, of course, he was talking about the Microsoft classic, PowerPoint. His confoundment, though, is hardly unique. In today's digital culture, knowledge and age often move along an inverse axis; young people, native to the digital world, often must pass technology know-how up to their elders.
Many people in their mid-30s and older had their first taste of personal computing in the pre-interface era of the command line. Back in the "green screen" era, if you weren't a hacker, it seemed you could ruin the computer just by typing in the wrong three-letter command.
By contrast, children immersed in user-friendly digital media today are unencumbered by the cultural legacy of painful personal computing. They integrate the user experience into their everyday relationships with friends and the world. They can move fluidly between and across modes, such as instant messaging, cell phones, text messaging, e-mail, the Web, and video gaming.
While older generations suffer from technology overload, young people can shape and stretch digital tools as easily as sillyputty. And thanks to the great child-to-parent technology transfer, technology today trickles up.
