this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Many people are very uncomfortable with the degree to which their work and life depend on computer systems they do not understand. They feel vulnerable to computer problems, pressured into depending on more tech than they really want, and do not believe they have the knowledge or resources to remedy problems with it.

So when something goes wrong, they feel helpless. This is not unfounded, but it can often make the problem worse.

Depending on the person, this can lead to blaming or blame-dodging behavior. IT folks — did you ever ask someone what the error message was and they say "It's not my fault!" or "It's not my job to fix it, you're the computer person!" ... as if blame ever helped!

The "tech person" differs not so much in knowledge but in having a different emotional response to tech doing a weird/broken thing: when something goes wrong, they jump to curiosity. It's not "I already know how to fix this" but "We don't know what happened here yet, but we can find out." Knowledge comes from exercising this curiosity.

But this is not something that everyone can do, because people who feel unsafe don't typically go to curiosity to resolve their unsafety.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance begins with a discussion on this very theme, before it gets weird (weird and good)

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I have worked in IT for 10+ years, IT support is 90% psycology, especially over the phone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (6 children)

True that. I got tired of the tech support theatre. Fix a problem in two minutes = unhappy user. Fix a problem in a quarter hour and make it look difficult = happy user. I just want to do my job and leave without any human interaction, y'know?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If only they had any idea how complex and unreliable the non tech things their lives depend on and they imagine they know are.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I agree, but also computers break differently. Using a computer is just like other everyday activities like driving a car, until something goes wrong

Imagine if you broke down, but you didn't know if it was 'the car' (call a mechanic), or the road, or the traffic lights...

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

This describes it perfectly. I am the computer guy in the family and even work in computer repair. I don't have any official training, all "self taught". All I did to teach myself was to simply search solutions and apply then myself. Eventually you learn terms and some other knowledge but the biggest difference between IT and "most people" is mindset.

Even my CompTIA teacher said "IT folk are just people that know how to use Google"

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Tech people presume that normal people think about how technology works

They don't even try to conceptualise how something on their phone gets there from the internet or 'the cloud' - when things stop working they don't think about the fact that their an app on their phone is using a network connection to a router, which distributes an internet service that connects them to a server, that is running a program, on which they have an authenticated account...

They wouldn't even know where to begin with troubleshooting, it's just 'broken' and they get frustrated

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And for many people, computers are basically at that level. As long as it works, it's convenient magic.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

honestly it's magic even when you understand it. Computers are pieces of rocks drawn on with runes in rare mineral ink, infused with lighting, and then made to do maths by generations of magicians perfecting the translation from the primal language of what can be only described as a pulse of being only made apparent by the times when it's not being, to words humans can comprehend, then with that maths they somehow they create illusions of entire new worlds, and did I mention they can telepathically communicate with other magical rocks? all through mystical waves all around us created by beacons big and small in key locations. Previously, to talk with a person on the other side of the planet, a single attempt to communicate would require months, if not years, now? seconds. if not less. Computers are magic.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

That's basically me when my car has an issue. I don't care how it works, I just want someone to fix it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here's the difference you're probably not understanding about your self: people don't need to know everything about everything, and they couldn't if they tried.

A very small part of my job involves lubricating large industrial fans. Easy enough. What grease should we use? Hang on to your fucking panties

Lube or grease? Lithium-based? Urea? Composite? What was used previously? What should have been used previously? Have you ever done sampling? What's the vibration frequency?

Did you know there are people with PhD's in grease composition?

I bet you never even realized that was a thing.

So no, I don't know what TCP/IP means, or what port and protocols are or what the hell a subnet mask is. I don't even know what I don't know. And that's okay, because YOU know. Doesn't make you any smarter than me, any more than it makes a grease expert smarter than either of us.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Nothing I said was critical of anyone, any set of skills, any profession. I'm glad that you have specialist skills, everyone does because no-one can know everything

I was responding to a particular question about technology, and how non-techies approach it. I explained in another comment that this complexity in technology is fundamentally different from many other fields of everyday experience

If the industrial fan stops working, they call you, and somewhere between the power point and the air they want to move is the problem you can fix and diagnose

If someone can't see their cat photos, it could be anywhere from their device to their network, their ISP to the server, the programs on that server, the other server that holds the photos... Like with the fan they know the power is generally ok because the lights didn't go out, but from that point you actually need some conceptual model of the complexity to even know who to call

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

sea slugs
really cool

Well thats just obvious

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

I work in an admin role in the construction industry. I regularly encounter seasoned engineers, project managers, and architects who don't know the difference between a website and an app, or how to scan a QR code.

