The Last Great Tech Generation?

Yes today's children have grown up with computers. Most of them have probably not had a day when their house did not have a computer. Computers have been a given since the day they were born. Yes these students are comfortable with a computer. No they aren't scared of them like many adults are. But are these students really tech savvy? I submit that they are not.

I'm in my mid 20s so I am comfortable with computers. I remember I was 6 years old when we got our first one and it was the greatest thing in the world. 20 megabyte hard drive, 486 processor, 4 megabytes of ram, both sizes of floppy drives (yes those 3.5" "hard" disks are actually floppy disks) Windows 3.1 and DOS. Now in those days to make the computer do anything worthwhile you had to at least know a little something:

c:
dir/w
cd games
cd keen
dir/p
keen.exe

commands like that were necessary just to load a simple game from DOS. I had to know what was going on to actually accomplish something. Later I learned how to write batch files and the like to speed that process up. I even had my own "operating system" at one point (a text file with a listing the names of batch files to run my favorite programs). The key here is I knew stuff to make this work. It was NEVER as simple as just clicking on an icon and boom there I was, and don't even get me started on how difficult it was to install a new program on those.

Now I'll be the first to admit: I'm a geek. I loved this stuff. I become more into this then I needed to. But my friends who weren't as geeky as me still learned the basic commands of DOS, could install programs, and even use a boot disk when necessary. The main point is computers required knowledge to be used properly. Not just knowledge of what buttons to press but what was actually going on in the computer. You had to know why you needed to do something. (The same way I try to teach my students it is important that you know why you are doing what you are doing not just which numbers to add or subtract but the reason behind them)

Today not so much. Everything is so user friendly that the computer does everything for you and you don't have to know anything. I mean you can click one link from a website and it will automatically download, install, configure, and run a program without prompting you for much more than to agree to that darn end user agreement. No thinking no knowledge no nothing. The result: students who are great at playing games, getting around internet filters, and playing jokes, not great computer skills. Today most of my students view the computer as little more than a vehicle to instant message, write papers, and browse myspace on. They have no idea how to use a computer for anything more.

Now some of you may say so what? You don't need DOS commands anymore. All you need to know to do what you want is what icons to click. Here is my quick counterexample. I am setting up wireless network in my house. I want to use MAC filtering to keep outsiders out. Well if you have ever tried to find your MAC address on your computer it is not an easy thing. There is a task that a "typical" person may want to be able to accomplish on their own and cannot be down without some computer knowledge.

What will this lack of computer ability mean for the future? I'm somewhat scared to find out.