# This is what calculators have done to this generation **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 3, 2005, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874 "2005-12-03T05:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/21 "2005-12-04T00:48:07Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > I’m a few months into my first calculus class right now, and some of my classmates have come up with a theory. Your brain can only hold so much math, and it reaches that limit right around the end of your second year of algebra. After that, for every new concept or method that gets put in, something else has to be knocked out. A friend named this the “hook theory,” and (until now), I hadn’t heard anyone else espouse it. The theory is that you only have so many hooks in your head on which you can hang information, and if all your hooks are full, you have to kick out some information to clear a hook for new information. So I’m walking to a final with my friend who invented the hook theory, and we pass a friend in the hall. He says hi, and makes a passing comment about the weather. My friend went ballistic: “Don’t you know I’m on my way to a test? My head is full, and now you’ve told me it’s going to rain tomorrow. How do I know what information I had to unhook to store the fact that it’s going to rain tomorrow? I just know it was something critical. Now I’m going to fail, _and it will be your fault_!” Good times. Needless to say, for the rest of finals week, I smiled and waved to her, but didn’t speak. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/22 "2005-12-04T01:17:06Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > [PDF of the TI-89 manual.](http://education.ti.com/downloads/guidebooks/eng/8992p/%248992book-eng.pdf) Check out Page 25 under “Entering a Number in Scientific Notation.” My manual is a bit different; I have the 89 titanium. What I mean is the manual does not state things in terms I can understand. The manual seems to be written for someone who has had much more math than I have; I’m taking college trig right now. It is hard to look things up if I don’t know the correct term. I have had luck with Googling Ti-89 Titanium hints/tips. I have found some websites that explain how to use my calc in much simpler terms than the manual. ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/23 "2005-12-04T01:27:24Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > God help you if you’re ever in a 7-11 or a fast-food place and the cash registers stop working. I am doing very well in my college math courses (I’m in trig now, easily getting an A) and I still can’t add in my head much at all. I don’t think it is because people are stupid; it is because we rely too much on technology. We may laugh at people like that girl in Taco Time, but I’m sure each of us rely on technology in other ways that would cause others to laugh at us if it failed. Calculators rock! I hate adding/subrtracting stuff in my head! Computers rule! I hate writing and mailing letters and paying my bills the old fashioned way! Cars are the best! It beats walking the 20 miles to school in the 0 degree weather and 2 feet of snow! ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/24 "2005-12-04T01:36:07Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > God help you if you’re ever in a 7-11 or a fast-food place and the cash registers stop working. > > A while ago I was at a ‘Taco Time’, and the cash register wouldn’t work. I think my order was for something like $8.39, and I gave them a $10, and the girl behind the counter couldn’t figure out the change. She got a pencil and paper, and still couldn’t do it. Then she called her supervisor, and the two of them had to _discuss_ the result because neither was comfortable with the answer. > > Of course, during all this I’m saying, “You owe me $1.61.” “It’s $1.61”. “I should get $1.61 back.” Then I was tempted to stop them and teach them how to count out change - “Take out a penny. Now it’s $8.40. Now a dime, and it’s $8.50. Then two quarters, and you’re at $9.00. Then another dollar, and voila! Change is made!” > > But my god… Two people, armed with pen and paper, can’t subtract 839 from 1000 and get the right answer? I could do that in my head in about 5 seconds when I was in grade 3. > > This is not the first time this has happened. I’ve come to believe that 9 out of 10 people under 25 today never learned how to do basic arithmetic without a calculator. Although I must say my daughter is in grade 3, and she seems to get plenty of drills in addition and subtraction and multiplication. So maybe was just some educational fad that passed through and wrecked half a generation’s ability to work with numbers or something. Yeah-at a store where I bought 6 of the same item, and they were $1, I watched the clerk list 1 for $1, another for $1, and so forth, instead of 6 @ $1. She then laboriously drew a line, summed the zeroes…meanwhile I’ve said it’s $6 and 36 cents (6% tax). Dunno if she rode the short bus or had one speed-slow. