What are some common skills that will become extinct in the next couple of decades?
Today I got into a conversation with my coworkers about how cursive is all but dead with our students. We adults all grew up learning it and were often forced to use it even when we didn't want to, but it has been out of vogue in American schools for a while now, so most of our students legitimately don't know how to read or write it. Opinions as to whether or not this was a bad thing were split. Some people considered the skill unnecessary and were happy to see it go the way of the dinosaur. Life moves on, they said--and the skill was inessential anyway because students could simply print instead. Some even took things a step further and argued that print was also going to become outdated with the prevalence of computers and phones. Nevertheless, others argued that cursive was important and valuable for kids to learn, particularly if they wanted to be able to sign their names or read documents written in script (e.g. old letters from family members, historical documents, etc.)
The discussion then continued to analog clocks. Being able to read them is still technically in the curriculum standards for many states, but it's the kind of thing that often gets briefly touched on and then discarded. Because digital clocks are so prevalent now, many students never practice reading analog clocks outside of those specific lessons, and thus they never truly master it. While more of our students can read analog clocks than can write in cursive, it too seems to be headed down the path to extinction. Opinions about whether this was bad were much stronger, with nearly everyone agreeing that it's a worthwhile skill rather than something inessential.
The conversation made me curious to hear what everyone here thinks--not just about these but about dying skills in general. What are some skills that you believe will fall out of widespread use in the coming years? Is their departure a good/bad thing?
You've already forgotten all of your friend's phone numbers. Why bother learning how to remember anything when the device can simply do it for you, and do it better? You would not believe the looks I get when I dial from memory. People look at me like I'm a zulu warlock because I can remember credit card numbers, windows installation keys, phone numbers, and generally any number I see repeatedly. I learned how to do that in primary school. I don't even put any effort into it or think about it - it just happens. I wonder how many people would be confounded at the sight of a rotary phone. No buttons, how dial? :P
Why even learn how to spell? Autocorrect has got you covered - nevermind that your resume looks like it was done by grade-schoolers in crayon. So does everyone else's, so it's no problem. Popular published fiction doesn't even get a pass by editors now. Clearly, we've overcomplicated language a bit too much for most people to handle, so we'll just get the computers to translate our grunts and hoots for us. Teaching kids how to read and write was too much like hard work anyway.
Farming? What's that, planting Cheerios like they are tiny little doughnut seeds? Most children can't recognize a tomato and don't know that it's in ketchup. Bet you can't even find anyone who knows how to do proper old school canning and curing anymore. We used to know how to store food indefinitely without a refrigerator. Now we're one week without power away from cannibalism in any major urban center.
Someday driving will be one of those skills that vanishes. That one I can at least agree with - what purpose does it really serve, other than to annoy and frustrate? Better to grab a nap on the way to work than play bumper cars with angry drivers during rush hour.
LOL. Could you get any more pessimistic, hyperbolic and grumpy old man, "kids these days!"-ish? ;)
Can you flint knap, fletch, or hunt with a bow and arrow? How about skin an animal and cure its meat? What about operate a spinning wheel or loom? Knit, sew, crochet? Raise livestock? Milk them? Make cheese with that milk? Etc. Etc. Etc. Because I sure as shit can't. Those were all once fundamental skills that almost every human needed to know how to do at one point, but society (and technology) moves on, specialization is necessary to progress and now they aren't fundamental skills anymore. However there are still enough people that can do all the still relevant ones for society to continue to function, and there are enough other people out there preserving the techniques that have no real relevance anymore that they will likely never fully die out as a result.
I also think you would be surprised just how many kids recognize a rotary phone. They may not know its name or understand how to operate it right away, but they still know what it is.
It's a work in progress. I'm sure I can go much further with more practice. ;)
I actually can do most of that stuff, since I grew up on and around farms. Not that I actually want to - that stuff is hard work.
I wasn't entirely honest either, I'm sure I can actually do a fair bit of all that as well without too much trouble, just from having taken home-economics (when that was still a thing in schools), and having so much exposure to history, primitive technology, bow hunting and historical reenactment/cooking YouTube channels and TV shows... which I actually quite enjoy.
