10 ms·

Mate, the general population increasingly don’t even use desktops or laptops for personal usage anymore let alone a desktop OS specific IM client from the early

Mate, the general population increasingly don’t even use desktops or laptops for personal usage anymore let alone a desktop OS specific IM client from the early 2000s.

raarts 6y ago
My daughter (who teaches math at HS) asked me to create educational videos for her kids who don't know how to work a computer. They only know phones.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Kids can't use computers. http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co...
  - teawrecks 6y ago
    "She reevaluated her categorisation of me. Rather than being some faceless, keyboard tapping, socially inept, sexually inexperienced network monkey, she now saw me as a colleague. To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She'd be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs and snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can't display her PowerPoint on the IWB she'll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with." God this is some top tier incel shit.
    - Frost1x 6y ago
      Probably, but I'd say it's not far off from reality for many behavior and perspective wise. I think it unnecessarily transfers the behavior to misogyny (could easily be anyone/any sex), but that's the perspective many hold for those in tech: a means to an end. The addition of sex in the description definitely wasn't needed.
    - ricohboy 6y ago
      Have you ever worked in an IT support position? It’s stunningly common and accurate
    - Evidlo 6y ago
      I think the guy is married with kids.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      What's up with this modern trend of quoting stuff and adding an unrelated but currently in vogue ad-hominem?
      - spiritplumber 6y ago
        /pol/ is leaking.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      There has got to be a better way to provide feedback or criticism than just insults like this. Imagine that someone who identifies with what was written reads what you wrote, how would they feel? How would that contribute to constructive discussion? I think it would be more likely to promote flamewars, bad feelings, and general conversational degeneracy. I think a better comment would isolate what you think is wrong and explain why you think so. Ideally, I think that could be done without referencing the frequency with which people you disagree with have sex.
    - serf 6y ago
      >God this is some top tier incel shit. if you're going to shit on someone and their opinion at least give them the data they need to remediate the situation that you're unhappy about. The author can't just say to themselves "Oh, apparently someone on the internet thinks that i'm acting too 'incel', let me just tune that down for the next essay." -- incel is too vague to pin down societies meaning of at any given time. It's like booing someone off stage; it's rude and utterly useless except to express dismay. It's about as useful to discourse as just saying "tl;dr 0/10" Experiment i've been having fun with during the recent over-loaded word trend: Any time I hear 'cuck', 'beta', 'incel', or 'based' I ask the person to define it with context to how they used it. So, my question : What did you mean? Can you define your usage of incel? What about the person made you relate them to the word?
  - unicornporn 6y ago
    I re-read that piece just a week ago. It's magnificent and now even more true than eight years ago. Spoke to friend this week, she told me she doesn't have a computer. That's increasingly common. People get by with their phones.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      But smartphone is a computer, personal computer with telephony hardware. And Android is Linux with different userspace, mainline Linux can boot quite a lot of smartphones. Terminology is so wrong.
      - feanaro 6y ago
        There is a general purpose computer under there but most people don't interact with it like that. The fact that it can does not mean that it will. A lot of this has to do with the ecosystem and how a device is presented and what the UX is like. Manufacturers increasingly want to lock things down and hide them away. I agree that this trend should be fought.
        shrimp_emoji 6y ago
        To me, even a Macbook is hardly a "general purpose computer". :p People love those (including devs).
        squeaky-clean 6y ago
        > There is a general purpose computer under there but most people don't interact with it like that. The same could be said about 90% of laptops and desktops purchased for home use. How many people actually use "computers" for tasks they couldn't do on a phone or tablet if those devices had larger screens and keyboard support.
        majormajor 6y ago
        That's been true since 1984 (and whenever Windows caught up ;) ). The enthusiast/hobbyist sector has long been a small minority of the computer buying public.
  - blck 6y ago
    Thank you for linking this. I couldn't remember the link but was talking to my partner about this recently now that we're almost a year into distance learning with our son. She remarked how quickly he's picking up on using the computer. (He's using her old Macbook Air.) I remarked that UI/UX is so simple nowadays that kids aren't gonna have the wherewithal to do their own troubleshooting for bigger issues and how irreparable a lot of devices are now the insides of computers are gonna be completely foreign to them. Gonna bookmark this now.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    It is sad that the original article was written in 2013. I would argue that not much has changed (few more Linux phones were added to the list, but that does not affect the outcome ).
