it’s easier for children to learn more languages than adults
Kids are also assumed to operate at a child’s language level. So an 8-year-old speaking both English and Spanish at the 1st grade level is impressive. But a 20-year-old speaking at a 1st grade level is considered remedial.
Even then, there’s a lot to be said for experience. Computers and languages alike benefit from years of exposure. A large English vocabulary will help you pick up Spanish faster. And many years of experience on an Apple will clue you into tricks a naive Windows/Linux user would never consider.
I remember my dad trying to limit my screen time by putting a password lock on the screen saver. He was shocked to discover that an eight year old figured out how to evade it by… restarting the computer. But then he enabled password on restart and got cagey when typing it in, and that slowed my Hackerman attempts down significantly.
Kids tend to learn basic things faster. But they lack the breadth of experience to recall and apply strategies and patterns they’ve accrued over a lifetime. So much of what we consider “smart” versus “dumb” in problem solving is just “how many times have you already seen the answer to this question applied successfully?” Figuring something out for the first time is always harder than applying the heuristic you’ve been using half your life.
You raise really good points, but I’d want to add that abstract thought and the general ability to “think around corners” are at least as important (if not more so the higher you go) as experience insofar as problem solving and “smarts” go.
Kids are also assumed to operate at a child’s language level. So an 8-year-old speaking both English and Spanish at the 1st grade level is impressive. But a 20-year-old speaking at a 1st grade level is considered remedial.
Even then, there’s a lot to be said for experience. Computers and languages alike benefit from years of exposure. A large English vocabulary will help you pick up Spanish faster. And many years of experience on an Apple will clue you into tricks a naive Windows/Linux user would never consider.
I remember my dad trying to limit my screen time by putting a password lock on the screen saver. He was shocked to discover that an eight year old figured out how to evade it by… restarting the computer. But then he enabled password on restart and got cagey when typing it in, and that slowed my Hackerman attempts down significantly.
Kids tend to learn basic things faster. But they lack the breadth of experience to recall and apply strategies and patterns they’ve accrued over a lifetime. So much of what we consider “smart” versus “dumb” in problem solving is just “how many times have you already seen the answer to this question applied successfully?” Figuring something out for the first time is always harder than applying the heuristic you’ve been using half your life.
You raise really good points, but I’d want to add that abstract thought and the general ability to “think around corners” are at least as important (if not more so the higher you go) as experience insofar as problem solving and “smarts” go.