I just had a great conversation (totally unprompted by me) about the changes that myspace has implemented to make it look more like facebook. What struck me is how good this student was about noticing very small changes and features on myspace, and how attuned she was to the fact that myspace is mimicking facebook.
Of course, the whole time I was thinking, man, if I asked you anything about our new history database right now, you wouldn't even be able to call to mind what it looks like, or what it is, let alone knowing where the different buttons are for particular features.
It just goes to show you that teens pay attention to what matters in their lives and to what affects them in a personal way. And what I got out of this wasn't that she was oblivious about the history database (which is somehow supposed to matter more), but that she's actually very savvy and smart. I love that kids are aware of this stuff.
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That's the point that "Everything Bad is Good for You" makes, isn't it? That the complexity that kids will deal with, and how long they will sustain their effort in pursuing success with games or in following the multi-threaded plots of TV shows, far exceeds the effort they will make in factory-floor, one-size-fits-all school environments many of them find themselves immured in.
I hope building skills they can use in parsing the outmoded structures of the databases when they need to.
i think that database designers should definitely pay attention to what the social networks look like--i think some of them do already, but they should do even more.
and certainly, when the kids get into the database, they're really comfortable using it; it's just getting them to use it in the first place that's hard!
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