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New Linux-Based PCs Encourage Seniors To Learn The Internet (redOrbit)New Linux-Based PCs Encourage Seniors To Learn The Internet (redOrbit)Posted Nov 12, 2009 21:43 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755)Parent article: New Linux-Based PCs Encourage Seniors To Learn The Internet (redOrbit)
I forsee a pretty standard problem that might arise from these units, as nice as they are.
It's called WYSIAYG.
What you see is *all* you get.
In short, if you dumb something down far enough, what you get is not a simpler thing, but a *different* thing. The learning you get from it, such as it is, does not translate to anything you'll need to replace it with once you outgrow it, so itonly postpones the need to learn how "normal" computers work, stranding those people in a computing ghetto.
Worse -- and this will make me sound somewhat elitist, but that's never bothered me before -- unless you choose to treat the Internet as a read only experience, learning how the *computer* works is not the most important part of your learning experience.
AOL dropping Usenet did *not* end the Eternal September, I'm afraid; let's not turn millions more people loose without the first clue about the 'net, shall we?
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New Linux-Based PCs Encourage Seniors To Learn The Internet (redOrbit) Posted Nov 13, 2009 6:43 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> this will make me sound somewhat elitist
Not at all. Senior citizens top-posting on Usenet are threatening our very way of life.
WYSIAYG Posted Nov 13, 2009 10:04 UTC (Fri) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
Being a LaTeX user, I always considered oowriter and similar tools to be cursed with the WYSIAYG property and thus a dumbed-down form of document creation.
So I used to foresee a similar problem with those products. But they seem to be more useful than I expected - even Microsoft has one! I guess the world is big enough for lots of different solutions :-)
New Linux-Based PCs Encourage Seniors To Learn The Internet (redOrbit) Posted Nov 19, 2009 6:39 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
> let's not turn millions more people loose without the first clue about the 'net, shall we?
I think, sadly, that this particular genie is not only out of the bottle, it's eating everything in the fridge, smashing every container it can find, sitting in your favourite sofa firmly grasping the remote and singing "la la la, you'll never get me in there again!".
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