Net pioneer calls computers mostly a waste
Stoll, a cheerfully eccentric astronomer and computer whiz, cracked an international computer spy ring in the 1980s after noticing a 75-cent billing discrepancy in a university computer system. He wrote a best-selling book, ''The Cuckoo's Egg,'' about the experience.
As the Internet developed, he realized that his near-addiction to it was ruling his life. His second best seller, ''Silicon Snake Oil,'' discusses the failings of the Internet: the massive amounts of unsorted, untrustworthy information it dumps into a person's lap and the isolation it can bring.
Stoll lives in Oakland, Calif., where he works as an astronomer, writer, computer security consultant and lecturer. A father of two small children, he is working on a new book arguing against computers in schools.
He recently spoke with staff writer Aline McKenzie about his iconoclastic views. Excerpts from the interview follow:
Q. You were, as a scientist, one of the first using the ARPAnet (predecessor to the Internet) ... and you're now very cautious about its use. How did you begin to develop those reservations?
A. My high school, in Buffalo, N.Y., was the world's first high school with a digital computer, in 1963. I became a computer expert in my freshman year in high school, writing Fortran, Assembler, machine language and developing programs.
Along the way, I've discovered that using computers ... was a great way to make it look like I was doing wonderful academics when in fact I'm just screwing around.
And for all the many, many hours that I've spent online and on computers, seems to me that most of the important work that I've done has happened independent of the hours that I've spent online.
When I think of the skills that I need as an astronomer, they're skills like knowing mathematics, understanding physics, being able to manipulate a telescope, being able to write a paper, being able to read analytically and understand what someone else has written. Being able to poke holes in arguments. To be able to stand up in front of a meeting and present my ideas.
All those are really handy things in astronomy, and I didn't learn any of them using a computer. In fact, the more time I spend using a computer, the more time I'm online, the more I dull those very skills.
These days, the computers are loaded with programs to guide the kids through things. Do they spend more time playing and learning ... rather than just doing the rote work as you were doing?
Hey, today educational programs are commonplace. And on the surface, it looks really whiz-bang: ''Wowwwww, you're learning all these things from the computer?'' But if you scratch the surface a little bit and you ask yourself what is really being taught ... well, I think it's obvious.
The main thing the computer is teaching ... is that if you want to learn, you sit behind a screen for hours on end, that you'll accept what a machine says without arguing ... that relationships that develop over e-mail, Web pages and chat rooms are transitory and shallow. That if you're ever frustrated, all you have to do is pull the plug and reboot the machine.
On the surface, all of these wonderful teaching machines are teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, physics, science, history, but ... the reality is they're teaching facts, but not skills.
On the Web, you log into pages of anything. But when you go to a dentist, do you want to go to a dentist who's learned how to do a root canal from a multimedia machine or do you want to visit a dentist who learned how to do root canals by drilling teeth?
Q. On the flip side, where do you see that computers can be useful in teaching?
A. Computers are terrifically effective teachers of how to use computers. And if your view of learning is, ''We've gotta teach our kids to use computers,'' the best way to do it is to feed them a diet of multimedia and Nintendo. If the purpose of teaching is to pour factoids into somebody's brain, disguising it as a fun experience, then computers are just perfect for this.
There's a big lie coming down the pipe. It's the big lie of the educational technologist. ''Buy this educational software! Buy this multimedia system! Wire up your classroom because this educational software will (here comes the lie) make learning fun.''
It's a lie! It's a fraud!
Q. What's wrong with learning being fun?
A. Am I the only person in North America who feels that learning requires discipline, responsibility -- you have to do your own homework -- that learning demands commitment? That learning requires a sense that there's no shortcut? There's no fun, happy, easy way to get a quality education.
The payoff in a quality education is not the energy rush of shooting down flying saucers but rather deep satisfaction that happens weeks, months, years down the road.
What good is a multimedia Internet feed to a child who can't pay attention in class? To a kid who will not read more than one paragraph? To a student who is unable to write analytically?
Why feed these kids more television? Why not instead encourage them to read books. To write. To think. To pay attention in class.
You've got a choice. The Texas commissioner of education, or whoever he is, says, ''Look, this is the Nintendo generation. Therefore, let's give all of our kids computers.'' Essentially saying, ``Hey! Kids watch too much TV, therefore let's give them more television.''
