Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.
Would be interesting to see if any of these low-level skill folks are actually high (or higher) on mobile skills.
“Mobile skills” are likely still lower skill. Tablets and phones are mostly content consumption devices instead of content creation (photos/videos excluded). Does anyone do serious software development on a phone? How often are mobile users writing papers or prose using only their touchscreen? How many people are doing complicated video edit on an iPhone? Can those tasks be done on a table/phone? Sure, but I don’t think its common.
The reason this is a problem is that it means there is a barrier between deeper computer skills and the devices/environment that people are using daily. The reason many of us became computer savvy on a desktop wasn’t because we wanted to, its because we had to to get the game running we wanted or we had to write the paper we were required to. So being familiar with other uses on a computer, it is only a very mild extension to writing a script if the need arises. The only “new” or “foreign” part is the script, not the environment or interaction of where you’re creating it.
With a tablet/phone as your primary device it means learning not just scripting, but learning all the skills necessary to use a computer. Its a high barrier.
However with their examples you don’t need to write a script, you can solve them that way but you really don’t need to for these examples. This is some basic search refinement skills (Outlook would even help you build this unlike say a Google search with refinement filters) and either a small spreadsheet or a calculator app to max out at their level 3.
Scripting this I would put at a level 4, but I would be interested where the authors of the paper would fit that in as its their research and what sort of percentage would fit into that skill set.
I think scripting is certainly a level 4 activity, since to even get started solving the problem you would need to navigate an IDE and have basic knowledge of a scripting language. Most people wouldn’t even know where to start.
“Mobile skills” are likely still lower skill. Tablets and phones are mostly content consumption devices instead of content creation (photos/videos excluded). Does anyone do serious software development on a phone? How often are mobile users writing papers or prose using only their touchscreen? How many people are doing complicated video edit on an iPhone? Can those tasks be done on a table/phone? Sure, but I don’t think its common.
The reason this is a problem is that it means there is a barrier between deeper computer skills and the devices/environment that people are using daily. The reason many of us became computer savvy on a desktop wasn’t because we wanted to, its because we had to to get the game running we wanted or we had to write the paper we were required to. So being familiar with other uses on a computer, it is only a very mild extension to writing a script if the need arises. The only “new” or “foreign” part is the script, not the environment or interaction of where you’re creating it.
With a tablet/phone as your primary device it means learning not just scripting, but learning all the skills necessary to use a computer. Its a high barrier.
However with their examples you don’t need to write a script, you can solve them that way but you really don’t need to for these examples. This is some basic search refinement skills (Outlook would even help you build this unlike say a Google search with refinement filters) and either a small spreadsheet or a calculator app to max out at their level 3.
Scripting this I would put at a level 4, but I would be interested where the authors of the paper would fit that in as its their research and what sort of percentage would fit into that skill set.
I think scripting is certainly a level 4 activity, since to even get started solving the problem you would need to navigate an IDE and have basic knowledge of a scripting language. Most people wouldn’t even know where to start.