Lemmy is a tech literate echo chamber
I feel like the people I interact with irl don't even know how to boot from a USB. People here probably know how to do some form of coding or at least navigate a directory through the command line. Stg I would bet money on the average person not even being able to create a Lemmy account without assistance.
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The average person is becoming MORE technologically illiterate, not less. The era of growing up with a home computer that required fiddling and dial up, etc is over. People grow up with phones and iPads and kids come to school not knowing how to use a mouse.
And for that reason alone I built a Linux PC for my 11 year old and told him to go to town figuring things out. (I supervise everything of course). Dude has been doing fantastic so far.
If he doesn't solve problems with chmod 777 then he's already more competent than the ops teams at my fortune 500 company
Who's going to win?
SELinux+Seccomp+Containers...
Or the sysadmin with sudo and chmod.
Neither! It's whichever script kiddie gets lucky first.
Oh, but you gotta drop a chmod nuke at least once to feel the terror having done something irreversible. As a bonus, you’ll also gain a brand new appreciation for snapshots.
sudo chmod 000 /for securityAnd it’s also so much faster than full disk encryption. Cool little trick the admins don’t want you to know.
You don’t even need to do it recursively:
This is extremely fast.
I used to love going to Babbage’s in the mall. So many King’s Quest boxes….
Damn, that's a good hit of nostalgia!
oh man, Babbages. Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. A long time.
I grew up starting my computer use having to navigate DOS just before windows 3.11 was released. I work in tech today and I feel like just knowing about a lot of the automated things we take for granted today has given me a little bit of an edge.
I had to walk to school in the snow ten miles, both ways uphill!
at least you had shoes
You guys have feet?!
Lt Dan?
You mustn't have been paying attention, Lt Dan ain't got no legs, that doesn't preclude him from having feet
No. So I had to pull myself up the hills in a wagon and roll my own datetime parser
you dont levitate, or teleport.
I used to have to book computer time at the library and walk to said library so I could play Oregon trail on an apple iie
In DOS time I learned how to type quickle because I had to type in
cd gamescd keenkeenas quickly as possible to minimise non-gaming time.That's why you install Automenu
I feel the same about things like irq. Useless but I feel knowing how they worked makes you closer to the hardware.
So a friend of mine went to a convention to show off his gaming project. The kids there were trying to touch the monitors to play the game. They didn't grab the keyboard and mouse. They didn't touch the controller. They touched the monitor. People's framework of what a computer is and what it's made of is completely different than what it use to be
Reminds me of my senior teaching days 15 years ago. Solitaire, same.exe and saddam.exe and whack.exe soon had those oldies clicking, double clicking and dragging.
Didn't think then that the situation could reverse.
Same still exists on Android and is still a brain twister.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kubilayerdogan.samegamel
Even when I was like 4, I would've gone for the controller. I knew how to use it from Lego Star Wars. I knew how to use a keyboard, but I didn't play on pc, so I'd have had to have been told the controls.
Hate to say it, but that technical literacy from having to operate computers the difficult way was a small blip in history. So things are just kind of going back to "normal."
Now, the only real natural entry into "computing" is gaming. Pretty much everything else has to come through formal education, which is largely myopic and boring.
Don't think I've even worked with a gen Z engineer yet. I assume they exist.
I have worked with a few gen z interns/fresh grads, and some younger millennials (I am a 1990 kid) and its interesting... Some of them have been very successful at passing the tests but have no mechanical aptitude at all. Some have been technically literate on first glance, then proven to be just confidently incorrect. In general though, it seems they just didn't grow up being interested in how things worked like I did. It could be isolated to my small sample size or it could be a general trend. They also don't seem to make connections across disciplines as easily either but again, that could just be a time in service thing at this point and not a generational trait.
I have not been super impressed with the new ones we get when we get them, some of them have been quick learners though and have impressed me with their adaptability. I am a huge proponent of proper mentorships or rotational programs and that is something that seems to get overlooked with younger grads in my experience.
One thing that really annoys me though, is that when prompted with something they don't know, they will spit out some randome bullshit rather than say they don't know. Saying I don't know is a completly acceptable answer as long as it is followed up with "but I will find out" or "can you help/explain it". Falling back to a first principle approach and talking through it is also valid but just making up some shit doesnt fly with me.
This is just the majority of people, not specific to any generation. Our minds are predisposed to use inductive reasoning to explain the world around us. We see something new and our brain immediately begins to make inferences based on prior information we believe we know (I say it this way cause our memories are incredibly faulty) that we think is relevant or comparable.
It's essentially the Dunning Kruger effect: we think we know more than we do and, because of this, believe we can simply assume correctly about other things we know nothing about.
It's an incredibly bad habit that is supposed to be trained out of us through our education systems but we all know how incredibly faulty those systems are.
The education system as I lived through it in Texas was actively hostile to saying you didn't know, it was treated as being worse than being wrong or guessing. You can tell by the results allllllll around us.
