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In contrast, I am sure we all know some older people who were not in prisson for the past 30 years and still don't know how to write an email, what a zoom call
by Farbklex 6y ago
In contrast, I am sure we all know some older people who were not in prisson for the past 30 years and still don't know how to write an email, what a zoom call is or when it's appropriate to double-click vs single click items on a computer.
I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. But in your 50s? You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades.
Rant: If you are not an IT person and need to work with Excel and PowerPoint for the next 20 years then ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends.
- tyingq 6y agoIt seems to be ramping up now. It was only 4 years ago that my bank drastically cut the number of "real people" you can talk to at the bank, for example.
- refactor_master 6y agoThat rant, wow. It really resonates deeply with me. People would rather cumulatively spend some 10000 hours yelling at Office for the rest of their lives, instead of spending 10 over the course of some evenings/weekends to brush up on the basics. Even from an immediate-more-important-priorities-perspective it almost doesn’t make sense to me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIt's fractal, I see this even in the tech industry itself - people are reluctant to sit down with a manual for an hour to figure out how some software (or device) works, and prefer to forever call it "too complicated to use", just because they couldn't grok it in 30 seconds.
- etrautmann 6y agoThe flip side of this is that interfaces are changing constantly. As soon as I've committed something to muscle memory, a forced app update will overhaul a UI and I need to relearn where to find basic commands. When compounded by the hundreds of programs I use across multiple OS's and platforms, I get used to just assuming that interfaces are and features constantly in flux. This means that I invest less in deeply learning any specific tool.
- PascLeRasc 6y agoWill brushing up help when Microsoft moves all the menus in the next edition? How about when they add in new errors and make File Explorer not return correct results and Windows Search just searches Bing instead of your computer? Or when they add stuff like “you aren’t allowed to attach that file to an email. It’s because it’s open in Word, but we’re not telling you that. Yes, we know this only happens in Outlook and not Gmail.” Its Office’s fault that everyone hates it.
- wongarsu 6y agoMicrosoft moves the menus in office at most once a decade. They just kept adding onto the Office 95 menus for twelve years, then they introduced ribbons, now 13 years later they move away from ribbons. They aren't some SaaS company that moves things for fun
- Arrath 6y agoAll of which largely became unimportant when they introduced the "Tell me what you want to do" search box to Office programs. Blessed be its name.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoRelated to this: just how easy is powerful software meant to be? People who don't know how to drive don't blame it on cars.
- Farbklex 6y agoAnecdote: As a young intern at a German bank I was sent to talk to an older colleague (probably in his 50s, no idea for how long he already works for the bank). I needed him to look up some account number or ID in a data export he had. 1. He opened the data export in Excel. 2. I told him the number for which I needed some additional information. 3. He started scrooling in this 1k + entries Excel file. 4. … 5. I ask: Can you press CTRL + F and type in the number? 6. …
- gh-throw 6y agoI think computer geeks tend not to recall how many hard-won insights and how much time it took for them to reach the point where learning "the basics" of MS Office would only take ten hours of study & practice. We think it's easy because we're building on decent-to-good mental models of how computers & software & networks operate. Normal people don't have those, and every second of the thousands of hours it'd take to gain them would be miserable for them. Not everyone enjoys this crap. Most aren't born with the kind of good abstract and/or spatial reasoning abilities that makes this stuff relatively easy to figure out, either.
- flohofwoe 6y agoI'm a software engineer yet I don't do online banking (I literally "just go to the bank if I need something"). I don't consider myself a "luddite", I just don't see the advantage over traditional "offline banking". Same with shopping and all the other little nuisances of daily life.
- sunir 6y agoI would imagine you do understand the advantage of 30 seconds of time from anywhere in the world versus a 20-60min round trip to the bank. I imagine there are other reasons you value than time and space convenience. Why do you feel the physical trip is more valuable?
- flohofwoe 6y agoI have to interact with my bank maybe twice in a year, and rarely do I have to show up in person. Speaking over the phone works just fine ;) In contrast I have to show up at dentist or hairdresser appointments in person, and I don't consider this "wasted time" either.
- matz1 6y agohow do you check your balance or transaction ? you only do that over the phone ?
