Item — HN Reader

I agree to some degree. But by that logic, should kids in the 2000s not have learned about the internet because the internet fundamentally changed between then and now?

I think that if anything, it’s really good I learned how to operate a computer and the Internet BEFORE what the Internet became.

I pity the generation who don’t understand a computer’s folder structure because they grew up with smartphones and TikTok.

2 comments

> should kids in the 2000s not have learned about the internet

Yes. Emphatically yes. In elementary school? The kids who were online in elementary school—literally in school—who got like how-to-use-AOL lessons?

They almost certainly underperform those who learned about the Internet at home or later in life. This is like those stupid keyboarding classes in the 2000s. It was obviously a waste of time compared with developing basic cognition.

No AI CEO or chief engineer today grew up with AI. The idea that everyone in a ball sack or ovary is currently incurably fucked when it comes to the future is naive beyond silliness.

To be clear, I’m not presently arguing against early technology exposure. I’m arguing against the systematized exposure of nascent technologies to young children.

I agree and I think some of the comments here have shifted my perspective on this, especially given the age.

I think with teaching anything, there’s always going to be a difference between teaching the tactics (e.g. how to use AOL) vs the fundamentals (what’s the internet, how do computers work)

Your example would call more to create an "information technology" subject in schools, that updates its curriculum to include changes like the development of AI. Thus, you go to that class, some of your coursework in the year is going to involve learning about AI and how it works, what it can and cannot do, using it for some project, so on. Not using AI for doing your homework in every other subject.

Yep good point. I’m not defending using AI to do homework.