Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!omepd!uoregon!hp-pcd!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor
From: rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn)
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: More on Computer Literacy
Message-ID: <1632@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Sun, 19-Apr-87 13:13:42 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1632
Posted: Sun Apr 19 13:13:42 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Apr-87 03:29:04 EST
Sender: taylor@hplabsc.HP.COM
Distribution: world
Lines: 46
Approved: taylor@hplabs

I think that the best response to the ``computer literacy'' question
is to look at how ``automobile literacy'' has evolved.  The car has
had an impact on American society that is comparable to the
computer's.

Learning to drive is a major focus of several years in a teenager's
life.  When you examine it, this is a rather complex issue.  The law
books related to driving fill many shelves, but most students focus on
a distillation of a hundred or so pages of rules.  There are many
complex physical skills to be learned.  There is a huge body of common
sense to be learned about proper behaviour.  There is esoterica like
map reading to be learned.  But it is not called ``automobile
literacy''.  It is called ``learning to drive''.  The focus is on the
proper use of the car.

Cars have evolved to be much simpler over the past decades.  You no
longer need to learn about the advance lever, nor about the proper
method for holding the starter handle.  (How many readers know the
proper method I wonder?)  Tire changing and other simple mechanical
skills are no longer crucial.  Computers have not been made that easy.
You still need to know some of the equivalents to these obsolete
automotive skills.

But no-one expects you to understand combustion wavefront control or
the important stoichiometric characteristics of the CVCC combustion
chambers.  You aren't even expected to be able to perform an engine
overhaul.  Because these skills are not needed to make effective use
of a car.  They are only needed by designers and repairers of cars.

With computers this same separation of skills exists, but few of the
educators understand which subjects fall into which category.  The
general public is in even worse shape in guessing what skills they
should learn.  This is compounded by a very basic problem.  People
apparently think that computers ``think'' in some sense, and try to
understand them as another kind of person or animal.  They have not
learned the basic rule espoused by my mother after she learned their
use: ``Computers are incredibly boring things.  They have these
simple-minded rules they follow, and once you know those rules there
is nothing left to learn.''  I suspect that there was a similar
culture shock in the transition from the horse (equally stupid, but
emotional and not fully predictable) to the automobile (just a dumb
machine).

				Rob  Horn

	      	Infinet,  40 High St., North Andhyclike t