Q. At extra cost?
A. Yeah, of course. It goes without saying that all of this is expensive. But it's not the monetary expense that I care about. No, it's the human expense.
There's this mythos that says, ''Oh, if we bring computers into the classroom, it will supplement teachers. It will add to the classroom.''
I've never met a teacher who said, ''Oh, I've got too much time in class.'' And if you divert students' attention away from the teacher for five, 10, 20 minutes for every period, you have five, 10, 20, 30 or whatever fewer minutes to teach.
Go back to when you were in school. Do you remember film strips? Kids used to love film strips because it would give you a chance to avoid thinking.
But for all the thousands of film strips that we've seen, try the following test: Name three that had a profound influence on your life.
Now name three teachers who had a profound influence on your life.
Q. You mentioned using computers as a good way to learn to use computers. Do you see any benefit to this as a separate vocational class, the way they used to teach typing?
A. In fact, I learned typing in high school. It was kind of useful. I could've taught myself.
No, the most valuable class that I had in high school, way more valuable than anything I learned in computing, was English.
My high school English teacher forced us to read Shakespeare. Forced us to write an essay every Thursday. Forced us to argue and stand up in class and state exactly what we'd read. We didn't like it; we'd much rather have just played Nintendo. I'd rather play with the computer.
What was the result? I wrote two best-selling books. Last week I spoke before an audience of 3,000 people. If you want to be able to write, if you want to be able to speak out in public, if you want to be able to cogently put arguments together, you don't do it by fooling around on computers. You do it through taking tough classes. By having committed, inspired teachers.
Q. Are you getting any response from teachers or others agreeing with you?
A. Oh, hell, yes! School administrators don't want to hear this message, but teachers love it: It's the teachers who are ripped off.
Think of how it must feel to be a teacher ... The one thing that gives you professional joy and satisfaction, namely teaching, is getting pulled out from under you. You're no longer teaching now ... the computer's going to do the teaching. A machine is going to do what you spent going four years to college to do. And it's going to do a better job than you!
It's a fraud. No one can do a better job than a good teacher.
Q. How are you teaching your own kids, and how do you plan to continue?
A. I've got a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old. We don't have a TV set. We spend about 45 minutes or an hour every night reading. We make things. This morning, we made a cardboard house. We figured out how to make it strong, and then we went out and fooled around with some fish and some frogs.
I have no idea how I'm going to be teaching them ... I'm pretty certain that they're going to be attending a school that has as few media outlets as possible. I certainly don't want my kids going to a school that has a lot of computers and televisions in it.
What I want is my kids to go to a school where there are inspired and inspiring teachers. I don't care if my kids learn computers, but I do want them to learn skills. Skills such as plumbing, carpentry. The skill of conversation ... the skill of working hard.
How do I do that? I don't do that by saying, ''Sit down at this machine and watch it make funny noises as you shoot down Martians.''
I do it by, as I'm rewiring the kids' bedroom, helping them pull wires. I don't go out and buy a house from the toy store. You start out with a cardboard box and Scotch tape and string, and make your own little house.
What's going on with the Internet? What does this electronic wonderland deeply promise? It promises information and power. It's the same thing that the devil promised Faust! Omniscience and omnipotence.
Oh, but there's a cost to it. We end up paying for it with the most precious thing we have, namely our limited time on Earth.
You watch your life dribble out your modem at 28.8 kilobaud. You sit down for five hours, pop back up for air. Are you a better person? Are you a changed person? The answer's no. You're just a 5-hours-older person.
Q. Do you see any middle road?
A. Sure. There's zillions of them. My point, though, is it's high time for somebody to stand up and say, ''Look, we don't have to go along with the hyperbole and promotion of an electronic utopia.'' It's important to me to consider not just the promised advantages and benefits of computing and the Internet, but also to ask, ''What are the costs and the detriments of it?''
And as such, I'm presenting essentially negative points of view, because the positive things that computers and the Internet will do for us are repeated daily.
And that's what I'm doing because hey, I know computers inside and out! That itself is infuriating.
Were I not a computer jockey, if I were just a kindergarten teacher who didn't use a computer, a technocrat in their most deeply arrogant way would say, ''You are not online, therefore you don't know of these benefits and you should not be allowed to criticize it.''
It's a little like saying, ''Hey, if you're not a nuclear power engineer, then you don't understand nuclear power enough to criticize it. Trust us. We're experts. We know nuclear power. We know computing.''