Despite a growing maker movement, manual skills seem to be on the decline. Spending time with the digital world and building literacies there shortens the time we can spend with the physical world. As a result we have less and less training in interacting with our environment, it’s artifacts etc., which for example leads to a lack of necessary skills to enter certain professions as an article by the London Guardian points out. Two british surveys, one conducted by a healthcare provider and another one by a company that offers maintenance services show some figures about the phenomenon. They suggest that many young adults seem to have difficulties with even simple tasks like changing light bulbs.
In my eyes, this alienation from the physical world clearly shows both the importance, but also the difficulties of promoting obsolete things as a ressource: If the objects that surround us are already abstract and interacting with them means a challenge to many people, how might we inspire them by the idea that that those things can be repurposed into something else?