An article by Mercury News business columnist Mike Cassidy in today's siliconvalley.com explores what's going on for some teenaged app creators. The story's theme is that teens now consider smart phones as the
ne plus ultra platform for their inventions. App development also provides access into basic programming, the knowledge of which tech's high priests have insisted is among the world's essential ambitions.
Recently, according to a KQED story, some Northern California elementary schools offer class time for learning basic programming language. (No comment was added about helping this new generation become articulate in the English language.)
Teen app developers theoretically can come from all walks of life. In order to create apps, they do need access to a reasonably current computer and, of course, a smart phone. Those criteria immediately separate the haves from the have-nots. Teens from poor or rural backgrounds are far less likely to have this equipment than their suburban or prosperous urban peers. Kids from city neighborhoods without supermarkets (a useful definition of "ghetto") might have a smart phone. A computer? Maybe not.
Further, teens from areas such as tech-savvy
Milpitas (the town mentioned in Cassidy's article) have far greater opportunity to connect with live human beings associated with the tech biz. While the proposition of online peer learning is a slam dunk concept for app development, the process is far more efficient when people interact in such quaint ways as face-to-face meetings.
The one depressing note in Cassidy's piece is a Milpitas high school teacher's observation about what teens find inspiring. "You could say for them that the movie '
The Social Network' was for them what '
Easy Rider' was for an earlier generation...It was just like a way to live." For teens who dream of emulating Mark Zuckerberg's college drop-out career path, beware of what you wish for. The "Facebook movie" depicts a world where emasculated privacy, a disdain for ethics, ruthless financial gatekeepers, corrupt elitism, and a boy's club atmosphere are considered generators of the greatest possible good for individuals and for society.
The Social Network skewers those who celebrate these presumably undesirable qualities. However, teens are supposedly enamored of the "empowerment" tech's young zillionaires embody. We've come a long way -- and not a useful or good way -- from
Peter Fonda,
Jack Nicholson, and
Dennis Hopper rebelling against a fucked up society.
No comments:
Post a Comment