It’s helpful to take a few steps back from time to time to reassess where we’re each coming from on our knowledge of tech (or anything) to better communicate.
What browser are you using?
We assume that people know what an OS is, what OS they’re running, and how to install an OS.
I’ve seen it dozens of times, especially on here, where someone describes Linux, convinces the person that they’ll like it, and then gets the equivalent of a blank stare when they say ‘You just need to download the ISO and install the OS’
My mother is in her 70s, and if you set up her computer to run Linux in the same way that it comes ready to run Windows, she’d be fine after a short readjustment. If you gave her a USB stick with Linux on it, she wouldn’t get anywhere because she has no clue what she’s supposed to do with it.
She doesn’t care about the OS, as long as her browser opens and loads Facebook, letting her keep in touch with her friends.
Even as someone relatively comfortable with computers, Linux intimidates me. I want to use it but there’re so many variations and it’s a massive rabbit hole to go down; I just don’t have the time or energy to spend several days getting it set up how I want it and fixing any errors that I cause
Maybe this weekend I’ll give it a go on the old laptop
Thanks, that’s the one I’ve seen recommended the most, I reckon
that’s why I recommend ubuntu. It’s got big market share. It’s orange. It’s linux.
People don’t even know what a browser is… Yet if anybody expresses the slightest frustration with Netflix or anything else, the immediate responses hey you just need to set up a Plex server.
It’s two things wrapped into one.
First, the assumption is that people know the names of the software that they use.
The second is that other people who are not techy consider it just fine to spend hours and hours creating a stopgap solution that shouldn’t have to exist in the first place. They don’t.
Also Plex trash software. It is extremely useful, but my god is it annoying to use and bloated with unnecessary nonsense.
Also sometimes it just randomly breaks for no reason at all. Like literally you’ve done nothing to it and it stopped working. Then you just fiddle with random settings until it starts working and nothing you did actually fixed it it just wanted you to twiddle some knobs
I think this also exists within tech. There are some people with humongous working memory, who have no concept of thought being hard, and for them setting up a plex server is 5 minutes of effort: read the instructions once, do it all perfectly without time delay. Then there are others who are barely getting through the day. Accomplishing a Plex setup means trial and error, multiple attempts. Eventually, a deep understanding, but one built through sweat and folly.
I had a coworker get livid when an end user didn’t know what “the start menu” was.
Pointing out that the last version version of Windows to actually say “Start” on the start menu is old enough to drink (XP was released over 22 years ago; mainstream support ended 15 years ago) did not quell his anger.
Now that you mention it…What are we supposed to call that anymore? The…Windows menu, I guess? This reminds me that the “icon-ification” so to speak, of interfaces has made things frustrating for everyone involved since there’s no name/label for the icons to rely on to communicate what to click/tap.
Microsoft themselves still call it the start menu:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/open-the-start-menu-4ed57ad7-ed1f-3cc9-c9e4-f329822f5aeb
This is why scammers are so efficient, they adapt to people not knowing things because the people they’re targeting don’t. They say start menu or button that looks like 4 windows
All the lingo and acronyms.
Go watch the IT crowd. It’s dated, but more people than you think are Jen.
I personally don’t think most people would even know how to make a text file on their computer without looking it up. Anything beyond usage of a Web browser and maybe connecting to WiFi is black magic for most.
I always have to explain to people that the internet and Wi-Fi are two different things.
I used to work at an internet service provider and oftentimes people would call up to say that they couldn’t connect to the internet and the problem was actually that they couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi because the router was broken / out of range / had been turned off because they read something about 5G on Facebook. Their internet service was fine.
That’s like saying people are complaining their engine doesn’t work when it’s their drive train that’s broken.
That’s not so much a misunderstanding of the structure of the system, as that people unfamiliar consider the drive train to be part of “the engine” which is “the set of mechanical things going on inside the car that makes the wheels turn” or “everything upstream of the wheels”.
A person who can’t connect to wifi also can’t connect to the internet.
A person who can’t connect to wifi also can’t connect to the internet.
Potentially they might still be able to access the internet via wired connection. The point is you need to identify where in the system the fault lies. If the fault is with the network connection then it’s the level three service provider that needs to take action (which depending on the configuration may or may not be the ISP’s responsibility) if the fault is with the router then additional troubleshooting is required to identify where the problem lies. It may very well just be used at error
Everything.
From the difference between WiFi, cellular data, and wired Ethernet to the ports on a computer.
People don’t know shit, and it’s getting worse thanks to the abundance of things like tablets and phones. Nobody knows anything about operating systems, file system structure or types, or even how to turn Bluetooth on.
And I am not what I consider highly tech literate. Plenty of stuff stumps me or I simply don’t know how to do. Yet I’m the family “IT guy” that has to troubleshoot and fix stuff.
Probably the worst part isn’t people not knowing. That’s fine. There’s tons of shit I don’t know. It’s the unwillingness to remember and learn about the system. That’s pretty maddening.