But I still think you're being pretty pessimistic and hyperbolic. E.g. Kids not being able to recognize tomatoes and not knowing what a seed is or how to grow a plant... really? :P I know the US education system isn't the best these days, but that still seems pretty far fetched.
Yeah, really. It's been a bit of a meme for a while, not sure how widespread it really is. I was picking stink bugs and beetles I still don't know them name of off of those plants and tossing them into an old coffee can filled with a half inch of kerosene at least once a week. Stuff like that tends to stick in the memory.
I have this ancient set of do-it-yourself encyclopedias on a shelf here - remember those? Thirty volumes, illustrated. They basically teach these skills in the same manner as your typical ikea assembly instructions (with better english). I've seen people on prepper forums building solar or crank powered 'crash tops' - laptops filled with this sort of information, so they have a handy portable library of how to do basically anything for when wikipedia goes down for the last time.
Reality TV is hardly the best way to judge that sort of thing since they have a vested interest in only showing what they want you to see and that industry is notorious for how they manipulate footage to distort reality. And while I can't speak to anywhere else, at least here in Ontario, Canada, I know for a fact (because of my nephew) that fruits and vegetables are used as an integral part of teaching kids the alphabet and spelling, so I very much doubt even 1% of kids under 8 would not be able to recognize a tomato or potato here.
Looks like it's around 30%. Not just America either, similar results in the UK, Aus.
Fair enough, although I am somewhat skeptical of polls and surveys with such small sample sizes. "1601 Australian children", "900 rural and urban students", "2000 people", with only one having a decent sample size (which was quoted in that article as being 27,500 but was actually 13,139). But even with that one I would be a bit skeptical because of the source, it being done online, as well as since it was forced on them by the schools, how many kids would have actually taken the survey seriously instead of just answering randomly to get through it quicker?
There was also recently a topic in ~lgbt about the serious problem of "mischievous responders" as well, so that's worth keeping in mind too.
I had the same reaction going through the studies I did find. Most were informal polls and surveys which aren't reliable by definition. I could find a few doctors talking about it, but that's just heresay, not reliable enough. I found a couple of 'studies' that were by institutions like "The Worshipful Foundation of Healthy Foods" which makes me question their motives and funding. Nothing out there that seems like a proper hard scientific look at this issue.
Thirty percent doesn't worry me - one in four people is always an idiot about something. Seventy would worry me, and I'd weep for the future at 90.
I actually can knap flint, because it's an attractive technique in lapidary work. I'm acquainted with people who do sheep-to-clothing artisanal wool production, furniture from tree harvest to finished cabinetry, and so on.
You might be surprised at the number of hobbyists, artists, scholars, and even criminals who maintain "primitive" skills because they deliver results that can't (yet?) be achieved through mass production techniques, for historical verification, production of replicas or other activities that have esthetic or economic value.
I actually wouldn't be surprised by that at all. Hence my "and there are enough other people out there preserving the techniques that have no real relevance anymore that they will likely never fully die out as a result" and later "and having so much exposure to history, primitive technology, bow hunting and historical reenactment/cooking YouTube channels and TV shows... which I actually quite enjoy." :) But that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people cannot do most of those things anymore despite them at one point being critical to our survival.
p.s. Still, cool you can flint knap though. One of my favorite YouTube Channels is a survivalist who is an expert flint knapper and bowyer, and you may get a kick out of his content: Primitive Pathways
I think even pre-industrialization not everyone needed to know all that unless they lived on the frontier.
Sure. But that depends entirely on who, when, are where you're referring to. Hunter-gatherers absolutely needed to know quite a few of those skills. Once we started living in groups larger than tribes that's when more specialization began and skills became more diversified.
p.s. I was also being a bit hyperbolic in response to Amarok's own hyperbole to make my point that shit changes. ;)
I can't speak for others, but spellcheck helped me significantly in learning the correct spellings of words. Whenever there was a red underline, I would always investigate and correct.
