I'm rather an oddity here...I came to microcomputers as a young adult, rather than as a kid, but I consider myself very much of the "home computer generation," and being part of it led to my career. Because of the time my children were born, they were very much inheritors of this. My eldest son grew up sitting in my lap, watching the Norton disk optimizer clean up my hard disk. He and his brother build their own gaming machines, etc.
But reading this article, and some of the comments here, I wonder, isn't this what we were always working toward? Isn't it OK that we're reaching a point where computing devices are ubiquitous and nearly everyone can pick one up and make use of it? My kids are digital natives, but my wife didn't find computers useful until she got an iPad, and it's enriched her life greatly. She's not technical, never has been, and always avoided "complicated" computers.
I think we've merely passed into a different era of computing. For some people it's not as fun, perhaps not as lucrative, but for many more people it's (arguably) more empowering and useful.
But reading this article, and some of the comments here, I wonder, isn't this what we were always working toward? Isn't it OK that we're reaching a point where computing devices are ubiquitous and nearly everyone can pick one up and make use of it? My kids are digital natives, but my wife didn't find computers useful until she got an iPad, and it's enriched her life greatly. She's not technical, never has been, and always avoided "complicated" computers.
I think we've merely passed into a different era of computing. For some people it's not as fun, perhaps not as lucrative, but for many more people it's (arguably) more empowering and useful.