My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
“Computer illiterate” isn’t silly and funny to say anymore. Computers have been around since the 80s. Get with the program. Oh and doing a quick Google search yourself can solve a good 70-80% of issues. Stop calling the help desk immediately.
That any website outside of corpo net is the Evil Dark Web. I can’t stand my tech illiterate friends that refuse to use the fediverse or any non tracking YouTube links. If a site is HTML only they shit their pants.
When did people get so dumb about computers ? Man.
That every generation of device is going to be the next greatest thing and they should all have huge leaps like in the early 2000’s.
I doubt people switching from the rotary phones to touch tone phones were complaining a year later about not having something better from the phones.
I’m old and tech-y, and my contemporaries still use the “I’m too old to learn” line on me - and then ask me to sort out their issue. Deeply annoying.
Me too, and I really think we need to be less accepting of it in general. I’ve known lots of people whose job involves using computers, and they can’t use them and refuse to learn and expect others to help them constantly. I don’t mind showing someone how to do something if it’s a new thing that they don’t know, but I’ve known people who get someone else to do the same simple task for them whenever it comes up, sometimes for years. And I don’t mean learning everything there is to know about computers, but like basic shit necessary for your job like where files go when you save them, or how to format text in a Word doc.
Like… if your job is being a delivery driver and you don’t know how to drive and you refuse to learn, people won’t accept it. But for some reason it’s fine with computers. I get that you may not like computers, but again, it’s your job. Learn it.
I’m legit scared of that. Im only in my 30s and my capacity for learning has diminished greatly since I was a child. What if that trajectory continues?
I dont wanna be “too old to learn these newfangled thingamabobs” when we get the next big thing.
I’m at that point but between you and me, it’s pure laziness.
this post reads like an entitled youth complaining about old people.
you know that video of the kids that can’t figure out how to use a rotary dial telephone? yeah, that’s exactly what happens to old folks who can’t figure out how to use a smart phone, or computer, or a smart TV, or a, or a, or a…
technological context is important. you can’t just pick up a piece of technology and immediately understand how to use it. you have to understand not just how it works, but why it works the way it does. knowing the why takes a history of the whole feature.
it’d be like if I posted a meme you have zero context about and I make fun of you for not understanding it and call you an old dumb fuck for not grasping on the basic understandings of why it’s funny.
The issue as I have presented isn’t one of “Old People Dumb”, but one of the idea that older people shouldn’t refuse to learn about something because they are “too old”. Or enabling that line of thinking. I recently had a customer buy a new computer for me and paid for a setup. I needed account details, and he had no idea what his accounts were, his passwords, just that he wanted his computer setup. When I asked for any passwords to get the setup done, he didn’t know because his kids set all that up. If the kids took a moment to show him what was going on, how things worked, maybe he would have had an idea when he needed it.
to riff off your example, what’s an account? is there a bank involved or should I get in contact with my financial advisor? Did I get mail about the accounts? perhaps some kind of ID card came for me in the mail?
what’s an account?
my point still remains. not only were you asking him to understand what an account is, but also the nuances between different accounts and what they do. like knowing what the difference is between a Facebook and email account is.
you take your historical knowledge of technology for granted. one day, sooner than you think, you’re going to be that old man ranting about how nothing works and technology sucks.
“XYZ company already has all my data so I don’t care that they’re spying on me and selling my data to advertisers”
Fucking makes my blood boil. These people have absolutely zero critical thinking skills, or self respect
I dislike the “privacy fiends” that hang around those subs/forums/instances but try to debate you out of trying. The “akschaully that wouldn’t work because…” people. Who are they helping?
blood boil
I’m the same, but I try to explain the errors of their ways in the most relaxed manner.
Most times it doesn’t make a difference but once in a while someone is receptive and makes a change. and it’s really rewarding.It has been theorized once 25% of the population accepts an opinion the rest tends to follow, so I try to be optimistic and take it one step at a time. Lately I’ve had the impression I’m seeing progress.
The thing is though, that most people don’t know why that’s a problem, and privacy advocates seem to think that ‘you’ve got a door on your bathroom’ is a gotcha.
If someone is giving Google their home address and work address, and planning the route to get traffic data, they’re not going to be concerned when Google Maps suggests their work address as a destination through the week. Same for their shopping data. ‘Of course Amazon knows what I like, I do my shopping there!’
We need better ways to explain it to people who don’t understand it, and who are not interested in it or the tech behind it. We have a big problem on Lemmy where we tend to assume that everyone understands the same issues as us, just not as well.
If someone is giving Google their home address and work address, and planning the route to get traffic data, they’re not going to be concerned when Google Maps suggests their work address as a destination through the week.
It isn’t that they aren’t concerned, that is actually something many people see as a benefit. Yes, I still use google maps because it remembers destinations and has traffic density alerts and a bunch of other stuff that require tracking but those are a separate thing from google selling that tracking data to third parties. The former is a benefit and the latter is a problem.
That’s part of my point. For most people, giving Google their data means things like their travel info. The majority of people don’t understand that tracking data is different, or what it means. When you tell them not to give their data to big corporations, they think you mean any data, and don’t know that they can get data that you might not want shared
I fucking hate that word ‘Innovation’. It is spammed by corporatebros who think their shit doesn’t smell.
What’s your opinion on the word “entrepreneur”?
People with no technical background insisting that “AI” is taking over and is sentient, even when I try to explain how it actually works. They refuse to believe that maybe all of those breathless “news” articles are clickbait hype-mongering.
