Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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When I was a kid in the 80s, "computers will teach your kids in school" was one of those future utopia predictions. Now the thought of a computer teaching kids is horrifying to me. (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It was right there with flying cars and domed cities on the moon. That was part of the whole Disneyworld/OMNI Magazine promise about life in the year 2000.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Came here to say this. I am one of the oldest people you’ll ever meet that learned how to read on a computer. My parents bought me reader rabbit in the mid 90s and I played the shit out of it lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Mid 90s.......and you think you're among the oldest to learn reading via pc? Wouldn't you be roughly 30ish today?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

1994 was 30 years ago. They're likely to be in their mid 30s to mid 40s, depending on why they used the computer.

In my school the kids who had trouble reading in their teens had additional lessons on the computer to help their reading, and the rest of us had occasional reading lessons on the computer when we were about ten years younger. This was the 80s and 90s in the UK

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

1992 was 32 years ago, but mid-90s could be anything from 1992-1997.

Born in 92, reading text via pc by 94.

32 is still 30ish.

I fail to see how they would be mid 40s. I was born in 83, meaning I'm 41, so not even yet mid 40s. I was reading by the mid 80s.

Unless you think he was 10-15 before he learned to read.

I mean I can see the case for mid 30s, which still falls under 30ish, but mid 40s???

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Mid 90s is 94 to 96, not most of the decade. Most people don't start reading as soon as they're born, they usually wait a few years ;)

As I already said though I knew a few people who were in their teens in the mid 90s who were using computers to learn to read. They were my age, and are in their mid 40s now.

I can't speak for anywhere else, but in my little corner of Wales, we didn't have computers in junior school (the school we attended until we were 11), and there were no computers in our classrooms in the comprehensive school (11 to 15 or 18, depending on whether you did your A levels). There was a computer class, and a handful of computers in the school library. The kids who were missed by the teachers and who were found to not be able to read were given extra lessons to learn.

I doubt that OP was in a situation like that, but it's not overly unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

33 as of last month. My father bought a windows 95 computer and bought me a bunch of reading software. Sure there were older educational reading software, but computers weren’t mass market until the mid 90s with windows 95 as far as I’ve read.