  - vlunkr 6y ago
    I'm not sure I share the concern. They really expect people to understand or care about things like proxy settings? Everyone doesn't share these interests. Yeah kids can't use computers, because they don't come with knowledge pre-installed, but the ones who are interested will figure it out. It's not like there's a shortage of resources. And if you're concerned about your own kids, then teach them and they'll have a nice advantage in school.
  - psychoslave 6y ago
    That’s because so many parents neglectfully don’t forbid them to use computers.
  - underlines 6y ago
    a completely different story: when steam engines were replaced with the otto motor and cars became available to the general population, people were able to repair and understand the engines themselves. they had an understanding of mechanical principles. a few generations later, and only car nerds understand cars. everyone else has to go to a mechanic to understand why their car's engine won't start or why it sounds so strange. and those weird mechanics will fix the car for them. nowadays people are mechanically illiterate. /s my point is, when a technology becomes convenient enough so we don't have to think about it while it fulfills it's purpose, then you don't have to understand it to use it. this creates the need for specialists. is that a bad thing? i say no. who defines what should be basic knowledge and what not? we don't all need to be a mechanic, a chemist, a doctor and an ITC pro.
    - ForHackernews 6y ago
      > when a technology becomes convenient enough so we don't have to think about it while it fulfills it's purpose, Is a tragically limited view of what computers are. Programmable computers are fundamentally different from steam engines. A steam engine will never be anything except a steam engine. Most of the manufactured objects we encounter in everyday life are similar: single- (or occasionally multi-) purpose goods that do what they were designed to do. A general-purpose computer is not like this. It can be made to serve virtually infinite purposes. It can be made to do things the manufacturers never imagined anyone doing, and things the manufacturers wished it couldn't do.[0] Almost nothing else has that kind of raw potential for human expression. Perhaps a blank notepad and pen might be analogous. [0] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
      - Elv13 6y ago
        On the contrary, the analogy is very good. The steam engine represents power. Power can be used for a limitless number of applications. The steam engine is the CPU. You input energy (pressure/electricity) and extract work (mechanical/computational).
        6y ago
  - arprocter 6y ago
    As someone who used to do support in UK education that hit very close to home I set up a dedicated youtube-dl box in our office to get around the exact visitors-with-PowerPoint-and-YouTube-videos thing he mentions
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  They use one at home to browse the internet and work? I can certainly understand that one would do so on the go, but it seems extremely cumbersome to do a school assignment on a phone keyboard.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    Many use i pads with keyboard cases or chrome books instead. These allow typing with a physical keyboard but a set of capabilities and an interface akin to that of a cellular phone.
  - peruvian 6y ago
    Not many are writing papers on their iPhone, but many do on iPads. Mouse and keyboard support are good and so are the apps. I think the average person that doesn't need to do heavy editing, coding, etc. can get by with an iPad Pro w/ some accessories.
    - canofbars 6y ago
      I think they probably could get by with an ipad pro but they could do the same thing on a chromebook for a fraction of the price. The ipad pro is only really worth it if you need the pencil.
CodeGlitch 6y ago
I would suggest they never knew how to use computers. Computers are general purpose devices, which is lost on the general population who only ever need to check emails and post on social media. Smart phones fit this perfectly. Let's leave the general computing devices for people who actually need that power, just like the early days.
- alok99 6y ago
  Awfully condescending opinion. How about making _general_ computing devices more accessible via UI/UX to the _general_ public? That doesn't seem like such a crazy idea.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > How about making _general_ computing devices more accessible via UI/UX to the _general_ public? That's pretty much what the iPad is. A general purpose computing device but easier to use and with tighter security than a PC. At some point you end up sacrificing versatility for accessibility to the masses.
    - type0 6y ago
      Ipad isn't general computing device, it's a smart gadget, same as Smart TV same as IoT lightbulb. This article explains it well: https://hisham.hm/2020/12/10/smart-tech-%e2%80%94-smart-for-whom/ https://hisham.hm/2020/12/10/smart-tech-%e2%80%94-smart-for-...
  - 411111111111111 6y ago
    But most people don't need or even want an actual general computing device? It doesn't matter how much you improve it's ui/ux... if it's not a desirable feature to the general population, few will ever use it.
  - surge 6y ago
    We did, it resulted in smartphones and tablets, so what the OP is saying applies still. I would argue that's "general" computing now. They finished what the webTV started, providing a basic platform for people who had only very basic needs.

