Comments on: Practical DIY on the decline?

By: Natalie Jost

Natalie Jost — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:38:00 +0000

What an interesting idea. In my house DIY isn't a problem thankfully, but I wonder as I raise my kids, if there are a lot of people today who just weren't made to help around the house as kids -- or didn't have BOTH mother and father around to give them a broader DIY scope? I know fatherless homes have been on the rise for a long time. I imagine that hasn't helped. My parents divorced so I got the crafty, home, teaching skills passed to me from Mom, but Dad wasn't around much so I missed out on a lot of the handier skills like anything involving a screwdriver. I'm learning now! :) And Rob C has a great point, but I wouldn't call it a positive trade-off at all. As silly as the movie WALL*E was, I can see a future where people don't do much at all but "push buttons". Scary.

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:15:40 +0000

My wife watches HGTV too much and I’m forced to DIY. Thanks for the read. I’ve bookmarked your site.

By: Victor Agreda Jr

Victor Agreda Jr — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:19:34 +0000

Whatever you do, don’t read Hemingway’s list of “stuff you have to do to call yourself a man” (or something). I guess I’m a total nancy!

But yeah, the basics are gone because for the past 20 years it has become easier to just go to Wal-Mart or Google a quick fix when something breaks. The streets of Home Depot are littered with the clueless who saw something on HGTV, but they have no real skills to do the task. Part of this is a breakdown in society and our educational system.

Most of it is attributed, I think, to the way we’re living. Consumerist, narrow-focused lives of leisure and the assumption that the world bows to us. How is that a breakdown of DIY? Well, if your brain doesn’t need to exercise certain functions, just like muscles, those areas will atrophy.

It’s a lot like those old Star Trek’s where the people were hapless prisoners to the tech their ancestors had created, yet they couldn’t fathom its operation nor could they imagine a world without it.

Personally I hope the economy makes us all realize we gotta DIY a lot more. Having grown up a bit in the 70’s, I distinctly remember my parents doing a lot of stuff at home. They put themselves through grad school while I hung around, so they had no choice. We gotta get to the “no choice” part.

I have no beef with Make, Instructables, etc. but I fear the basics (geometry, problem solving, reading instructions, etc.) are going away. That scares me.

By: kartooner

kartooner — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:00:27 +0000

@Rob: You're probably right. A few years ago we didn't have the tools nor the capability/knowledge, at a consumer level, to edit video and post it online. Social media has made distribution simple. 9+ million views on a video? That's got legs.

By: Rob Cottingham

Rob Cottingham — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:34:47 +0000

Maybe social media is the new DIY. I can’t drywall a basement, but I can edit a video of my kid’s first bike ride and post it to Facebook in no time flat.