Hadn’t realized what a gem “I don’t know” is until waaaaay too late. Saying “I don’t know” still often feels like a personal, albeit public, moral failure. Which is so dumb. But feels like it makes so much sense.
I think about the Lucky 10,000 XKCD comic all the time.
As a Louisiana resident. I feel ya neighbor.
I'm a displaced Texan (living in Holland) and boy-howdy, what I would do for a #1 Whataburger meal right now...
I work in a completely different field, but you last paragraph mostly sounds to me like a typical young person entering the job market. There is this false sense og confidence, pride and know it all when graduating. I've just seen it a few too many times and I remember how confident and skilled I thought I was when I got out. At the same time, there's some anxiety and fear of doing a bad job and admitting fault may make you seem weak or unskilled and you want to impress the mentors and blah blah blah.
It is a bit funny to remember how I thought I was going to be helpful to colleagues who were way more experienced than me and then years later I'm being talked at by soon to be graduates who are trying to be helpful by sharing tips with me that I already do on the daily or don't do because I learned years ago they don't work. And when I try to give them advice or instructions it's like they just space out and hear what they think I mean and then do something completely different from what I ask of them, haha. I can't be mad at it, because it's just a part of learning and growing into your career. I think it would be a mistake to think that a newly graduated person in any field will be able to hit the ground running without any hiccups.
Maybe I'm just a bit of a softie when it comes to young people, but I just remember how eager I was when I was in their shoes and how incorrect my assumptions were when it came to what my elders expected of me. It all came gradually as I learned how to be a professional and how to solve tasks and find my rhythm. I imagine new generations on the market can't be much different from myself in that regard. 😊
There's still a second natural entry, it is being critical and annoyed by corporate greed in apps, streaming services, ads, accounts for everything etc. The privacy/piracy entry.
They exist. They are capable of being smart and curious, but they're less inherently familiar with the "bleep bloops" as we are.
I work with a lot of gen z engineers that are very competent
Back to what, exactly? At what point in the past was it easier to use a computer than it was in the late 90s? Unless you're talking about before computers, which doesn't really have any bearing on what's being discussed.
I'm assuming they mean "Normal" as in "the general public being completely oblivious to the inner workings of the things they utilize in their daily lives", not "people going back to having an easier time with tech".
I'm not entirely sure that is "normal" though. We don't have to go back very far to reach a point where people would be making their own tools for their craft. I think this modern day is pretty abnormal in the grand scheme about not knowing how the things used actually work or is put together.
do you know the proportion of people making those tools? Like how many people could make tools, and work a technically skilled trade, compared to those who didn't. Also, if you have a very narrow set of things you need to make, it doesn't really do a whole lot more inherently. To see this before computers computers, just look at cars. Once they became mainstream you started to see that most people had no clue how they worked, and no interest in knowing.
My grandmother's generation of my family were largely farmers. Like mostly born between 1910 and 1923. They knew how to make, and fix, tools, fences, etc. However, once they got away from this specific knowledge, that they grew up with, they were completely disinterested, and were suspicious of people who had broader knowledge sets. They also thought learning from reading was pointless, as they never were interested in reading, so they developed their reading skills to be just enough to get by, and became intensely frustrated when they ran into an issue, on the farm, they hadn't before, and needed to read the manual for whatever piece of equipment it was. They also did this thing, where they would be doing something, like repairing/installing/expanding their irrigation system, but they didn't have a fundamental understanding of why it worked. Just that you did these things, in this way, and it would work. They also didn't care why it worked, just that it did.
You are absolutely right, but let's be clear here... it's not so much the lack of keyboard and mouse that's the problem... it's that these touchscreen devices don't let you actually DO anything. The devices you can use a keyboard and mouse on ALLOW you to play, customize, make mistakes, and learn. There's no reason a touchscreen device couldn't provide that too, but iOS and Android specifically forbid you from learning anything - that's a recipe for security holes! And THAT's the real skill they lack. Real competence means bending the endless possibilities to your will - not just being given 5 of the most common ones and being locked out of the rest.
Why there now exists "iPad Kid".
That a friend I know of has a lot of his kids entirely on smartphones, while their family PC is hidden behind cobwebs and dust; if they want a document printed they just go out to some print shop.
In fairness, it can be expensive to stock the holy water necessary to fend off the demons that inhabit all printers.
Just get a Brother laser
Or a library card.
Last I checked, libraries still charged per page.
Also, libraries are not at home.
Mine let's you print an amount for free every month.
Print shops are not at home either.
Yes, which is why I said to get a Brother laser printer.
I'm extremely young, I don't know how shit works, like at all. Because stuff works pretty well nowadays. Cannot imagine not knowing how to use a mouse. It could not be simpler imo. Can't remember a time that I didn't know lol
Don't underestimate yourself. Just by posting here you have proven that you're more proficient than the average Joe.
It's not hard to make an account lol
Lots of users fail on anything more complicated than a "Sign in with Google" prompt.
Fascinating. Guess I never knew lol
The average person is incredibly dumb.
Not that dumb. Helpdesk just gives survivorship bias.
The people smart enough to realize modems don't work during outage don't call as often.
