Registered: Aug 2000
Location: In a Blue, Blue State
Posts: 12544

"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Apparently we've reached that point in the US.


Americans Don't Know Much About Technology
Andrew Mollison
c.2002 Cox News Service


Nearly half of American adults believe incorrectly that they would risk electrocution by using a portable phone while in the bathtub.

``We are technologically illiterate,'' an expert committee set up by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council said Thursday. ``As a society, we are not even fully aware of or conversant with the technologies we use every day.''

The panel met at the National Academies to discuss a Gallup poll used in its two-year study of what to do about how little Americans know about technology.

Only 26 percent of those questioned correctly chose ``true'' when asked whether FM radios operate free of static.

On the other hand, 82 percent correctly agreed that ``a car operates through a series of explosions.''

The panel was led by retired Lockheed Martin and NASA executive A. Thomas Young, It included teachers, academics, engineers and such luminaries as ex-astronaut Mae Jamison, a professor of environmental studies who was the first woman of color to travel into space.

Although ``the United States is increasingly defined by and dependent on technology and is adopting new technologies at a breathtaking pace,'' the panelists said, most Americans ``are not equipped to make well-considered decisions or to think critically about technology.''

They said Americans don't know how to seek information about new technology or about how to repair simple appliances. Americans can't use basic math concepts such as probability, scale and estimation to make informed judgments about public policies affected by technology, they said.

The experts suggested 11 formal and informal ways for families, schools, colleges, governments, museums and businesses to bolster Americans' knowledge of technology. For example, technology should not be restricted to science courses but also woven into classes such as social studies and ethics, they said.

``Learning about technology should begin long before kindergarten, and the connection between all subjects and technology should be emphasized through a student's education,'' said science educator Karen Falkenberg of Atlanta.

All of the men and 98 percent of the women polled said it would be ``very'' or ``somewhat'' important for everyone ``to develop some ability to understand and use technology.''

The poll showed the size of the task.

Only 76 percent of the men and 54 percent of the women claimed they could explain to a friend how a telephone call gets from point A to point B.

While nine out of 10 of both sexes said they could explain how to use a credit card to get money out of an ATM or how a flashlight works, only 72 percent of the men and 36 percent of the women said they could tell a friend how energy is transferred into electrical power.

The telephone poll of 1,000 adults, which was conducted between March and June for the International Technology Education Association, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percent.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 15123

quote:

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Originally posted by billgerat
Only 76 percent of the men and 54 percent of the women claimed they could explain to a friend how a telephone call gets from point A to point B.

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only 72 percent of the men and 36 percent of the women said they could tell a friend how energy is transferred into electrical power.

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The difference between men and women there is probably due to the fact that men don't want to admit they don't know.

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