This is going to be quite unstructured, as it's just a conversation I had put in writing. hence I couldn't come up with a better title either. It occurred to me today that future generations, particularly those born in the last decade or so, will find it quite difficult to grasp the fundamentals of technology thanks to the advancements made in product development. Sure, they'll know how an update made on twitter traverses to Facebook, understand how cookies work and be able to spot the difference between a mobile app and a website viewed on a phone. However they'll find it very difficult to appreciate how computer networks operate, or something more fundamental like wireless / radio communications. In fact a colleague used an old Nokia 6600 (Panda) as a day replacement while waiting for his iPhone to be unlocked, and his 4/5 year old daughter found it incredibly difficult to believe that it was a phone until he called her on it and she spoke to him.
Picture the following - it's 1960; (you're probably imagining it thru a mode offered by Instagam but that's fine). Your father is in his early teens. He comes home after school just in time to hear the match updates on the "Transistor" which may have looked like this:
These devices were called Transistor (or Transistor Radios) for a reason - the semiconducting device / electrical component which allowed incoming radio wave signals to be amplified and converted into electrical signals was called a transistor (or something along those lines) but basically the transistor revolutionized how radios work (by bringing down the size & price by several times), and so consumer grade radios were simply called Transistors - it's bit like how we call the thing in the kitchen just a "microwave" instead of "Microwave Oven". Transistors in the 1950/60 were almost analogically the micro-processors in the 1980/1990, in helping complex large high end technology reduce their size into a more consumer market. But this article is less about technology and its evolution but more about how the future generation has limited understanding thanks to the advancements themselves.
So going back to your father playing around with the radio, he'd have to do at least one or two of the following:
1. Plug in the radio / Turn it on - if it didn't turn on, he'd check a small fuse box behind the radio
2. Switch to Shortwave / Long Wave (AM/FM etc)
3. Position the aerial in a direction he's previously figured out works best
4. Dial the knob on the right untill a clear audio can be heard by finding the right channel
Today's generation of teen would first of all not have to worry about reaching home in time to catch the match update, probably see it streamed thru iPlayer app on his mobile device while at school or on the bus, and would take no more than 2 - 3 taps on the screen to enjoy pretty much the same experience. But here's just two fundamental concepts which you and I born in the 70's or 80's might take for granted, but today's or tomorrow's generation may actually find it difficult to conceive:
1. How things are powered - as long as there is a battery and the manual says plug in every night, my phone runs. So no understanding of the concepts like "Earthing", "110V vs 220V", "Amp Fuse". In fact I think in the future, teens won't even know what electricity is because so many electronics will be solid state and battery driven / green fuel type. Who knows.
2. Absolutely no idea what Radios Waves are - forget about the understanding of the different bands and frequency channels. I was replaying the thought process in mind - when I used to teach elementary Physics at GCE level, I could start descriging Gamma Rays after having it compared with Radio Waves - the idea is that if a student in his teens knows what radio waves are, you can then ask them to picture something of much higher frequency - because the user of a radio has at least some idea of what short & long frequencies are, how they are measured. Maybe next time I see a youngster on the bus listening to Capital FM, I'll ask if s/he has any idea what the FM is all about. Then again in London, they won't be "bovered" so let's move on.
In summary, as it's getting late here, I think the technology we have around us is "packaged" for consumer ease of use. Everything working element is under the bonnet of a shiny touch screen. All the complex processing are handled by software. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that - in fact I'm an advocate of innovation - what I am saying though is it's a pity that today's and future generation will not have a working understanding of a number of universal concepts such as Electricity, Radio, Magnetism, Optics etc.
Having said that, I'm sure my dad never required understanding what vacuum tubes were since transistors had replaced them, so I guess these kids should be fine !!
Picture the following - it's 1960; (you're probably imagining it thru a mode offered by Instagam but that's fine). Your father is in his early teens. He comes home after school just in time to hear the match updates on the "Transistor" which may have looked like this:
So going back to your father playing around with the radio, he'd have to do at least one or two of the following:
1. Plug in the radio / Turn it on - if it didn't turn on, he'd check a small fuse box behind the radio
2. Switch to Shortwave / Long Wave (AM/FM etc)
3. Position the aerial in a direction he's previously figured out works best
4. Dial the knob on the right untill a clear audio can be heard by finding the right channel
Today's generation of teen would first of all not have to worry about reaching home in time to catch the match update, probably see it streamed thru iPlayer app on his mobile device while at school or on the bus, and would take no more than 2 - 3 taps on the screen to enjoy pretty much the same experience. But here's just two fundamental concepts which you and I born in the 70's or 80's might take for granted, but today's or tomorrow's generation may actually find it difficult to conceive:
1. How things are powered - as long as there is a battery and the manual says plug in every night, my phone runs. So no understanding of the concepts like "Earthing", "110V vs 220V", "Amp Fuse". In fact I think in the future, teens won't even know what electricity is because so many electronics will be solid state and battery driven / green fuel type. Who knows.
2. Absolutely no idea what Radios Waves are - forget about the understanding of the different bands and frequency channels. I was replaying the thought process in mind - when I used to teach elementary Physics at GCE level, I could start descriging Gamma Rays after having it compared with Radio Waves - the idea is that if a student in his teens knows what radio waves are, you can then ask them to picture something of much higher frequency - because the user of a radio has at least some idea of what short & long frequencies are, how they are measured. Maybe next time I see a youngster on the bus listening to Capital FM, I'll ask if s/he has any idea what the FM is all about. Then again in London, they won't be "bovered" so let's move on.
In summary, as it's getting late here, I think the technology we have around us is "packaged" for consumer ease of use. Everything working element is under the bonnet of a shiny touch screen. All the complex processing are handled by software. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that - in fact I'm an advocate of innovation - what I am saying though is it's a pity that today's and future generation will not have a working understanding of a number of universal concepts such as Electricity, Radio, Magnetism, Optics etc.
Having said that, I'm sure my dad never required understanding what vacuum tubes were since transistors had replaced them, so I guess these kids should be fine !!
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