Except for "can you hack my ex's facebook" ones. Those are constant for some reason.
Read my comment history to get context on how you are wrong and then delete that comment you just made.
You should spend some time trying to teach CAD to students in High School. My first couple of days with a new class involved teaching them that, No you can't use your finger, and then how to use a mouse.
I'm in high school rn. I had to use this program called TinkerCAD in middle school for some weird class on the basics of engineering. Wasn't particularly good at it, but no one needed an explanation of keyboard and mouse. Chromebooks are used heavily, so that makes sense. I never really considered that keyboard and mouse wouldn't be at least learned. I guess with smartphones and iPads it makes sense. Makes me a little sad, but whatever.
Imagine studying at uni for years to become a programmer, only to be replaced by a vibe coder with an iPhone.
But remember, hard work always pays off!
We all imagine that, is has yet to happen. Vibe coders can produce the spaghetti code of upwards of 10 unpaid interns! What value!
AI=ALWAYS indian in the end.
Wait, does that mean that we millennials are actually going to be remembered for something good ?^*
We better find a cool name... the golden generation of tech? The tech overlords?
^* obviously i think we are cool
And once again, Gen X is completely ignored
You have to break the realty market of you want to stop being ignored. Sorry, not sorry 💁♂️.
Gen Xs that got into tech are tech gods, the thing is, due to low tech availability, they aren't very common in my country.
Well, at least you finally acknowledged that I'm a god.
Exactly. Exposure to technology does not make you tech literate. Tech literate typically means engaged with new technologies.
For instance, people were using phones, fax machines, calculators, watches, etc when dial up came out. Those users were not considered tech literate.
The same happens today, an iPhone or Android user is not tech literate by default anymore.
Soon the era of hosting own VPN and tricking AI will start
i also notice they fall for the simplest scams too online,
There's simply no evidence of this
What's more, the prevalence of cheap, accessible technologies is having a host of knock-on effects. Case in point:
Feels like I'm listening to the Boomer complaining about kids today not knowing how to use a manual transmission.
I wouldn't say that data is definitive proof. The table is missing ages from 30-under 65 from the table (at least if you're not logged in, if there is a more complete table please share). Also not sure how good some of the questions are for determining tech literacy. Knowing that Elon Musk ran both Tesla and Twitter in April 2023 is more if you keep up with the news rather than knowing how to work a computer. Other ones are good like being able to identify 2FA or knowing what LLM/AI is capable of.
My wife is a teacher. Kids come to school without the ability to use keyboard and mouse which was not the case in the 90s. I also only drive manual :P
Bullshit, I went to school in the 90s, and half my class had never seen a computer before. I'm surprised you don't remember how many kids struggled with Mavis Beacon.
It's always different when it's your generation. The fact that "keyboard class" was stuffed with Millennials in Freshman year of high school isn't an indictment of kids' keyboarding skills.
Only the Gen Z/A cohort has problems.
There have been some articles regarding beginning CS classes bring required to include teaching concepts like folder structures because a sizeable part of class was list on this concept.
To use your transmission analogy, it would be like truck driving schools now need to how to drive a manual transmission vehicle, which adds to the length of the class. Or all the company vehicles are manual and now the company has to deal with hiring new drivers who don't know how to drive stick but will say they know how to drive.
That's how my great-grandpa got his first job, truck driving; might've been the first time he drove in general, automatic or stick.
LMFAO, bruh, your categories are 18-29, and 65+.
Your Source literally entirely skips over the age group we're talking about. You're not proving strong literacy skills of any kind atm.
And writing skills are literally entirely different from understanding how a computer works and how to trouble shoot it. Can you name what activity Gen z is doing that's equivalent to texting that is teaching them how to trouble shoot computers that's different then the way millenials learned?
Because the whole point of that comic is that boomers learned to read and write using letters and books but look down at millenials when they read and write short messages to each other constantly, which is also practicing reading and writing. So what activity is Gen z doing that's learning how to trouble shoot things that millenials don't recognize as learning how to trouble shoot things?
(For the record I think the generation difference is wildly overblown in threads like this, but Im also not convinced that it's completely unreal, and I also think boomers still had somewhat of a point that that comic glosses over, and we're all now seeing it with our attention spans and vitriol).
Ehhh maybe true for the US where they had a solid early tech industry and then made some questionable decisions. I feel like in the rest of the world progress is steady but forwards. Generally young stem university students where I live have all done a programming unit and a technology unit and each year more is added to curriculums whereas older generations might not have been given quite such an extensive education.
Also tech literacy = using a mouse is peak uppity midlife techy person. Get the fuck outta here there are more trans women and femboys wearing thigh highs and running arch off of think pads then there ever were of y'all older tech elitists back in the day.
Thafuq?
Yea, young STEM university students are obviously going to be more technologically literate than their counter parts. That isn't a new thing and was true for the older generations too.
