Geeks vs. Non-Geeks
November 4th, 2004 by Steve Pavlina
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I saw this posted in the Association of Shareware Professionals newsgroups today and couldn’t resist sharing: What really happens at an internet help desk
Although it’s a humorous video clip, it illustrates a pretty common societal frustration. It can sometimes be difficult for geeks and non-geeks to get along when it comes to computers. There’s such a huge lack of understanding by the typical non-geek as to how to perform tasks that we computer geeks would consider basic. To use a computer effectively still requires a fairly high degree of intelligence and skill, although I suppose that depends on how you define “effectively.”
I’ve been comfortable with computers since I was 10 years old (I’m 33 now), so it’s difficult for me to even understand what it must be like for people with low or average computer skills. How do they live? To not have the strong technical skills I’ve developed over the years… would be like losing one of my senses.
The great thing about technical skills is that they’re so versatile. Take this web site, for example. I whipped it up from scratch in a few days. To me it was easy, and many of my fellow geeks could do the same thing and also consider it easy. But think about all the technical skills that we just take for granted to make a fairly simple site like this. Registering a domain name. DNS. Configuring an Apache web server to host the new site. HTML. PHP. Making forms. MySQL. CSS. FTPing files. SSH. Finding, installing, and configuring the script for this blog. Search engine submissions. There’s no way a non-geek could even begin to attempt something like this on their own. They have to find a geek to do it for them. In some cases that can be cost-efficient even for a geek, but if you have the technical skills yourself, it’s often far faster just to do something yourself than to try to explain it someone else. But for a non-geek, they’re often stuck with a great deal of limitations on what they can do without having to pay more than it’s worth to them. This is probably why so many small business web sites are poorly maintained.
What would it be like for a geek to wake up one morning and suddenly lose all his/her technical skills? What kind of career might you pursue?
It’s interesting that as I transition towards writing and speaking as my primary career, I’m doing so in a very geeky fashion. While I’m speaking at least 1-2x per month locally to build up skill, I’m mainly focusing on adding new content to this web site and building an online info products business. First there will be lots of online articles (great for search engines and links). Then I plan to put up some downloadable audio content. Then maybe podcasting support. Lots of geeky features. But I think my technical skills give me an edge that other writers and speakers can’t easily take advantage of (unless they have lots of money). But even prominent speakers that do have lots of money to spend on their web sites will often hire someone that gives them an overanimated flash site or one that isn’t well optimized for search engines because virtually all the text is done as graphics (and no ALT tags to boot). It’s rare to find a non-geeky speaker that has a really well-done web site, and many of these sites aren’t updated, some listing speaking schedules from 2002 and earlier.
What it will be like to transition to working in a non-geeky profession while doing so in a geeky way? I’d be curious to hear from any fellow geeks who survived such a transition and if/how you used your technical skills creatively in your new career.
November 5th, 2004 at 3:09 am
Farming is as complicated as programming. Lets see: Green manure, crop rotation, pest control by introducing predators (frogs, birds, even snakes) etc. My wife’s grandfather was a farmer with limited ‘education’ but he probably used his brain as much as we do today. Every morning he used to go to the field and has to ‘think’ what to do. Failure of crop would basically finish him off. And with plants, if you plant them, you cant do much later!
What I am trying to get at is all human beings are capable of learning and no skill is more difficult than the other. If one fool can, another can too. So the idea that user interfaces to computers have to be dumbed down before ‘ordinary’ folks can pick it up reeths of superiority of the geek classes. I think we lack good teachers that can turn people who are unskilled to become skilled.
Surely the amount to learn to convert a farmer into a progrmmer is large but not impossible.
November 5th, 2004 at 3:10 am
Yeah if I were to move from programming I would do organic farming. Permaculture. Buy 2 acres of land and grow a forest of vegetables, fruits, cereals. Yumm. No electricity. No computer.
November 5th, 2004 at 3:11 am
Because we read a lot as geeks, we can probably soak up a lot information in the new career and use it our advantage.
November 5th, 2004 at 6:25 am
I really disagree that “no skill is more difficult than the other.” If all skills are equal in difficulty for all people, we should see a lot more physicists and neurosurgeons and a lot fewer factory workers than we do. We should see roughly equal numbers of people in every profession if that’s the case. People do what they are capable of, and not everyone is capable of everything.
November 5th, 2004 at 6:26 am
oops, had to fix my blog addy…my bad.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:06 am
Just to add my 2c, “no skill is more difficult than the other” is just like the belief some people in the education department here have in that everyone can be just as good at everything as anyone else. I know it’s sad, but some peoples brains just aren’t wired to understand simple calculus, while others could never be international soccer players. Everyone is created differently and some things just come naturally to some people.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:43 am
I’ve read that it is easier for computer science people to get a degree in something like English or philosophy than it is the other way around. Has it been shown that some people are more mathematically inclined, or is it a matter of how you went through school? If you can’t get algebra, you can’t possibly hope to learn the advanced things like “simple” calculus. But why couldn’t you get algebra? Was it the horrible teaching? Was it your inability to understand the concepts?
Are some people more inclined toward learning new things in general? I could see myself learning any task if I put my mind to it. I imagine a lot goes into things like waste management, farming, public speaking, genetics, etc, but these things have to be teachable, right?
I think a big problem is the lack of confidence people have. I consider myself pretty geeky, but put a Palm pilot in front of me, a device I am not familiar with, and no, it isn’t intuitive. But I’ll learn it, probably fairly easily, and I’ll see what is so intuitive. But I’ve worked in tech support before, and you do get those people who are so afraid of technology that they assume they are dumb. One story I love which proves the point:
Tech support: “Ok, so are you looking at a blue screen?”
