I really am so glad to see teenagers with basic computer skills, let alone HTML proficiency. There are several young people following this site (you know who you are) who know what a joy—and sometimes a hassle—it is to use a computer. Oh, yeah, there's bad stuff, sure; like ransomware and accidental file deletion and the occasional process that eats up your CPU resources that you have to nuke, but that's all part of the Computer Experience. You can't get that with a phone or tablet.
Now, before I launch into my "evil smartphone" schpil, let me say that smartphones are an incredible technological achievement. So many different technologies converged in the right place at the right time to make this device possible at all. On our person at any given moment of the day, we have a cinema-quality video camera, still-image camera with enough pixels to make George Eastman break down and cry, sound recorder with better fidelity than all the Tascam decks in the whole of Abbey Road, media player capable of holding more music than a thousand roadside diner jukeboxes, and, of course, the entirety of the internet; to say nothing of the inherent telecommunication ability in voice and plaintext. All of it occupying less space on a surface than a DVD case and weighing less than a coffee cup, operated by touch or voice commands! This is a tremendous feather in the cap of applied science, and is a feat of engineering of which few could have conceived even back at the turn of the millennium. The fact that it took a mere 6 years out from the new millennium for this to be invented and another 1 year for it to become commonplace is absolutely staggering.
Unfortunately, our geek moment has ended.
I guess, what I'm trying to get at is, smartphone use has all but flattened computer adoption with those aged 18 and younger. And, kids, I'm not going to call you a "bad person" just because you use a smartphone instead of a computer. This is a failing of your parents for not allowing you on the computer and your school system for replacing all their MacBooks with Chromebooks. You're not bad. It's just like what Aristotle said: "One cannot know of what one does not know." If you don't know the question even exists, how can you be expected to ask it? You need to ask about computers. Maybe there's a thin-client available at your mum's office that you can use while she's working overtime at the weekend. Maybe there are internet-capable computers at the public library that you can reserve time on.
"Why would I want to use the internet on a computer when I can already do that on my phone?" Simply because the computer version of the internet is vastly different than the mobile version. Take this website for instance. Wouldn't you prefer to read this without reader view? Take any other website on Neocities; hardly any of them are mobile-friendly. In plain terms, computers get different internet. You can play games on the Internet Archive, preview and download new fonts from Fontsquirrel, get over paywalls in one click on your local newspaper's website (hint: it's reader view on Firefox again); you can even come to Neocities and make a website like it's 2004 again. I mean, it's not like you can't write HTML on a phone, but it's a major pain in the ass.
"Why are computers so important anyway?" Well, I hate to sound like your guidance counsellor, but computers are still being used by nearly every industry in the world; if not for big things like software development, then for smaller things like data entry. Time to brag for a bit—my last job before coronaquitting was in data entry. The software had been developed with really old Visual BASIC, so it had all the most common Windows 95 keyboard shortcuts enabled by default. I could position the mouse cursor in a place I knew there would be a button that you had to click, but all the rest I could do with just the keyboard. My system was so efficient, I often ran out of work because I just went so damn quick. Even my boss (who trained on IBM Selectric typewriters, I might add) was impressed. I really don't think, "I've never seen anyone go so fast like that before", was as much of a compliment as she thought. It just told me that all the other temps and file clerks, most of whom were as old as or younger than me, never bothered to learn basic computer skills. And, yes, keyboard shortcuts are a basic part of using the computer. Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+Z to undo, Ctrl+Shift+Q to quit, Ctrl+Shift+C to open the cheat window, stuff like that. And that's even before we even talk about the Tab key. It sounds complicated, but it isn't in the least, and I'm not just saying that because I've been using a computer since I was 10.
Your phone may not be private, but your computer is. As long as you avoid Windows 11 like it's COVID-19, you'll be totally disconnected from any sort of data analysis from just existing. I've heard good things about Arch Linux and Fedora, and there's always Windows 7 if you're more interested in game emulation and playing with CD-R than playing core gamer stuff on Steam or torrenting. I guess ShutUp10++ can still coerce Windows 10 into being quieter about your data, but I still don't trust it. Me, personally; my computers all run Windows 7 and I haven't been hacked in that "zero-day forever" thing that Microsoft said would happen if I didn't switch to 10 several years ago. My next computer will probably run Arch.
And no. Before you bring up Chromebooks, I'll say this. A Chromebook is not a computer. It may look like a laptop computer, it may even attempt in some basic manner to act like a laptop computer, but it is not a laptop computer. It's a glorified tablet that won't even work if you don't connect it to the internet. You can bet all the same AI training and datamining that happens on a phone, happens on a Chromebook.
"But I always use Google Docs to write my fanfics! What am I going to use instead?!" Hey, guess what? I've got a page that talks all about that. Basically, all of the mobile apps you've come to rely upon are duplicated by more reliable computer programs. Instead of Docs, use LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Instead of Easy Voice Recorder, use Audacity and a microphone. Instead of Spotify, use music CDs and VLC media player. Instead of Disney+, use DVD box sets and VLC media player. Instead of YouTube... well, use Newpipe. That's an Android app, but it's the only one I'm ever going to recommend, it's that good. And, if you're one of those people who stores personal files on Google Drive, all you need is a 64 GB flashdrive and you can kick Google to the kerb. A 3-pack of Lexar 64 GB flashdrives are so cheap, it feels like stealing. Plus, it'll give you an advanced look at how to format your drives (because those drives I speak of somehow left the factory with the wrong default file allocation size), which you can do! Because you have computer literacy!
Now, back to the speech for the adults. Kids these days don't need to be told that they're doing it wrong, they don't need to be ridiculed for not knowing how to create a new folder on the desktop, or even for not knowing what a "desktop" is. We computer olds don't need to be making stupid memes about "the TikTok generation" just because the kids in our keyboarding class don't know how to touch-type. For G-d's sake! You're the adult supervision! You're supposed to be telling them how to do shit on computers! You don't need to facepalm everytime someone asks you why Word won't open when they physically tap that location on the monitor. This is our job as computer-literate adults to pass on what we know. That's called "teaching". If you, yourself, are a parent or similar figure in a child's life, then it's your job to make sure that your child understands that the computer is there and is not just a magic box that makes noise sometimes.
Computers are fun.
--3 February 2024--