We should be teaching kids to make programs like Word, not how to use them

Technology is turning the human urge to consume information into an unhealthy addiction. Some of this consumption — reading, following the news, exposing ourselves to culture — has obvious merits; I’d have no trouble downloading the entire works of Shakespeare in the time it would have taken someone ten years ago to find their keys before setting off to a bookshop. But with so much around us to consume we seem to have lost the ability to make things ourselves. How can we be creative when every waking moment is spent trying to keep up with the feeds, updates and new releases volleyed at us from all sides?

Take, for example, the iPad, that pinnacle of consumption, that manages to fit TV, record store and library into a retina display and a single button. But have you ever tried using it to make something? If you have thinner-than-average fingers and a good deal of patience, you might just manage to type out a short story or record a passable video of your cat falling off a piano; but you’ll quickly realise it’s a device that’s been painstakingly engineered to ensure that your favourite TV show is never more than five seconds away, rather than to serve any creative purpose.