What questionable decisions are you talking about that the US made that you're insinuating set them back compared to the rest of the world? The US does have more tech classes now than when I was in school in the early 2000's. The problem is a vast majority of these kids coming up don't know how to use computers effectively. It's not just "using a mouse" that makes someone tech literate. Knowing how to navigate a mobile device, which is designed for ease of use to accommodate even the dumbest people, does not make someone tech literate. Some are power users, but most have nothing more than a surface level knowledge of how to use it. There's little to no troubleshooting skills.
All of those mobile devices are programmed by actual tech literate people that understand coding, the network stack, security, and the general inner workings of how computers work. This generation coming out now doesn't know any of that because they never use computers.
And lastly, holy fuck what's wrong with you? Jesus fucking Christ you just came out shooting in that second half. The person you replied to made a valid, factual point, and you apparently took that as a personal attack. What the fuck do trans people have to do with this? What a fucked up transition to make and shit to take. You need help, dude.
The person I replied to said the "average person is becoming MORE technologically illiterate" and his source is "kids come to school not knowing how to use a mouse." Yet in the same sentence acknowledges "People grow up with phones and iPads."
Yeah wow, kids don't know how to use a mouse because they've never used one before. Truly society is regressing. Kids get taught how to use scissors. It's just juvenoia.
Young people are more interested in technology then ever before. There are more people with computers, more people using computers daily and longer collective hours spent digitally then ever before.
But yeah tech literacy is down guys trust. these kids can't even troubleshoot a fax machine. Just read the multiple studies that prove my point that I haven't linked but I've definitely read guys trust.
Not knowing how to use a mouse is hyperbole for not knowing how to use a computer, but also, if you can't use a mouse, you can't use a workstation computer. Knowing how to navigate a mobile device does not make someone tech literate. In general it stunts computer skills, because there's minimal tech knowledge required to download an app from a curated store or watching tik tok.
You're proving our point in the second paragraph. Yea, kids aren't being taught computer skills. Not knowing the fundamentals of how to use a workstation is a problem and it is causing a regression in technological literacy in society.
Young people tend to be more interested in phone and tablets than ever before. Some for sure are into workstations, but that is not the norm. Id argue less kids percentage wise are spending time on computers daily than 15-20 years ago. Everything is done on iPads or phones in schools, until college. Even if you didn't want to, back in the day you had to know how to navigate a complex operating system, save files to removable storage, download files and install them, and a plethora of other seemingly simple skills, and that's not happening now.
If you work in IT or around youth entering the workforce, it's extremely clear that tech literacy is worse now than it was a decade ago, or at least it is as a millennial that bridged that gap and can clearly see the difference. I can see if someone is younger than millennials why they wouldn't be able to see that difference, because they are in that demographic.
It would take 5 seconds to do a Google search for millennials and technology and find a couple studies on the topic. It isn't some secret that's being hidden and it's easily accessible. Perhaps your inability to find these studies is the proof that tech literacy has degraded.
Phones and tablets are computers. Being able to use one is a form of tech literacy just as how knowing how to use a mouse and keyboard is a form of tech literacy. Bro it's your argument, if you're adamant the sources exist to support it that's on you to provide it otherwise the person reading your writing will be unable to find specifically what you are referring to. I mean you are referring to something you specifically have read right? You wouldn't make something up based on vibes right? All this talk about being tech literate and you're not doing the basic literary work of source citation.
That wasn't my argument, that was someone else. I'm just shitting on your response to them instead of doing the bare amount of research.
My whole point is, kids are coming out with less computer knowledge as a whole. Maybe they know more on mobile devices than older generations, but I'd argue that's not even true compared to millennials who were also in the prime of smart phones and tablets hitting the market. The difference is millennials also know how to use workstations, making them more tech literate. Having skills on just mobile devices is very sandboxed and remedial. It's not noteworthy in the slightest. Being able to work with a desktop OS, understanding a file system, and troubleshooting are tech skills that you get generations don't have, making them less tech literate.
"That wasn't my argument, that was someone else"
"If you work in IT or around youth entering the workforce, it's extremely clear that tech literacy is worse now than it was a decade ago"
Yeah but it ain't my argument guys I only said it and made a case for it. Come on man, just show the sources. I mean it's really clear right so all those studies will unambiguously show it. And they're right there in Google so it wouldn't even be difficult to find them wouldn't it.
One time I said "Hey this TUI program works perfect on every single distribution and even BSDs, takes no performance issues ever, and just overall good program. I wanna check contributors on github."
It was all either anime or trans flag pfps.
Something that amazes me that I often see is tech literate people wastly over estimating the tech literacy of an average person. Any amount of tech support would tell you that most people barley know the basics and doesn't care for anything else.
Relevant xkcd:
They may not know all the commands, so we'll just tell them
man manand they'll be able to bootstrap from thereWhenever this topic comes up particularly with tech literacy, this article never ceases to amaze me: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
The curse of knowledge; makes you lose the perspective of the average man in the field of your expertise.
How bad this is in practice is something you can choose to mitigate simply by regularly talking to normal people.