Also not to mention today, your computer hides shit from you. Back in the old days (around 10 years ago) you would get an error message, something you could search and understand but increasingly all you get now is “operation failed”. You get this kind of thing on Mac’s, iPhones, android and increasingly windows.
And of course phones/tablets are much more locked down and you see any of the “nitty gritty” computing, just icons and bubbles.
Windows has always had awful error codes. A BSOD with some (made up) 0x00000231a would get “Kernel gobbledygook” as the search result. Completely useless. It was and still is awful. Only by digging in to logs, event manger, and anything else you can imagine you might be able to correct the issue. However, I will offer that Windows has been stable AF since 7, and I could count the number of times it’s crashed on me in the last decade or so on one hand, and the times it did crash or was because of either a change I made or a bad driver update.
I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I despise how everything is locked down and they spare no effort to make sure you stay in their walled garden and play with their toys under their supervision. OTOH, shit almost never breaks. Regular PC? You’re free to wreck it, and I love that.
You bring up a good point about the stability of Windows. I’ve been using Linux Mint for the past few months and am quite happy with it. However I’ve experienced at least four different times when the OS has become completely locked; I couldn’t do anything and had to hard reset. Not a deal breaker for me but it made me think about how that never happens to me in Windows any more.
The OS, or the window manager?
In 95% of cases, switching to a secondary tty(via ctrl+alt+f<n>) will give you access to find and kill whatever is hanging without requiring a reboot.
It’s the unwillingness to remember and learn about the system
You hit the nail on the head. People assume that entry level software or hardware stuff gives way to calculus before they can actually solve their problem, so they don’t even try.
That if they use a Maf they’ll know what the Finder is. I was doing some support to help out new starters at a university and someone with a Mac came up whilst I was helping their friend so tried to help both and asked the Mad user to open the Finder (something I asumed they’d know how to do owning a Mac) but apparently they didn’t. I then lost faith in all Mac users and realised most of them have no idea what things are called and just use a Mac in willfull ignorance.
Nothing to do with Mac, windows users can just as easily not know the explorer, I use the word “file browser” when that happens.
Dropping another “everything.”
There are LOADS upon loads of people whose entire understanding of the internet and tech is
1- purchase phone 2- Install Facebook 3-??? 4- profit
Once Facebook had a builtin browser there was no reason for whole swatches of the population to leave the app ever again. It seems insane to us here on lemmy but most people just… Don’t give a fuck. 🤷
How to use a smartphone. I got my 82YO mom a phone on my account and set it up for her. Walked her through using the appstore, installing and deleting apps, using voicemail, email, and texting. She rarely leaves home, so I put her on a metered data plan. Last month her WiFi gateway went out, and ATT replaced it. This month I got a huge data charge because she didn’t reconnect her phone to the new gateway.
To be fair, ATT should have done that for her.
Yeah, that would have been the easiest thing to do and wouldn’t have taken much time for the tech to do
This, but also don’t underestimate people’s curiosity to learn a bit more about a niche topic over some beers. I love hearing about crap I understanding nothing about. I watched a PhD defence about sea slugs and it was really cool.
sea slugs
really coolWell thats just obvious
Hey if we’re talking about littoral sea slugs, they can be warm sometimes too
Turning it off and on again fixes so many things.
Not if you’re shutting down Windows, you have to do the restart option to really be effective. Thanks for that Microsoft, totally worth the support headache to be able to boot up in 32 seconds instead of 38.
I complained enough at my business that we turned off fast boot. I haven’t had to have a conversation about restart vs shutdown in like a year now which is sweet, but my own computer takes significantly longer to start up so jokes on me I guess.
“Turning it off” today just turns modern tech to standby mode. Those who has learned the long-press to get up a reboot menu magic are chosen as the families new tech guru.
I think tech people have overly high expectations of the average person’s ability to pirate.
I remember when Netflix was going to raise prices and all the online comments were like “Yo ho I will start pirating!” and it’s like, kind of sounds like you were already pirating. The expectation that Netflix would lose masses of money as average people turned to pirating was always outlandish to me.
Yes, it’s simple to do, but the vast majority of people are apathetic to minor nickel and diming, especially if it’s basically automatic reoccurring fees, and are intimidated by the idea of learning 1337 hacker stuff.
How to watch TikTok and that’s all?
I’m just kidding, maybe at least gen Z and below would know how to operate Windows.
Ha! No. If it ain’t got touch and an app, gen A don’t even understand why we bother.
Really? Maybe I’m in an echo chamber. I heard that elementary schoolers these days use computers in class, so I thought they’ll learn basic computer skills there.
The problem is that computers are now too friendly. You don’t need to learn the deep magic anymore to run them.
My kids, who can’t even read, navigate their tablets like professional users.
Touchscreen Chromebooks, and they sometimes struggle with those.
They do. I’ve got an 8 year old, and they use computers in school. My nieces and nephews are around the same age in different schools, and they use computers too.
There are some schools with older kids where they get school issued Chromebooks, but generally, at least here, kids are using computers.
Most over 50 that don’t use a computer for work are the same.
Growing up I would have never imagined the next generation would be less computer literate than me.
