These are good reasons to learn “ analog” skills. 

I guess this really resonates me, because he's right more than he knows.

People think we are more advanced than people in the 1880s, because we have these magic smartphones.

But who actually knows anything about how a smartphone works? Who knows how to build one? Are they really the equivalent of a hammer or saw in the 1880s? People could create those items single-handedly if needed.

I read this REALLY AWESOME short story, a sci-fi story, about a man from the far future who travels to the present day. He's an average guy, and people are asking him all sorts of questions.
He touches on some of the things people can do in the future, but he's totally useless in terms of telling us how they do it, or helping us to be able to understand or do those things.
Of course, that's the author's point. Unless you bring back a doctor, you'll know nothing of future medicine. Everything is compartmentalized and no one person "carries with them" the technology from a given age, or can reproduce it by themselves.

If you were transported to 1880, or 1800, or 1700, or pretty much any date in the past, do you really think you'd be king of the world in a few months, a few years, or EVER? Just because you're from the future and therefore more advanced? I doubt it.
Unless you bring a machine gun with you with lots of ammo,  you wouldn't have *any* advantages over the natives, and actually you would probably be at a disadvantage in virtually all areas!

Serious food for thought.

About the only knowledge most people have is super generalized, popular knowledge or general economic knowledge like "Apple took off", "Google took off", "Microsoft took off" so they could buy lots of stock if they ended up in 1980. Or if they were in 2011 they could make a major investment in Bitcoin mining and be set for life. 

But in terms of actual technology, tools -- most people living today haven't the faintest clue about *any* of the advanced stuff we moderns are so proud of. I understand specialization, but so many people don't even understand how to create even *part of it* from scratch (which involves understanding something at the lowest level).

I guess this really resonates me, because he's right more than he knows.

People think we are more advanced than people in the 1880s, because we have these magic smartphones.

But who actually knows anything about how a smartphone works? Who knows how to build one? Are they really the equivalent of a hammer or saw in the 1880s? People could create those items single-handedly if needed.

My husband spent almost two decades working for Blackberry and I doubt that even he could build a working smart phone if transported to the 1880s.  Although he thoroughly understands the theory involved, none of the supporting technology would be in place.  For example, smart phones require a cellular network.  One would  need to not simply build the phone but all the cell towers. 

People back in the 1880s were much more self-sufficient that we are today ... in terms of basic survival.  They would have an advantage over the moderns precisely because we have become so dependent on technology.