“You just don’t like it because it’s gonna take your job!” Keep believing that, imbeciles.
I hear a lot of people worrying about this being the case in the future but I don’t remember hearing anyone claiming that about our current LLMs.
If you’re entering or exiting the tram, heads the fuck up.
Linux nerds screeching about how Linux desktop works perfectly out of the box and with less time and effort then Windows/OsX.
It’s entirely counterproductive to adoption.
Yeah, I tell people Linux is like driving a custom built car. You can make it do anything you want and have absolute control and freedom, and often do things other cars can’t, faster and more efficiently and cheaply. But sometimes it’s going to break and you need to get in there and wrench. If you don’t enjoy learning, or work 80 hour weeks and have no time to tinker, don’t use Linux desktop.
I got my SO to change because they like to customize, and I’m there if if breaks.
I’m learning a lot. I am now at the point where I know just enough to break everything but not yet enough to fix anything.
It works out of the box - if you do nothing at all to it and just browse.
But to do anything like getting all of your favorite programs, that’s going to take effort.
Though the Application “Store fronts” have come a long way in helping the newbies get rolling.
With older hardware sure. I largely have a flawless experience with anything 10 years old or older. And as long as it’s simple anything 5 years old works perfectly too.
But somehow my 5 year old network card is basically unusable on Linux unless I disable 6ghz WiFi.
Not even. I need custom scripts for audio, can’t turn my display off and on I need to pull the HDMI cable, and Bluetooth is basically unusable.
Bluetooth Linux sucks ass. No one can solve my Bluetooth issue and I’m using a good tp link dongle and updated kernel and keep getting skipping randomly over Bluetooth. So bad.
“I got my 107 year-old great grandmother running Arch from the command line in 20 minutes! Now she browses with Lynx and hosts a Matrix server.”
People need to learn innovation is not always progress, and that some paths forward are dead ends.
“Innovation” under late stage crony capitalism is just newspeak for “further surveillance for poors and enrichment for billionaires”
Not exploring the Settings menu of a new device. That should be the first thing you do when you first power on a new device. Most people just go with whatever the default settings are. Hell, some have never even seen their settings menu beyond the wifi connection.
I think we are just tinkerers, learners. I have been taking shit apart since I was 5, because I wanted to know how it worked and how to fix it.
Many (majority of humans?) people have zero desire to learn or do anything new/different. I thought everyone was like me early on, boy was I wrong.
I’m weird with this. Usually when I get a new phone, laptop or whatever, I like to use it exactly as is for at least a day or so. I like knowing what the “default” user experience is without me having to change or “fix” things first. Like playing a game without mods for a playthrough before adding big tiddie dragons.
Meanwhile, i look for community fixes and hacks the moment i get a game shared.
I get that! Or maybe default settings are perfect. That’s rare though especially nowadays.
Its like using your moms phone (or PC) with chrome, no adblock, 6789764 windows open, and brightness all the way up (what’s dark mode?).
Something I absolutely hate is when people say shit like “do you sell an apple charger?” The complete ignorance of what port your device uses or even what it’s called is infuriating. Look, you either have a usb-c or lightning port, and you only have a lightning port if your phone is from like a decade ago or something. You should know by now to look for usb-c cables. It’s especially frustrating when they get angry at me when they don’t understand what I’m talking about.
I’m a sales supervisor in an office supply store, and I get this ALL THE TIME! I once had someone argue with me over the name of the cable connectors and wondered why I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then they said, and I quote, “Well, to me that’s what I call them, so I’m going to just keep calling them that.”
Clicking OK without reading the box.
It won’t work, I get an error.
What’s the error say?
Let me try again. Ok it says enter a time.
Did you enter a time?
No.
Except that there are about 100 questions on the page and there is no prompt to go to the question you missed.
Many sites are just poorly designed.
dear god, if people actually read the screen, most Helpdesk jobs would be gone. read the damn screen, put that into your favourite search engine. bam. profit.
And an actual search engine… Not an LLM prompt. A plain regular search engine!
Put the error wording in quotes. Scroll past the AI LLM response they force at the top. That first result under there almost certainly gives you the answer.
Or someone on Reddit with the ever-useless, “That never happens to me”.
You’ve met my mother in law, I see. And my dad. Why do they do that? It must be an age thing.
Windows upbringing.
It’s a “can’t be bothered” thing: age is irrelevant.
That transcends all ages, it has to be related to the irresistibility of big red buttons.
Totally. There’s old duffers at work that struggle to open a word doc, but are strangely adept at Navigating Facebook…
And then there’s my girlfriend, wanting help with some arcane bullshit on Facebook because I’m ‘good with computers’ … but I’ve never used Facebook before, never even seen the page she’s messing with, and I only half understand what she’s trying to accomplish.
To be fair, what being “good with computers” actually means is being adept at figuring out a new thing you haven’t seen before.
Computer literacy is about synthesis, not rote memorization. I like citing this interview, talking about software as “building blocks with which you can create things,” as a great example of what knowing how to use a computer properly is really like. (Note that the point isn’t the specific detail of the UNIX CLI, but the principle that he can imagine a novel workflow and make it happen.)
Speaking of which, that’s my “something about how people view or use technology that needs to die:” the notion that you can be “computer literate” without understanding how to program, at least a little bit. The entire difference between a computer and any of the technologies that came before it is that a computer doesn’t have a fixed function, and you can make it do whatever you want it to do as long as you have the imagination and skill to figure out how to describe it.