User (whispering to co-worker): “Is this screen blue?”
If it was a piece of paper, it wouldn’t be so hard, but for some reason computers/technology scare people into thinking they can’t get it. Math and science are considered “hard” by a lot of people, especially females, as opposed to language and communication programs, and I believe that is because in general people are raised to believe that it is ok to say, “Oh, I’ll never get that stuff.”
November 5th, 2004 at 11:18 am
One thing I’ve always found strange is that there seems to be a stereotype that Computer Science majors are good at math. I have a BSCS myself (with a minor in Applied Math to boot), and I’ve always had a lot of trouble with Calculus. Advanced Calculus, anyway (series, complex integrals, differential equations). Though at the same time, math like Discrete Analysis and Linear Algebra were pretty easy for me. I’ve heard that people who’re good in Calc often have problems with these two. Because of this, I’ve always thought that Discrete and Linear were the “Computer Science Maths” since Calc seems to have absolutely no relevance to CS in itself.
But going back on topic, if I had to pick a non-technical profession I’d become a writer. Writing is my second major interest and strength. Of course these days a writer would have to use a computer anyway.
November 5th, 2004 at 4:38 pm
One of the definitions of “geek” I use, is someone who is intensely interested in a topic. So, I can say I am a geek about business management, as much as I am about Open Source Software.
The distinguishing factor is curiosity and persistence.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:41 pm
In my opinion advanced computer users, aka geeks have less trouble moving to a different profession than somebody moving into “geek” world is due to the fact that to be proficient with computers people have to learn a lot. Computers are progressing very fast and if one wants to stay on the top of the things he has to learn to adopt fast too. In many professions people can keep applying their old knowledge they received back in college. Maybe from time to time one have to learn something new, but with computers I know I have to learn something new practically every day if I want to remain on good terms with it. Also I’m not sure about other people, but I’ve noticed that I often pick up a new skill and learn to do something unrelated to the computers by using similar methods I learn something new on the computers and I get those unrelated skills pretty quick. Anyway what I’m probably trying to say is that people who are good at learning and especially learning quick can become proficient with computers. People who for one reason or another cannot adopt to the changes quick enough will lag behind sooner or later anyway even if they start out as advanced users. That and the fact that software is often not free of the glitches and only advanced users can handle those means that a person has to learn really fast to catch up to the current state of affairs and has to keep learning after that ensures that most people will not be able to shift to the realm of advanced users any time soon.
November 29th, 2004 at 2:52 am
Quite a bunch of questions where brought up in this discussion. But there seems to be a slidly mixup of computer usage and programmming, together with some confusing about what learning is.
Regarding computer usage, my experience with non-geeks is somewhat confusing. For example our customers: On the one hand, I spend hours explaining them the simplest things, while on the other hand they manage to process there home videos - cut them, insert effects - without any problems. Or my father, an engineer: For years, he wasn’t able to get the concept of clicking on an icon to start an application. But he’s doing advanced calculations in Excel.
I think, this breaks down to a matter of interest. These people are not really interested in understanding how computers or software works. It just doesn’t matter. But they are interested in making home videos, so they learn it. My father is interested in calculating the effects of changing parameters, and he figured out that Excel is able to do it, so he learned it.
Vice versa, my father experienced the same, when he was trying to explain the concept of a slide rule to me. He used it heavily (and still uses it from time to time), while I didn’t care. There are pocket calculators, so why care about something old fashioned like a slide rule?
Geeks are interested in computers in general, and non-geeks aren’t. This still is a wide field of interests. Think of the game players out there. They know so much about hardware, the pros and cons of this graphic processor against that, overclocking, RAM bursting. I don’t. I don’t even care.
Are all skills equal in difficulty? Yes, they are. Agriculure is a good example. But why do we not see a lot more physicists and neurosurgeons, as Aaron mentioned? The question leeds in the wrong direction. We see a lot of engineers (don’t they practice physics?) and a lot of doctors, but rather a few people become specialists. This mainly is a matter of chance and needs. Our society simply doesn’t need too much of them - while it needs a lot of factory workers. I’m not saying that everyone is able to become a neurosurgeons, but I bet that if there was a need for 50% of all people to become a neurosurgeon, there surely will be.
About learning: There is a difference in understanding a concept - which is difficult - and applying it to something new. If you understand what object oriented programming is about, it is easy to switch your language, moving from C++ to Java, for example. There are just a bunch of keywords and some libraries to be learned. Your local car repair man does the same, when a new model comes out. However, moving from procedural programming to OO is much more difficult, and I know quite a lot of people that didn’t manage to.
Last, I want to second Ilya about programming beeing more about language than math. Unless you do not deal with tricky algorithms (and normal life programmers don’t for about 99% of their time), programming is about expressing what you want in a way the compiler understands. Combining words to meaningful statements. OO took this even further, because it was designed to mimic human language, having nouns, verbs and objects.
February 9th, 2005 at 9:39 am
I would like to agree with Evelyn. I was able to explain this to a co-worker recently. A friend of mine and I had recently read R.A. Salvatore’s most recent novel and were discussing it. This co-worker said he’d come back when we were finished “geeking out”. I stopped for a moment and asked him how many rushing yards the Nebraska Cornhuskers ran for last year. He had a perplexed look on his face but gave me the answer. I then asked what the first down conversion ratio for the Huskers was. This time he answered and started to tell me how they could have improved this ratio and I stopped him and said, “I’ll be back when you’re finished geeking out”. People have many different and varied interests and everyone is a geek in some area of their life. Luckily for me I enjoy geeking out about computers, the Internet, programming, and fantasy fiction. I guess I’m just trying to say that deep down, we’re all geeks.