Dive Computer or Tables - which is safer for a newer diver?

[The Chairman]

It is not the use of computers that the people who trained me decry; it is the intellectual laziness of simply ceding responsibility for that portion of dive planning and execution to a device, without understanding what the device is doing, and what its capacities and limitations are.

I have run into this problem quite often while diving. For the most part, divers were told by their instructors to figure it out on their own. Their instructors didn't believe in PDCs so they left their students ill prepared to use them as a tool. Fortunately, training for PDCs has ramped up considerably, and more divers are being taught to utilize this tool rather than simply try to figure it out on their own.

 

[beaverdivers]

Fortunately, training for PDCs has ramped up considerably, and more divers are being taught to utilize this tool rather than simply try to figure it out on their own.

Exactly! We have been using and downloading hoseless Air Integrated dive computers for training Open Water students since 1998.

We download all of our students dives from their pool sessions on hopefully thru instructor.

Furthermore, they create an electronic log book with tons of info.

Moreover, dive computer are an incredible training tool.

 

[NAM001]

Very well put.

I don't think there is any question that computers are the mainstream and they are here to stay. And I don't think there is anything wrong with the use of a dive computer, particularly for people who do very little diving, and therefore aren't getting the practice to calculate their own average depth, or keep tables in memory.

The trap that's important not to fall into is the one where you make no attempt to understand what the computer is doing. Then you don't know if what it's telling you is hogwash (as it was, the day Peter's Suunto gave him 20 minutes of deco on a dive where no one else in the water had any deco at all), and you don't know what to do if you have different computers within your buddy group that are saying different things.

It is not the use of computers that the people who trained me decry; it is the intellectual laziness of simply ceding responsibility for that portion of dive planning and execution to a device, without understanding what the device is doing, and what its capacities and limitations are.

 

[DiveNav]

..... Fat fingers and fatigued brains are the root of these mistakes ....

Add aging eyes to the list.
I dive with contact lenses and I have a very hard time seeying very small numbers - at the surface :depressed:

Alberto (aka eDiver)