But then I remember that they know how to build a house from scratch, and I don't. We're all good at different things.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Having the kind of habits you need to keep yourself safe and private online.

Blows my mind how many people don’t consider or sometimes even reject the idea of things like password managers because “it’s too complicated”.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

My wife drives me up the wall with this. She insists on using similar passwords everywhere, like Lemmy1 or Lemmy12, even though I've set up BitWarden for her.

To make it worse, she reset her email password recently, refused to use the password manager, then promptly forgot it again 😤

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Basically everything.

Like, even filling out a basic Excel sheet can be difficult to some people who have absolutely no experience in it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I had to stop watching how other people use computers for my own sanity. Even people who use computers (allegedly) 40 hours a week for the past 20 years are no better than those chimps who learned to touch squares on a screen. If a triangle pops up they start throwing shit.

But I no longer assume a user knows anything. If someone asked me what a curser was I wouldn't even blink. The only thing that really annoys me is a refusal to try anything. I don't even care if you learn about what you are doing, at least try what I'm telling you.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I have a coworker who had literally never used a computer his entire life before getting this job. He's almost 50 and was hired shortly aftet me.

But he's put in the effort. He can now type relatively fast, he knows what the file system is, what browsers do, how to send and read emails, how to send and read slack messages. He's even starting to get a sense, when something goes wrong, whether he did something incorrect or whether the software he's using is just shit. Tabs took him a long time to wrap his mind around but he's getting it. All this in about a year.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I work with people who have no email and use flip phones. Knowing how to do basic formulas in excel is something people in my industry put on resumes as a brag. I blew minds with a pivot table last week.

Then tech people will come in like "if you dont c38÷<#æ&÷>h§tg your &÷8]ă2& on your ejẅińë6÷&7g/g5 then youre stupid and support facism, you dumb corporate apologist with your basic windows platform."

Or at least that's what lemme feels like sometimes.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Look, I'm a software engineer, and I still fucking hate filling out spreadsheets. I'm honestly at the point where I'd rather make everything a QUERY function than deal with ARRAYFORMULA bullshit. Honestly, if Google Sheets could add SQL language formatting, we'd be golden.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

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. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

How to change the input source of a tv.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Personally, when I'm looking around for different software, as someone that's in-between unfamiliar and familiar with tech: if it doesn't have an installer/executable/apk and only describes a way to build/compile from source, I have to imagine it wasn't intended for non-devs to start with.

Yet somehow I seem to find my way to software like that occasionally. 🤷‍♀️

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And that's probably the case.

When someone creates a hobby project, they might not immediately have the time to spend on making a convenient package or executable because it's still in early development, still buggy and unsupported, or it's targeting only people capable of compiling code.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (6 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Turning it off and on again fixes so many things.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Thank you.
This post made me realize that sometimes I get a little too annoyed when other people don't understand concepts that are completely obvious to me.

I'll have to reassess how I explain certain things, like how being connected to wifi doesn't mean having internet. Things like that are just not graspable when someone simply doesn't know all the steps that lie between a server and their phone at home, and that's absolutely fair.

It's common sense to a techie, but it's not actual common sense, as in everyone naturally learns this as they grow up

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The government created the Internet, not Elon Musk

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm old enough to remember when Al Gore created the internet

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

All the lingo and acronyms.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Go to a website. If I say "go to support.ourwebsite.com" I expect you to do that. It blows my mind how often people manage to do a search for the URL and then ask me which result to click on.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Tech people overestimate people’s ability to distinguish harmful versus harmless actions. To us it seems obvious that there’s read operations, write operarios, and execute operations, and that the read is basically safe, write can lay traps for you, and execute can kill your computer or the control you have over it.

But that’s not obvious to everyone. We just tell them “Don’t run any code or give it permission to overwrite anything” but most people don’t know what the significance of that is or how to notice when a button is going to cause a write or execute.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

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