Source: I'm a climate scientist, I do this all the time (and only rarely get looks of complete confusion)
As someone in wildlife conservation, this doesn't work for everyone. For me, it just makes me hate talking to people. They will be confidently wrong and nothing you say will convince them otherwise. Doesn't help that I live in one of the worst educated states in the union.
Also, the 'tism puts me at a disadvantage out the gate. So I might be biased.
I don't necessarily mean trying to convince people of something, I more mean conversing with interested, but less educated people. Convincing people is a whole separate skill set to just explaining your technical knowledge in plain language (which is the part that's beneficial here).
Climate is something people already understand to some extent. If you start talking about different climate models and their assumptions, you should get those confused looks straight away.
I don't though, because I actually know how to talk to normal humans. It's not that hard. You start high-level, and then gauge their curiosity (via questions and body language), and then go a bit deeper, and if they start getting confused, then you back up a bit, and you just stay at their level, not at whatever insane depth your own brain might be at at the time. You use metaphors to link what's happening in your work to things they have experienced in their life to build understanding at their level. Simplify and abstract, without dumbing it down.
My brain is fully stuck in philosophy of science mode at the moment, and thinking about how to integrate climate science with financial risk models (and how that doesn't make sense in some ways). I have talked with people from across the spectrum, from people working in climate science or finance for decades, to people with a high-school education. The conversations are nearly always interesting (for both of us), and usually decently long. It's really not that hard, if you just make an effort to meet people where they are.
You’re fortunate that your field happens to be reasonably accessible to common people. For example, if you’re a production engineer in a company that manufactures network infrastructure, it suddenly gets very hard to even explain what you do for a living. Normal people may have seen a router, but they’ve never even heard of switches. Regardless, they never paid much attention to network hardware, because they didn’t have to.
Climate is a lot harder to ignore. Everyone has thought about these things at some level. Everyone has heard about climate change at school, on TV, news articles etc. People also experience these things on a very personal level. Only very few people can say the same about network switches, let alone submarine line terminal equipment.
There are even more obscure fields out there. The relatives of those professionals just know that their nephew does something technical and hard to understand. I guess those dinner table conversations might gravitate towards some easier topics.
I've played with switches before, and some DIY electronics, and have done some network admin. I'll grant that the actual internal electronics and software are far to complex for even me to understand.
But again, if you talk to someone with some interest in what you're doing, you can find a level they they can understand. Maybe using metaphors like human-operated old-school telephone switch boards, that's an image that most people will have seen, and can understand at a coarse conceptual level. You CAN have an interesting conversation at the level, if YOU want to be interested in it (and if they do, which is partially contingent on you being able to connect with them in the first place).
If you think climate is simpler or more accessible, I'd suggest you have a quick go at explaining the Navier-Stokes equations, Darcy's law for fluid flow through porous media, or why convective storm activity needs to be parameterised in climate models (and at what scale it doesn't). Climate isn't easier, or more accessible than network admin - both require years or tertiary education to start understanding even parts of the underlying principles, and no one person understands either field completely. It IS probably more familiar for most people, because it's in the media all the time. But again, that's just a matter of finding the extent of their knowledge and interest, and coming up to their level.
Once you work at a place doing lvl 1 tech support, like say a Geek Squad, the perspective smacks you in the face everyday until you're broken.
No, farmers know barley, average people bearly know
No, Baloo, Paddington, Winnie the Pooh, and Yogi know bearly. Average people barely know.
whelp, I guess that's the end of that joke thread
No, biologists know bearly, average people, bairly know
I know people who claim to be tech literate but then keep sending me actual photos of their screen whenever they want to share anything. :|
Admittedly, I do almost all of my messaging from my phone, and 100% of Lemmy. Most of the time if I have something on my computer to share, it's easiest to just take a picture. If fidelity matters, I can take a screen grab and share it to my phone via KDE connect. It's not a matter of knowing how, it's the effort required for a slightly clearer image.
When something goes wrong the average response is some amount of confusion and anger with rapid clicking
There's a huge number of people here who would learn a lot from giving tech support to someone like my mum.
Linux is second nature to us geeks, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably knows just Ubuntu or Fedora.
And Debian GNU/Linux, of course.
Not me. I am so out of the loop here. But I loved the social aspect of reddit and was on it long enough to know how great it was when it was young. Hoping to find that here.
Honestly, Lemmy does have a lot of the early Reddit vibes. Reddit was largely started as a programming forum, and this user base definitely has a lot of similar traits.
And if you start using user tags, (not native to Lemmy, but most clients have the functionality added,) you’ll realize just how active users are, and how tight-knit the comments sections really are. I often end up finding myself responding to the same 10-20 users.
You're now tagged as "user tag advocate". See you around!
Most of the tags I've assigned to people are less than flattering.
I can understand why. I've only been on here 2 months and can think if a half a dozen users I'd like to tag so I know not to waste my time trying to have a discussion with them.
Can anyone recommend a good Lemmy client for Linux? Bonus points if it works well in portrait mode.
I am on Pop!_OS 22.04 and the only apps in the COSMIC Store are Interstellar and Lemonade.
