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Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1998 Writing off forgotten skills AT birth we come pre-programmed with respiratory, vascular, and all essential life functions operational. We also instinctively mouth for food, hang on to fur, skin, or the branch of a tree. But in contrast to other species walking necessitates years of practice. It also seems to be a function we continually adapt as our bodily characteristics change with age, food intake, clothing, and whatever we carry. If we suffer an accident and undergo weeks of traction in hospital, we not only suffer muscular atrophy and stiffening of the joints, we also seem to forget how to walk. Even more than riding a bike or swimming, walking seems to be a function that needs continual practice and adaptation. Such natural functions are now augmented by a vast range of artificial abilities like reading, writing, typing and programming technology. The stark need for basic skills reinforcement first became evident to me as a young adult when I was ill and unable to walk for a couple of weeks. Curiously, the recovery period exceeded the disability time. More recently skill reinforcement again came to the fore as I returned to fly fishing after an absence of 25 years. It took hours of practice to regain the ability to cast a line effectively Even more dramatically, I was recently called upon to write, with a pen, just a sentence or two in short bursts, on diverse topics for a wide and rapidly changing audience. To my surprise, I found that I had lost the skill. Yes, I could scribble fairly illegibly on any topic at great speed, and certainly I could type what was required, but write in copper plate? I just could not do it, I had lost the ability. Quite literally I had to take time out to practise the increasingly irrelevant art of scratching on paper with a pointy stick. These cumulative experiences prompted me to think of my changing skill set and the accelerating losses our species is experiencing. Most of us need not worry about tracking and hunting down a prey, making traps and snares, weapons from stone, sticks and animal sinews, or skinning, gutting, cleaning, and cooking food on an open fire. But how about computer programs or technology interfaces? Trying to work on some five-year-old files recently, I found myself struggling. Even more dramatically, I came across my old scientific pocket calculator that had gone unused for only six years. To say the least I was rusty, and what had been simple years ago was now very difficult. I well remember an old comedian claiming that he could only read but not write. In Japan this is now becoming a truism for some young people. Hours of practice are needed to form the basic Japanese set of more than 3,000 characters, and along with students in many other cultures, young people's writing abilities lag significantly behind their reading skills. With the rising use of computers the young are now focusing on what is more essential and pressing for their future. No computer skills, no job is the key worry. Perhaps for most of us this trend will accelerate with the use of talk-and-type programmes. Why write when you can type and or talk? Why do anything if a machine can do it better? Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is: |
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