No IT Education:  "I Can Use A Smart Phone So I'm A Genius" Syndrome

Similar to the syndrome in No IT Education: "The Defaults Work So I'm A Genius" Syndrome is the "I Can Use A Smart Phone So I'm A Genius" Syndrome. Smart phones, like other computers, are programmed, including the defaults, so that any idiot can use them, i.e. they are foolproof; otherwise they would not sell.

This syndrome particularly applies to girls and women, who besides liking to talk more — so like smart phones more than any other type of computer — want everyone to believe they are inherently as technically adept as boys and men, so that they will be given IT jobs whether they are IT competent or not. See No IT Education: STEM and IT Hiring: Trading IT Competence for Diversity.

This syndrome includes the use of social media, which is mostly done on smart phones. Users think just because they can do a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. post, particularly with photos (easily taken on their smart phone), that they are programming geniuses, even though this software too is programmed to be foolproof; otherwise no one would use it. (Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug is the most popular web design book ever written.)

Ham (shown) and Enos were chimpanzee astronauts in the Mercury Space Program around 1960. They were more than just biological test subject passengers. They were trained to push buttons on the panel in front of them in the capsule to perform necessary actions on cue. They could have operated a smart phone. The early astronauts, all expert pilots, complained how little control, which requires expertise, they had of the ship and indeed that the chimpanzees could have done their jobs, i.e. the ships were designed to be run by chimps.

The difference between an expert and someone who just seems like he knows what he is doing, is that the expert knows why he is doing what he is doing. When something goes wrong, i.e. the defaults don't work, only the expert will be able to fix it because he knows why it has gone wrong, especially in IT security. Particularly in IT, society has become a "cargo cult", doing things because it has seen them done that way but not understanding why, much like chimpanzees; see No IT Education: Cargo Cult.

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