Interstellar seems fine but if there is a way to tag users in it I can't seem to figure it out, it also seems designed for Landscape mode and it's a little cramped on my second monitor.
Lemonade hasn't been updated since October of 2023, so I'm a little wary of trying that one out. I can't even tell if they are still developing it or something called Ouch Browser, if its the same project with a new name, or just abandoned alltogether.
I know there are other Lemmy Apps but I am a little lost tbh.
TIL, user tags, cool
I had a few - not a lot, but some - user notes, but recently switched phones (and to GrapheneOS) and lost them. I used and use Connect, which does have an export/import process, but when I start it I can't find a way to actually begin the export, i.e. generate the file.
As such, I'm stuck recreating notes by hand. Still, I enjoy creating new ones, as I just did for you, and I love the aspect of Lemmy that you described.
then it just became an aggregate forum where you can discuss many niches without being censured like with alot forums from a single mod/owner.
NGL, a lot of my relative tech literacy comes from just seeing all the programming posts too and getting curios.
Just the other day i learned that there is so called "snowflakes" that apprently work as a way to enter the tor network by pretending to be a video call. Crazy cool stuff some people come up with.
Welcome to the trenches.
I can’t do any of the stuff you mentioned. I’m here because I hate traditional social media that are not social at all. And I hate ads. And have an interest in community driven stuff and DIY.
And I don’t feel like I am alone here.
I’m with you, I can’t do any of that stuff. I don’t like most social media , the lack of ads and the 3rd party apps was a big factor for me to join.
3rd here. I can maybe boot from a USB without needing any external help, but im nearly certain im going to need to consult some form of instruction to make sure im doing it right.
I've boot from USB on quite a few things in my time. I still check the manual occasionally because there are different keys for the boot menu/bios
spams F2
Dw it's easy just type
And that's how you command line navigate
On the subject of not knowing most of the things you mentioned, I'm with the other commenters. As a (hopefully) Linux newbie, do you know of any thorough guides I could use to install Linux on my 10 year old Asus X550J laptop?
Relevant xkcd: Average familiarity
You severly overestimate the average persons tech literacy even when you try to correct for it. Booting from USB is already a really advanced topic.
Though creating a lemmy account is not that complex. Typically all you have to do is fill out a form on the websiten instructions included. The problem there is not the tech literacyn but the willingness of the people to even interact with systems they don't know, like finding a home instance or understanding the concept of the fediverse. Most people could create a lemmy account, though also most people wouldn't.
The average person can't even download the right authenticator app when prompted. The average person can't type their password the same way two times in a password change field. The average person does not know how to plug monitors and peripherals into a docking station.
Whatever you think the average skill level is? It's lower than that. By a lot.
You are completely correct and their comments prove it. The bubble is strong here. But it’s a pretty nice bubble
Very proud of all the special little techies in this thread who are definitely smart and different because they grew up troubleshooting a fax machine and not a touch screen display like the younguns of today.
"God damnit!" Kicks and punches machine out of frustration
-machine starts working
"You fucking right, better run correct, or there's more where that came from, bitch!"
Walks off like a gangster
As they're walking away they mutter under their breath
"Nobody born after 2000 could do that"
'nobody beats the shit out of inanimate objects like I do'
Lol that being said, violence against technology was bred into us. But if the violence doesn't work, digital surgery or therapy can also work. 😉
Have you been spying on me while I do tech support?
At least we could get the fax machine to do things. The touch screen is so many layers of abstraction away from any raw functionality it's like the pull string on a See and Say.
Yeah it's impossible to send a PDF over email from an iPhone. Never been done before. In theory it's possible, but some computer scientists think it may never happen as tech literacy plummets and children can barely describe the best Linux distro before the age of 3 nowadays
It's impossible to figure out where your PDF downloaded on Android. And then if I miraculously DO find it, whoops - my reader crashed because it doesn't have permissions to read from that folder. All modern mobile OS tech is a disaster.
-search bar
-"files"
-downloads
"Impossible"
The search bar is an absolute disaster that not only searches your phone, it also sends your search to Google, and if you have, like me, a 128 Gb microSD card, it's also going to SLOWLY search through the unindexed million files on THERE, chugging along and MAYBE finishing in 2 or 3 minutes.
"files" is an unnavigatable crapshoot, offering "suggested" recent files that didn't populate because the last 10 most recent files didn't even get picked up by the scanning service yet, reordering any list of files bigger than 10 things takes FOREVER, half the directories are aliased in 12 places so you're navigating a loop, and even if you FIND the file there's no guarantee you can OPEN it because the directory might be protected.
Downloads is a complete freaking mess. If you have a flash card, your stupid Android phone will duplicate all the user directories on it and half your apps will download to the card and the other half to your system memory, and Google's useless scanning service that's supposed to keep track of recent downloads goes off on magical adventures for hours at a time so you can locate your downloaded file TOMORROW if it gets around to it.
You're right... The fact that I can fight with the stupid thing for 20 minutes to get to my file doesn't mean it's literally "impossible". It just means it's broken, barely usable crap that I refuse to tolerate because I like products that WORK.