Mate, the general population increasingly don’t even use desktops or laptops for personal usage anymore let alone a desktop OS specific IM client from the early 2000s.

raarts 6y ago

My daughter (who teaches math at HS) asked me to create educational videos for her kids who don't know how to work a computer. They only know phones.

superkuh 6y ago
Kids can't use computers. http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co...
- teawrecks 6y ago
  "She reevaluated her categorisation of me. Rather than being some faceless, keyboard tapping, socially inept, sexually inexperienced network monkey, she now saw me as a colleague. To people like her, technicians are a necessary annoyance. She'd be quite happy to ignore them all, joke about them behind their backs and snigger at them to their faces, but she knows that when she can't display her PowerPoint on the IWB she'll need a technician, and so she maintains a facade of politeness around them, while inwardly dismissing them as too geeky to interact with." God this is some top tier incel shit.
  - Frost1x 6y ago
    Probably, but I'd say it's not far off from reality for many behavior and perspective wise. I think it unnecessarily transfers the behavior to misogyny (could easily be anyone/any sex), but that's the perspective many hold for those in tech: a means to an end. The addition of sex in the description definitely wasn't needed.
  - ricohboy 6y ago
    Have you ever worked in an IT support position? It’s stunningly common and accurate
  - Evidlo 6y ago
    I think the guy is married with kids.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    What's up with this modern trend of quoting stuff and adding an unrelated but currently in vogue ad-hominem?
    - spiritplumber 6y ago
      /pol/ is leaking.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    There has got to be a better way to provide feedback or criticism than just insults like this. Imagine that someone who identifies with what was written reads what you wrote, how would they feel? How would that contribute to constructive discussion? I think it would be more likely to promote flamewars, bad feelings, and general conversational degeneracy. I think a better comment would isolate what you think is wrong and explain why you think so. Ideally, I think that could be done without referencing the frequency with which people you disagree with have sex.
  - serf 6y ago
    >God this is some top tier incel shit. if you're going to shit on someone and their opinion at least give them the data they need to remediate the situation that you're unhappy about. The author can't just say to themselves "Oh, apparently someone on the internet thinks that i'm acting too 'incel', let me just tune that down for the next essay." -- incel is too vague to pin down societies meaning of at any given time. It's like booing someone off stage; it's rude and utterly useless except to express dismay. It's about as useful to discourse as just saying "tl;dr 0/10" Experiment i've been having fun with during the recent over-loaded word trend: Any time I hear 'cuck', 'beta', 'incel', or 'based' I ask the person to define it with context to how they used it. So, my question : What did you mean? Can you define your usage of incel? What about the person made you relate them to the word?
- unicornporn 6y ago
  I re-read that piece just a week ago. It's magnificent and now even more true than eight years ago. Spoke to friend this week, she told me she doesn't have a computer. That's increasingly common. People get by with their phones.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    But smartphone is a computer, personal computer with telephony hardware. And Android is Linux with different userspace, mainline Linux can boot quite a lot of smartphones. Terminology is so wrong.
    - feanaro 6y ago
      There is a general purpose computer under there but most people don't interact with it like that. The fact that it can does not mean that it will. A lot of this has to do with the ecosystem and how a device is presented and what the UX is like. Manufacturers increasingly want to lock things down and hide them away. I agree that this trend should be fought.
      - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
        To me, even a Macbook is hardly a "general purpose computer". :p People love those (including devs).
      - squeaky-clean 6y ago
        > There is a general purpose computer under there but most people don't interact with it like that. The same could be said about 90% of laptops and desktops purchased for home use. How many people actually use "computers" for tasks they couldn't do on a phone or tablet if those devices had larger screens and keyboard support.
      - majormajor 6y ago
        That's been true since 1984 (and whenever Windows caught up ;) ). The enthusiast/hobbyist sector has long been a small minority of the computer buying public.
- blck 6y ago
  Thank you for linking this. I couldn't remember the link but was talking to my partner about this recently now that we're almost a year into distance learning with our son. She remarked how quickly he's picking up on using the computer. (He's using her old Macbook Air.) I remarked that UI/UX is so simple nowadays that kids aren't gonna have the wherewithal to do their own troubleshooting for bigger issues and how irreparable a lot of devices are now the insides of computers are gonna be completely foreign to them. Gonna bookmark this now.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  It is sad that the original article was written in 2013. I would argue that not much has changed (few more Linux phones were added to the list, but that does not affect the outcome ).
- vlunkr 6y ago
  I'm not sure I share the concern. They really expect people to understand or care about things like proxy settings? Everyone doesn't share these interests. Yeah kids can't use computers, because they don't come with knowledge pre-installed, but the ones who are interested will figure it out. It's not like there's a shortage of resources. And if you're concerned about your own kids, then teach them and they'll have a nice advantage in school.
- psychoslave 6y ago
  That’s because so many parents neglectfully don’t forbid them to use computers.
- underlines 6y ago
  a completely different story: when steam engines were replaced with the otto motor and cars became available to the general population, people were able to repair and understand the engines themselves. they had an understanding of mechanical principles. a few generations later, and only car nerds understand cars. everyone else has to go to a mechanic to understand why their car's engine won't start or why it sounds so strange. and those weird mechanics will fix the car for them. nowadays people are mechanically illiterate. /s my point is, when a technology becomes convenient enough so we don't have to think about it while it fulfills it's purpose, then you don't have to understand it to use it. this creates the need for specialists. is that a bad thing? i say no. who defines what should be basic knowledge and what not? we don't all need to be a mechanic, a chemist, a doctor and an ITC pro.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    > when a technology becomes convenient enough so we don't have to think about it while it fulfills it's purpose, Is a tragically limited view of what computers are. Programmable computers are fundamentally different from steam engines. A steam engine will never be anything except a steam engine. Most of the manufactured objects we encounter in everyday life are similar: single- (or occasionally multi-) purpose goods that do what they were designed to do. A general-purpose computer is not like this. It can be made to serve virtually infinite purposes. It can be made to do things the manufacturers never imagined anyone doing, and things the manufacturers wished it couldn't do.[0] Almost nothing else has that kind of raw potential for human expression. Perhaps a blank notepad and pen might be analogous. [0] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
    - Elv13 6y ago
      On the contrary, the analogy is very good. The steam engine represents power. Power can be used for a limitless number of applications. The steam engine is the CPU. You input energy (pressure/electricity) and extract work (mechanical/computational).
      - 6y ago
- arprocter 6y ago
  As someone who used to do support in UK education that hit very close to home I set up a dedicated youtube-dl box in our office to get around the exact visitors-with-PowerPoint-and-YouTube-videos thing he mentions
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
They use one at home to browse the internet and work? I can certainly understand that one would do so on the go, but it seems extremely cumbersome to do a school assignment on a phone keyboard.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  Many use i pads with keyboard cases or chrome books instead. These allow typing with a physical keyboard but a set of capabilities and an interface akin to that of a cellular phone.
- peruvian 6y ago
  Not many are writing papers on their iPhone, but many do on iPads. Mouse and keyboard support are good and so are the apps. I think the average person that doesn't need to do heavy editing, coding, etc. can get by with an iPad Pro w/ some accessories.
  - canofbars 6y ago
    I think they probably could get by with an ipad pro but they could do the same thing on a chromebook for a fraction of the price. The ipad pro is only really worth it if you need the pencil.

