It's a very large and fuzzy topic. It depends on what computer system you run. Being able to use windows is not a skill, it's extremely unconceptual and ad-hoc, and mostly coll rote learning. I'm sure older systems, with less layers and cruft (think 70s box) taught you more, giving you simpler tools and more ways to solve problems on your own. Nowadays it's mostly fads.
You're right about self deprecation. Society lifts computer usage as a value even if it's mostly absurd in reality (because I knew excel, people would look at me doing basic tasks saying they couldn't do it). It affects many people, it's very very hard to reverse. It's indeed very similar to math anxiety. Reminds me of childhood friends who dropped out of school in Junior High, couldn't do the "simplest ratio" but were doing them on the fly with custom units to sell weed, I couldn't follow them. It's all ceremony, sadly.
ps: one last thing, I wonder how illiterate people would feel if given a system like NixOS or GuixSD with almost fully rollbackable system; meaning they can mess with it without negative emotions or almost no superstition.
Even in programming schools I and others felt that we should have old machines to program most of the time. It makes you think differently, or just more.
When I push this trail of thought I sometimes believe mainframe programming style slow turnaround: plan, reflect, write, wait for test, correct; was great for this.
Sure exploratory programming, which I used to love, has value, but lots of the development in past days I think came from the technological wonder of "can we do it this way ? cool".
In the post-mainframe golden age, before UNIX and C came to screw everything up, people were using highly interactive programming environments with REPLs, system-wide debuggers, ability to work directly on running processes, etc. I think having access to such tools does not diminish your ability to think (I'm judging by my experience with those tools which somewhat survived in the Lisp world). But the issue with distracting OS seems more real. Back in the 70s, they didn't have a task bar with IM, music player and web browser waiting for you there. It was you and your dev environment.
You're right about self deprecation. Society lifts computer usage as a value even if it's mostly absurd in reality (because I knew excel, people would look at me doing basic tasks saying they couldn't do it). It affects many people, it's very very hard to reverse. It's indeed very similar to math anxiety. Reminds me of childhood friends who dropped out of school in Junior High, couldn't do the "simplest ratio" but were doing them on the fly with custom units to sell weed, I couldn't follow them. It's all ceremony, sadly.
ps: one last thing, I wonder how illiterate people would feel if given a system like NixOS or GuixSD with almost fully rollbackable system; meaning they can mess with it without negative emotions or almost no superstition.