- flohofwoe 6y agoI check the balance when I'm getting cash from an ATM. Transaction logs are sent by mail or I can print them at service machines. Really people, it's not that complicated, it worked before online banking was invented after all ;) I'm not sure if all those services (like the physical mail thing) are available to new customers though, I think those are nudged heavily to use an online account.
- matz1 6y agoI only need cash for maybe once a month. Transaction logs sent by mail are way too slow. Yea that way much slower and much less convenient compared to online banking.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. If you are in your 80s today, you were in your 60s in 2000 and 50s during the 90s .com boom. I have no sympathy. Unless you were living under a rock you would have at least known of the internet. If you have reached your 80s today without "doing email" you are either Amish or repeatedly chose to avoid learning about technology. Once upon a time cellphones were new and we built models with fake dial tones for old people (the "jitterbug" phone). That product is done. Current Jitterbugs have buttons for calling a nurse, but no dial tone. Anyone still expecting a cellphone to have a dial tone is officially a luddite. (For any Amish reading this, I know that many of you do use email, but I suspect few are on HN.)
- klyrs 6y agoTFA is about people in prison, aka, living under a rock. Your attitude here is completely inappropriate.
- sandworm101 6y agoRead the post to which I replied. It was not speaking about prisons. "I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. But in your 50s? You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades."
- rickspencer3 6y agoMy wife teaches basic computer skills to older people (think 65+). I hear her teaching sometimes, and I find it remarkable what "basic" actually means to these people. She takes a lot of pride when her students are able to reply to an email, or find content and services online.
- tester34 6y ago>I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dodge most of the digital stuff. But in your 50s? You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades. I'm in early 20s and I almost never used smartphone nor I'm not about to get one I'm SE.
- npteljes 6y ago>ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends Even IT people don't know their tools as much as I'd like them to. Taking time out like this, to get to know the tools, is a worthy effort for all.
- Farbklex 6y agoTrue. There are just too many. I should still improve my knowledge of git, gradle, intelij, various command line tools, docker and so on. That by itself isn't to much but all this stuff comes on top of just staying up to date with the plattform you are working on and learning the next framework or library which you immediately need. Looking at you, android and your yearly updates, Kotlin, and a dozen jetpack libraries.
- npteljes 6y agoI get that, there's too much and changes too often. But there are cases where going a little deeper improves productivity a lot. Where I work we're assigned to projects that last at least a couple of years, so it pays off to spend some time learning the tools.
- gambler 6y agoVery few tools designed today have any features that facilitate learning. Developers don't understand how learning works and don't really care. Operating systems mostly washed their hands of this issue as well. It's a mess.
- npteljes 6y agoI agree. Jetbrains did well with their IDE I think, they show context aware suggestions often, but in a non-obtrusive way. This is effective because the information is there when you need it, not when you have no idea what to do with it.
- vsareto 6y ago>Rant: If you are not an IT person and need to work with Excel and PowerPoint for the next 20 years then ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends. Until the IT people decide to change technologies on you because we do it so often to ourselves. Except Excel. I'm pretty sure that's immortal.
- colllectorof 6y ago>You're gonna have to live with an increasing digitalization for multiple decades. Technology exists for people, not the other way around.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- iso1631 6y agoIf you were in your 50s in the 90s I could understand avoiding technology. I have some sympathy for those in their 90s who had retired before the 1990s, but in the late 1990s Terry Wogan (b 1938) and his producer Paul Walters (b1947), with a breakfast radio show reaching 20% of the UK and aimed at fairly old people, showing that it wasn't too late for people their age to learn computing and send emails, watch webcams, etc. If you're a boomer, you were in your 40s when windows 95 came out, and internet was common in average households in your 50s - no excuse. For prisoners who were incarcerated, surely the rehabilitation and release process educates on basic information age technology like going to a library and using a computer to access public services
- _peeley 6y agoI remember my first job in tech support where I'd have to walk 40-50 year old white-collar workers through basic tasks like opening files in folders, connecting to WiFi, resetting passwords, etc. I have no problem whatsoever helping people with that sort of thing when they truly need it, but it would always irk me when they'd just giggle and say things like "Oh, I'm just not a computer person!" This would blow my mind, like, could you imagine a carpenter having to constantly be told how to use a cordless drill and justify it with "Oh, I'm just not really a power tools person!" It's one thing to grumble about technology these days, but refusing to learn the basics of the thing you use to do your job is ridiculous.