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/25 "2005-12-05T02:37:24Z")
> [@Campion](#): > > A friend named this the “hook theory,” and (until now), I hadn’t heard anyone else espouse it. The theory is that you only have so many hooks in your head on which you can hang information, and if all your hooks are full, you have to kick out some information to clear a hook for new information. Clearly, you have not read [The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671742515): > [@Douglas Adams](#): > > …There was just one other person before her in the line at the desk and he, it turned out, was having trouble or perhaps making it. > …He was a large man, impressively large and well-built–even expertly built–but he was also definitely odd-looking in a way that Kate couldn’t quite deal with. She couldn’t even say what it was that was odd about him, only that she was immediately inclined not to include him on her list of things to think about at the moment. She remembered reading an article which had explained that the central processing unit of the human brain had only seven memory registers, which meant that if you had seven things in your mind at the same time and then thought of something else, one of the other seven would instantly drop out. > …In quick succession she thought about whether or not she was likely to catch the plane, about whether it was just her imagination that the day was a particularly bloody one, about airline staff who smile charmingly and are breathtakingly rude, about duty-free shops which are able to charge much lower prices than ordinary shops but–mysteriously–don’t, about whether or not she felt a magazine article about airports coming on which might help pay for the trip, about whether her garmet bag would hurt less on her other shoulder, and finally, in spite of all her intentions to the contraqry, about Jean-Philippe, who wasw another set of at least seven subtopics all to himself. > …The man standing arguing in front of her popped right out of her mind. Adams himself seems to have got this from the now generally discredited concept of [Miller’s Number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/26 "2005-12-05T03:11:39Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Clearly, you have not read [The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671742515) This is very probably true, although I will not swear to it. I will say, in my friend’s defense, that she never said how many hooks there were in her head, although there had to be more than seven, given how much we had to remember for tests. I do remember, specifically, that she was concerned that she would forget [M’Naghten’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M%27Naghten) [Rule](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6380871&postcount=10). Don’t know why I remember that, or what hook it’s on, but there you go. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/27 "2005-12-05T03:23:50Z")
I got $7.34 in about 30 seconds - guess I miss a carry-over or something. Actually I cheated too - I added up the two $0.75 to obtain a nice, round number first. If you think that’s bad, this is what actually happened in a pen & paper RPG session 2 days before Player: Okay, I rolled 17, my Strength is +4 and my Attack Bonus is +6, so I get 27. My weapon’s bonus is +1 so 27 plus 1 is…er…err…errr…uh… That’s not the only case: - Once a player reads 6 plus 4 as 11 - Attempting to add up a chain of numbers of eventually result in short circuit of the brain. And this is whole round numbers. But calculators are needed for advanced mathematics. Do you prefer a log table, or a calculator? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/28 "2005-12-05T03:25:02Z")
> [@Strinka](#): > > …snip… > > We did eventually figure it out, without a calculator too! I’m worth $8.39. Anyone want to buy me? You forgot the tax… ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/29 "2005-12-05T04:44:59Z")
Ha! I was just going to start a thread on this the other day. This is a phone conversation I had with a coworker the other day. Now keep in mind I’m driving down the road talking on my cell phone; she’s at work setting at her desk: Me: “…ok, so that’s 1128 _times_ 469 what does that add up to…” Her: " Hold on let me pull up my calculator. ( she’s at her computer/ long pause) shit!!" Me: “What?” Her: “Some one deleted the calc.exe off my computer.” Me: “Who the hell would do a thing like that?” Her: "I DON’T KNOW! maybe it was…( blah, blah, blah… this goes on for a few minutes before we gat back to the topic at hand) … well ok let me let you go. I got to get back to work…" Me: “Hey wait! I need to know what the total on that was” Her: “I can’t tell you! I don’t have my calculator…” Me: “Umm, Do you not have a pen and paper handy?” :dubious: Her: “Oh, right, um yeah,” (giggles) ---
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874/30 "2005-12-05T16:00:26Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > God help you if you’re ever in a 7-11 or a fast-food place and the cash registers stop working. > > A while ago I was at a ‘Taco Time’, and the cash register wouldn’t work. I think my order was for something like $8.39, and I gave them a $10, and the girl behind the counter couldn’t figure out the change. She got a pencil and paper, and still couldn’t do it. Then she called her supervisor, and the two of them had to _discuss_ the result because neither was comfortable with the answer. I’ve experienced worse while in the US. I ordered four 6-packs of chicken and the girl at the register shouts back that she wants “18 … wait 20 something pieces” :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-what-calculators-have-done-to-this-generation/333874.md?page=1)