I think the trouble young people have with using desktop computers is overstated. It’s a bit of a satanic panic situation. You can learn it pretty quickly. A common complaint is that “they don’t know hierarchical file systems” because the mobile devices have only flat file systems presented to the user or something. A tree structure is not a challenging concept and the basic things you can do in a file system you can count on 2 hands. Open a file, save a file, rename a file, delete a file, move a file, copy a file, create a directory, enter a directory, move up a directory. The physical interface is the mouse with 2 buttons, a primary and a secondary for opening context menus; and the keyboard which has the characters printed on them. There’s a bit more to it, but it can be explained in, like, a page of text. And the rest you can learn through experimentation. Touch typing is another thing entirely, though. That takes dedicated time to learn.

I wonder if ineptitude with tech shared between the young and old are different kinds. Maybe the old are just completely inept, but, for the young, it’s just temporary. It’s a shock when we find out they don’t know something, but, after explaining it, they’re productive within minutes. A 20-year-old still has plenty of mental plasticity. Having to teach somebody the desktop metaphors isn’t a huge bottleneck.

I’ll end by contending that I don’t think schools should not be teaching computers. Rather, they should be teaching computers in more depth. Teach students basic programming and they will have to learn the desktop metaphors along that journey anyway. Computers are way too important to leave the future stewards of the Earth in the dark about how they work. I had to learn how the energy of a photon relates to its wavelength and I had to read and analyze the Canterbury Tales. Not entirely useful. But it’s at least a little interesting. Kids are very capable. They won’t all be programmers. They should learn it all anyway. Don’t let Silicon Valley have it all to themselves.