Maybe autocorrect works differently due to its automatic nature, but it has to be better than people sending each other messages full of typos instead.
I turned mine off on mobile. Damn thing was always editing abbreviations and acronyms and carefully chosen curses. :P
I type fine without it on a keyboard, but on mobile I'm always making typos so the autocorrect helps a lot. It's pretty annoying to train it though -- there's a different between "LOL" and "lol" that the computer doesn't understand.
I noticed this a while ago. I used to memorise lots of phone numbers. A few years after using a smartphone, I realised I only know a handful of numbers.
You're not wrong. I saw this video a while back, which demonstrates how much of a lost skill dialling a rotary phone is. Here's another one. This one is also illuminating and amusing.
The first thing I do with any new installation of word-processing software is switch the spelling checker OFF. That thing is bloody annoying! (And occasionally wrong - especially because a lot of them default to American spellings.)
I don't think farming will die out. Obviously, urbanites won't farm... but farmers will. The need to grow food isn't going to disappear any time soon. It will be a specialised skill - but who among us knows how to do brain surgery or build a jet engine? Having a skill be restricted to a group of specialists isn't the same as the skill going extinct.
I'd like to continue that conversation before answering.
If we are heading into the future (and we are), and we are going to write on computers then I'm sure cursive signatures are going to be replaced by digital signatures.
This won't be necessary for the average Joe of the future. A great example is the Bible, who reads it in the original language besides those who already speak it? Almost nobody, everyone can read a good translation and in the future anyone could be able to read a good digitalized version of those letters or documents.
They are going the way of the radio. They are an almost dead technology that we will mostly see emulated on phones in the future, it may be necessary to learn how to read them now, but they are not going to stay with us for much longer in their current form.
That said, I'm going to answer your question now. Desktop computers, they won't go extinct, but they are quickly becoming a product for a niche market. Train and metro drivers are going extinct too, we already have fully automated systems (but not everywhere yet), I've been told by someone who works there that the only reason they keep these jobs is because some people don't feel comfortable traveling in a train without a driver so the driver is there to push a button.
I'm with you on cursive, with the caveat that we'll probably see less-formal handwriting last a lot longer for its simple quick note taking practicality.
Disagree on this one, simply because of watches as jewellery/accessories. Culture changes much more slowly than technology!
Totally agreed, but I'm not necessarily happy about it. I don't care about the form factor per-se, but I'm wary of the shift being used to push everything onto gatekept app stores.
Even with this fear, I see the thinking seeping into my own attitude: I paused recently when I realised whatever small application I downloaded would have access to my whole filesystem. Obviously, that's perfectly standard and has been for many years, but I realised I'd started to internalise the idea of all applications running in their own little sandboxes.
With any luck we can keep the security advances without handing over complete control, but so far I'm not entirely optimistic.
Add decorative clocks to that, too.
Thanks for bringing a point I haven't considered. I agree with you there.
You should consider sandboxing that software and/or implementing ACLs. On Linux I use AppArmor (it comes preinstalled on Debian) and Firejail, on Windows I have Sandboxie.
Also on the topic of signatures, most people's signature doesn't even resemble anything close to proper cursive. Most signatures I see are maybe one letter and then a squiggly horizontal line. Basically no one puts effort into making their signatures readable except for famous athletes.
They should not visit Vancouver, at all.
Almost everyone still writes in cursive here in France. A few people use script for legibility, but it had never even occurred to me that someone might not be able to read cursive. I suspect it's the same in the rest of europe.
This has always been one of those little oddities that interests me - my understanding is that in both the US and France, cursive has a very specific formalised meaning. There are prescribed ways to form the letters, including the added loops and curls, which can look quite different from handwriting letter-by-letter or from most computer fonts.
In the UK I've seen it as somewhat less prescriptive - letter forms are given individually that'll look most similar to a font like Comic Sans (no double-loop 'g' or extra top bit on an 'a', for example) and then "joined up writing" (we don't say cursive) is basically just putting minimal extensions on those letters in more or less the right place to write without removing the pen so often.
Makes me wonder if the US objection is more to the concept or to the formality.
