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What aspects of technology do you find hard to understand?

Posted - December 25, 2020
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  • 44603
    Not the technology itself, but the addiction folks have with it.
      December 25, 2020 9:40 AM MST
    4

  • 4624
    We humans are as prone to operant conditioning as pigeons or rats - hence the success of gambling machines.

    In the case of mobile phones and computers, the reward is in the response - even if it is sometimes erratic or only occasional. If most of the responses received were unpleasant, that would quickly extinguish the addiction.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6973026_The_role_of_contingencies_and_principles_of_behavioral_variation_in_pigeons

    In the first experiment pigeons were exposed to either a fixed-interval schedule of response-contingent reinforcement, an autoshaping schedule of stimulus-contingent reinforcement, or a fixed-time schedule of noncontingent reinforcement.
    Pigeons exposed to contingent reinforcement came to peck more rapidly than those exposed to noncontingent reinforcement.

    In the second experiment pigeons were exposed to either a fixed-time or a random-time schedule of noncontingent reinforcement. Pecking showed a constant frequency of occurrence over postfood time on the random-time schedule.

    Most behavior showed patterns on the fixed-time schedule that differed in overall shape (i.e., interim versus terminal) from those shown on the random-time schedule. It was concluded that both the momentary probability of reinforcement and postfood time can affect patterning.






     This post was edited by inky at December 27, 2020 6:14 AM MST
      December 26, 2020 12:10 AM MST
    3

  • 6098
    All of them. 
      December 25, 2020 9:42 AM MST
    4

  • 4624
    I'm a bit like that too.
    I'm slower than most to pick up new tech.
    And most of it seems like magic to me.
      December 26, 2020 12:15 AM MST
    2

  • Programming/coding. Apparently five-year-olds can do it now, but it's not something I ever learned. 
      December 25, 2020 10:07 AM MST
    4

  • 4624
    Me too.
    I've heard that certain types of intelligence adapt to it much more easily.
    But there's definitely a difference with the digital natives.
    They're not afraid to tag anything that might be a button - whereas I fear if I touch the wrong one I'll loves my place and never be able to get back to where I need to be - especially if the path to finding it involved many stages or layers in a hierarchy.
    If it came to having to pull something apart (hard or soft ware) and put it back together again (so it works) I'd probably fail.
      December 26, 2020 12:19 AM MST
    1

  • 44603
    You are a linguist. Isn't programming/coding just another language?
      December 26, 2020 8:39 AM MST
    2

  • 53504

     

      Yes. 

      ~

      December 25, 2020 4:23 PM MST
    1

  • 4624
    ?????!
      December 26, 2020 12:20 AM MST
    1

  • 53504

     

      Ok, is it REALLY just a bunch of zeros and ones? Grrrrrrr. 

     


      December 25, 2020 4:27 PM MST
    2

  • 44603
    Maybe we could invent a new coding process...tildes and ellipses. ~.....~~~..~.~...................~~~~~~~~~. This post was edited by Element 99 at December 26, 2020 8:40 AM MST
      December 25, 2020 5:17 PM MST
    3

  • 4624
    With only two symbols, wouldn't still end up being a binary code?

    But if the coding was in chemicals it could end up being infinite.
      December 26, 2020 12:28 AM MST
    2

  • 4624
    Yep - it's amazing - labrynthine.
    And to think, our nerves work in similar ways with electrical on-off signals running down our dendrites and through our synapses.
    Our genes are switched on or off by environmental influences.
    Boggling!
      December 26, 2020 12:22 AM MST
    2

  • 10996
    I do not understand how pictures and sounds can float through the air and then be seen and heard in another place. Magic!
      December 25, 2020 5:21 PM MST
    3

  • 53504

     

      Excuse me, Miss, but could you please tell me if this rag smells like chloroform?
    ~

      December 25, 2020 5:34 PM MST
    2

  • 4624
    Would you like to understand it?
    Could you be seduced into watching a doco on the topic if the narrator was Morgan Freeman or Brain Cox?
      December 26, 2020 12:25 AM MST
    3

  • 10996
    I have tried to understand it. It still eludes me. Just like how an airplane can fly - I sort of know the theory, but I can't get my head around it. 
      December 26, 2020 4:50 AM MST
    2

  • 16763
    Mobile phones. The last one I got the hang of without help was a Galaxy S4, that was three phones ago. I needed my daughter's help since (despite the fact that she's Apple).
      December 26, 2020 7:45 AM MST
    2

  • 3719
    Define "Technology".

    It's an old word (1930s vintage or even older?) that might have had some real meaning then but is now as debased as "iconic".

    Answering the question though... the one aspect underlying it all that I find hard to understand, is the mathematics; and civil, mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering are all deeply mathematical.

    Somewhat similarly, I made no progress trying to learn computer programming, which needs a similar mind to that for learning maths.  

    There is a big difference between using a complex piece of equipment, and understanding it. Being able to take a photo on a portable telephone and plonk it on Facebook does not mean you are "tech savvy", to use the desperately ugly slang. It means only that you can use the 'phone and Facebook. 

    For example, I can produce fair results from a lathe and milling-machine. So that is one aspect of "technology" I understand, and can use,  though certainly not to professional tool-room standards.

    On the other hand, I don't understand the "technology" of C++ and microprocessor circuits, in the PC I am using to type this, and on which I am trying to teach myself an engineering CAD package.  

    I spent 20 years as a lab assistant using sophisticated electronic measuring-equipment controlled by PCs, and understood what I was measuring sufficiently well to do so, though not to the point of analysing the results. Yet I had to give up on a so-called "smart"-'phone.

    It did not matter that I could not understand how it worked. I knew only that it was a portable UHF two-way radio that could be linked to the Internet, and contained a digital camera - and much flummery. What mattered was that I could not understand how to use it even just as a telephone. It was not at all intuitive and I could not find decent operating-instructions -  and if I had, I would probably have had to carry the important pages around with the instrument.

    I sold it and bought a basic portable 'phone whose speech and text functions are its primary and secondary, and almost only, ones. (That "smart" 'phone, an 'LG 2017', seemed to have been designed so speech telephony was an auxiliary feature for which it was also physically clumsy and awkward to use.)

     
      January 5, 2021 3:34 PM MST
    0