4 ms·

Sure they can, but twenty years experiences shows me they won't. You'd think it would be different between generations, but it's not. The new generation growing

Sure they can, but twenty years experiences shows me they won't. You'd think it would be different between generations, but it's not. The new generation growing up now solely with smartphones is even less literate with computers.

pasabagi 8y ago
I don't know if computer literacy is the problem here. I spent many years as a teenager heavily configuring my computers, despite having basically no knowledge about how they worked. I think it's more the case that some people are simply disinterested in computers, and as such, neither like textbased nor gui configuration - they would rather the computer just worked the way they expect it to. Which is, in my eyes, reasonable. These people tend to care about configuration solely when something isn't working, at which point they tend to go to google, or ask somebody. At which point, text based configuration makes more sense, because you can just copy and paste it (at the cost, I guess, of being more sensitive to small mistakes in syntax).
- overcast 8y ago
  If I could get 1% of end users to use google for their stupid questions, it would be a miracle.
  - pasabagi 8y ago
    I don't blame them. People don't generally have the vocabulary to specify their problem, so googling isn't normally that helpful. If by luck, you find the right words, then you're (assuming windows) dropped into the online trash-heap of viruses and horror that are blogs and forums for windows computer problems. Then, if by more luck, it's not massively out of date or a trojan, you have to click through a million GUI menus, or perhaps edit a registry key - which is frankly daunting even if you like hexidecimal. Then nothing happens, because you have to reboot. I personally like that computers as they exist developed organically, and primarily reflect the culture and ideas of their programmers. Equally, I can see it's no fun at all if you're the kind of 'end-user' who really just wants microsoft word and the occasional video. My grandad can use IOS because it was designed explicitly for end-users - which shows that it's primarily a design problem, not a people problem.

pasabagi 8y ago

I don't know if computer literacy is the problem here. I spent many years as a teenager heavily configuring my computers, despite having basically no knowledge about how they worked. I think it's more the case that some people are simply disinterested in computers, and as such, neither like textbased nor gui configuration - they would rather the computer just worked the way they expect it to. Which is, in my eyes, reasonable. These people tend to care about configuration solely when something isn't working, at which point they tend to go to google, or ask somebody. At which point, text based configuration makes more sense, because you can just copy and paste it (at the cost, I guess, of being more sensitive to small mistakes in syntax).

overcast 8y ago
If I could get 1% of end users to use google for their stupid questions, it would be a miracle.
- pasabagi 8y ago
  I don't blame them. People don't generally have the vocabulary to specify their problem, so googling isn't normally that helpful. If by luck, you find the right words, then you're (assuming windows) dropped into the online trash-heap of viruses and horror that are blogs and forums for windows computer problems. Then, if by more luck, it's not massively out of date or a trojan, you have to click through a million GUI menus, or perhaps edit a registry key - which is frankly daunting even if you like hexidecimal. Then nothing happens, because you have to reboot. I personally like that computers as they exist developed organically, and primarily reflect the culture and ideas of their programmers. Equally, I can see it's no fun at all if you're the kind of 'end-user' who really just wants microsoft word and the occasional video. My grandad can use IOS because it was designed explicitly for end-users - which shows that it's primarily a design problem, not a people problem.