What do you mean by formalised meaning ? I can agree that we're taught specific ways to form cursive letters, but it doesn't hold any particular meaning for us. It's just how people write.
In the UK, we were taught letter forms something like this, and when it came to join them up it was just a matter of, well, joining them together like this. A bit of searching suggests that this handwriting style is known as Getty-Dubay Italic.
My understanding of the US system (and French, from what I know) is that you still learn the letters in the same way as the first link, but then when it comes to joining them up you learn a whole new set of letter shapes - some of which match the originals and others which don't. That's what I meant about formality - cursive is a separate script in and of itself with a right and wrong way to do things, rather than a method of joining together existing letters.
Indeed, "cursive" in North America generally refers to various forms of D'Nealian cursive, which has a strict ruleset and some very unique, conjoined letter shapes (e.g. compare: b, f, k, q, r, s, x, z, A, G, I, J, Q, S, Z) not shared with the standard "print[ing]" form, which is just traditional, unconnected sans-serif style letters.
I had never thought about it either, until I saw it on a really popular post on Reddit. Someone had posted a photo of a handwritten note in cursive, and it got really popular on one of the "mainstream" subreddits like /r/pics. The top comment was a "translation" that just typed out what the note said, and it had a really high score and hundreds of replies saying thanks, because they weren't able to read the note. The note was written in perfectly readable handwriting, all of these people just couldn't read cursive. It was really surprising to me.
Not even cursive, just handwriting at all. It may be something still taught in schools to train certain sorts of fine motor control, but who actually physically writes things anymore?
I write things down all of the time. In my job, IT, I write out plans and complicated issues, it helps me to slow down and visualize things when I'm stuck. At home, I write a lot to reinforce my independent learning. I'll take "notes" on what I'm learning, and most of the time I'll never look at them again. It's just the act of writing them out that makes me feel like I'm retaining more. I've tried many digital note-taking solutions but they're just not the same as having a physical thing that you can instantly mark on and see in any physical configuration you want.
Same. Not in IT, but I'm jotting down notes all the time at work. Mostly during meetings or marking up different documents.
I agree about the act of writing things down to help remember them too. And I have never been able to take notes on a screen. It's just too complicated opening the right program and formatting everything nicely. Much simpler to just walk in with a note pad and start writing.
Me! I jot notes all the time at work.
If I'm on the phone with someone and they give me something I need to remember (phone number, email address, whatever), I'll write it with a pen on a piece of paper. It's much easier and quicker than waking up my computer, opening a notes application (which I can't find on the godforsaken Mac they make me use at work!), and then typing with two hands while holding the phone with my third hand...
If I'm in a meeting, I'll take a notepad and pen to write anything I need to remember. Again, it's easier and less distracting than lugging a laptop or even a tablet around.
Handwriting still has a lot of uses. I wouldn't write it off (ha!) just yet.
There have even been studies done which show that writing something down is a very good way to remember it - much better than just hearing it or reading it, and also better than typing it.
EDIT: Writing might be easy, but typing is hard.
Patience, Cooking, bargaining
Old thread, but I think it's important to mention.
Being versitile.
Now, more abd more people give up learning about stuff they don't specialize in. As a university student, I see that a lot of my peers don't know how to cook, or to clean, or to do tech, or fix things, or manage money, or speak in public, or many other things I can't remember from the top of my head.
This is mostly to blame the current education system that only cares about moving you through to the higher education instead of teaching you how to live; and the parenting that doesn't teach the children to do things on their own.
At this point, for many, it is easier to pay for services like cooking, fixing your phone or car, raising your children with the money you make on that one job you know how to do. It seems like we're closing in on the age of specialization.
I don't know whether it's going to be alright or lead to accidental nuking. There is a case to be made about things like sheep-herding, or bringing your own water, or making your own tools, which I admit, I don't plan on learning. Yet, at some point, these skills have to be too essencial to give up, and there's also these new things called corporations that benefit from us doing so.
Personally, I think a person should get an all-around educations for themselves. For now, on their own, but hopefully, in school also.