I think if it's taking you 20 minutes to open a downloaded PDF on your phone that might actually just be a skill issue
I still troubleshoot faxing on a semi-regular basis. I use them with Analog Telephone Adapters (ATAs) in lieu of Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) phone lines. They are, shall we say, special
Don't worry, my fair tech-literate maiden. I, a tech-dyslexic, am here to bring down the collective IQ and make the chamber echo less. You can thank me later, for adding some much needed intellectual diversity to the mix.
*with strong beliefs on random topics
My own experience, as someone who is not necessarily tech illiterate, but also not an expert either:
I decided to check out some basic Linux stuff, and found a post directing newcomers to a website that was supposed to be a top-notch beginner's guide. This guide started with a history of Linux, written in the style of an early 2000s GameFAQs guide. It then jumped immediately into selecting a distro, and started describing each option with terms like "lightweight"and "robust" without explaining what those terms meant in that context - or even defining what a distro was in the first place.
As someone who has used Windows for around 3 decades, I could make some inferences to fill in the gaps. But I imagine someone with less experience with PCs would get completely lost.
Now on the flip side, I've also shared in another thread the story of how I lost interest in programming partway through my introductory university course, and mostly received positive feedback. The folks in that thread seemed happy to hear the perspective of an outsider.
Ironically a windows veteran can give you a better introduction to Linux than a Linux veteran.
I think the issue is, a Linux veteran is going to be used to all the choices you have, and also know there's not really one correct answer to most of them. There's also the effect that when you've been doing something long enough to be quite good at it, you overestimate other people's abilities in the area. Of course there's an xkcd for that https://xkcd.com/2501/.
So it's true actually someone that is a windows veteran and has recently worked out the basics of Linux could likely give better advice to another new user.
I think the thing about linux is, the choice is perhaps overwhelming to some at the beginning.
For total beginners I'd point people straight to mint (*) really. https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ now it is going to give you a choice of edition. But I feel like the info next to each version are accurate. Cinnamon if you want things to look good, MATE if you want something modern looking but also fast and Xfce for something a bit more basic, that will be happier on lower end hardware. You can progress to different distros once you're familiar with things in general a bit more.
Generally, using Linux you'll always have a lot of choices. It's just because everything is very modular.
(*) I've never used Mint, just because I'm a bit of a Linux veteran (servers since 1997 or so). But, I've heard it's the best to start with for desktop, and the instructions do seem pretty clear.
I put Mint on my mother's computer because the constant pop-ups from Windows were confusing her constantly. No issues, I just put a big icon that says INTERNET on the desktop and she's fine now. If anything goes wrong, I'm not savvy enough to easily fix it but I know that at least I can just do a reinstall if something breaks beyond my ability to handle.
I think this is an important consideration too. So much is done from a browser now that getting that right in a Linux install will mean most users are fine for >90% of their tasks (for non gaming tasks that is.)
For gaming tasks there's loads of options though. If you don't want to swap OSes you have Steam's Proton and Codeweaver's Crossover that do most of the complex stuff for you. For the stuff you have to deal with I've been able to tweak it all from GUIs instead of needing to edit a file somewhere. Gaming on Linux has come a long way, and I've even switched off of Windows fully I'm that confident in it. Still have to do more tweaking than Windows, but it's no where near as bad as it was.
Not my fault. Reddit pushed me here!
makes sense, since Linux users (me) are drawn to foss projects like moths to a light
I am not tech literate but here I am.
imposter
Anonymity and the general public do not mix. Barrier to entry is all we have left.
The average person nowadays could not create and reliably access a Facebook account if they didn't have auto complete/password save.
The worst is twenty-year-olds that have never used a desktop. They just stare at the mouse, keyboard, and monitor like they have no clue what to do.
Why would normal people know how to boot from usb? Shit, if you clean the ads out of a windows start menu, a normie will think you're a wizard for doing the inconceivable.
I just don't understand how it's more "techy" than Reddit. I just want our user count to keep going up.
I think we should focus less on hyping federation/decentralization and more on how there are no ads and the content is really coming from actual users (and maybe a leftist bias).
I got a few friends on here by explaining that choosing a server is no different from choosing an email provider. Everyone understands email, that you can communicate with most other email users no matter what their provider is.
This is true but I ultimately don't care.
Is there any social media site that isn't an echo chamber? They're designed that way on purpose in most cases.
There are enough forums catering to idiots. I appreciate the better moderation, tech savviness, and lack of tolerance for right wing BS on Lemmy.
I don't think it's an echo chamber, I think you are wrong about that. The proof is that I am disagreeing with you right now. Therefore, not an echo chamber.
"Whats the best tool for..."
"Linux!!!"
"Haven't yet said what I'm trying to build"
"Pls just upvote me and tell me I'm good"
You mean Gnu/Linux etc.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, systemd/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, systemd plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning systemd/Linux system made useful by the various daemons and services provided by systemd, which manages system processes and configurations.