CodeGlitch 6y ago

I would suggest they never knew how to use computers. Computers are general purpose devices, which is lost on the general population who only ever need to check emails and post on social media. Smart phones fit this perfectly. Let's leave the general computing devices for people who actually need that power, just like the early days.

alok99 6y ago
Awfully condescending opinion. How about making _general_ computing devices more accessible via UI/UX to the _general_ public? That doesn't seem like such a crazy idea.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > How about making _general_ computing devices more accessible via UI/UX to the _general_ public? That's pretty much what the iPad is. A general purpose computing device but easier to use and with tighter security than a PC. At some point you end up sacrificing versatility for accessibility to the masses.
  - type0 6y ago
    Ipad isn't general computing device, it's a smart gadget, same as Smart TV same as IoT lightbulb. This article explains it well: https://hisham.hm/2020/12/10/smart-tech-%e2%80%94-smart-for-whom/ https://hisham.hm/2020/12/10/smart-tech-%e2%80%94-smart-for-...
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  But most people don't need or even want an actual general computing device? It doesn't matter how much you improve it's ui/ux... if it's not a desirable feature to the general population, few will ever use it.
- surge 6y ago
  We did, it resulted in smartphones and tablets, so what the OP is saying applies still. I would argue that's "general" computing now. They finished what the webTV started, providing a basic platform for people who had only very basic needs.