Many computer users run a modified version of the systemd ecosystem every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of systemd which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the systemd framework, developed for streamlining service management on the Linux kernel.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is usually paired with the systemd framework: the whole system is basically systemd with Linux added, or systemd/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of systemd/Linux!
Now, let’s talk about systemd itself. systemd is not just an init system but a sprawling suite of software designed to harmonize the management of services, logging, and much more across all those Linux distributions adopting it. While there are plenty of critics who claim that systemd suffers from mission creep, and bloat, they fail to realize that systemd is here to unite the divergent spirits of the Linux universe into a cohesive whole.
It’s often cited that systemd is the first daemon to start during boot and the last to terminate at shutdown, meaning it’s the parent that manages the chaotic brood of processes that stem from it. But of course, the truth remains that Linux is merely the kernel within this greater whole. For many, using systemd without acknowledging its complex ecosystem is like using a bus without realizing it’s the driver coordinating every route.
While some advocate for a leaner alternative, the benefits of systemd are often overlooked, such as its ability to parallelize the boot process to expedite your start-up time, or how it beautifully integrates logging with journald, merging many separate tasks into one efficiently managed service.
In conclusion, while there’s certainly a Linux kernel powering many systems out there, it’s really the systemd suite that brings it all together. So please remember, when you’re running your Linux, you’re not just running Linux; you’re enjoying the splendid orchestration of systemd/Linux, or as I like to call it, systemd plus Linux.
"You're good"
No upvote because you can't follow a basic conversation.
Good boy, you do the groupthink very well. Have some uppies :))))
Look at the clowns that don't get it, replying to me
Ffs
My mom is a tech literate echo chamber lmao
Idk what this means but I'm choosing to believe you're a new form of sentient life born out of the Lemmy circlejerk
It means that I’m just a guy living my truth brœther. No more no less
This is an unusual way to make a "your mom" joke.
For the past month I've been developing a NixOS platform for local businesses.
I keep overestimating how much people know. It's infuriating trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I don't need to explain why it's amazing, just that it is, and it works. I feel like I'm Mugatu talking to Zoolander at times.
Even if I could perfectly analogise what a declarative operating system is, it wouldn't matter to a client because they don't understand how a non NixOS machine works.
Though, the worst part is trying to explain to someone, who is "happy with Windows" why they should not be.
How the fuck do people in 2025 not fucking loathe Windows? There's fucking ads in the start menu. There's like 4 different places to change settings. The systems bloat and slow to a crawl as the OS ages.
It's fucked.
its because we're old people.
I'm gen z. gtfo with that boomer mentality I refuse to become like you
ok zoomer. (/s)
But for real. I'm an elder millennial and most of lemmy is millenial-ish. Gen X and boomers, the ones who are on platforms like this, are incredibly rare. Reddit already skewed older than lemmy, and most of us were the earliest users/ power users of Reddit. So there is a reason why lemmy skews tech literate.
Like, we were the first generation to grow up with the internet in the house but also probably still had a land line phone. We had to figure shit out and also got to learn along with the technologies development. My intro to programing was Intro to Flash for making poop games that you might have played, but I also drank crystal Pepsi and could go see a double feature for $1 at the matinee. We bridge the gap between what was an effectively analog world to an entirely digital one.
So you aren't wrong, but you are also on my lawn.
Your experience is the same for younger generations just the relevant technologies have changed. My great grandad who could ride a horse and drive a car wasn't a better driver than me because he was there when cars were bad.
Yeah but like, its not just a personal experience or anecdote.
My brain had to bridge the gap between two different worlds. The year 2000 was more similar to 2025 than the year 2000 was to 1990.
And 1990 was more similar to 1965 than it was to 2005.
We didn't experience a smooth technological transition; it was an abrupt and whole cloth transformation, and by 2005.. well.. things actually haven't change that much since 2005. They've changed, but the change isn't nearly as radical as the change from 1995 to 2005. New versions, faster, smoother, but not really fundamentally different.
Technical transformation follows a consistent pattern of tool innovation, radical adoption, and then, effective stability for long periods of time. Some generations bridge a gap between tool kits and some don't. Gen-X largely missed out on that transformation. Z caught the tale end. Alpha is growing up in a period of, well, at least platform stagnation.
As did past generations with new technologies. No car- cars everywhere. That generation could rebuild a transmission whereas it's a mystery box you have a specialist fix for you.
No TV, TV everywhere, tubes in tvs, then transistors. My much older brother in law can identify and fix any TV at the component level. Like identifying a bad capacitor and not only replacing it but understanding the circuit to know that a larger ufarad capacitor will not only work in that part of the circuit, but prevent a future problem.
I suspect that like me, your TV repair knowledge ends at matching cables on the back to ports and replacing batteries.
Most people, regardless of age, have never been able to rebuild a transmission. That has never been a generation defining skill. It was only car enthusiasts, and more specifically motorheads, that has those skills. Did more older folks know how to work on their cars then today's youths? Likely. At the same time modern cars are vastly more complex that cars of old. Almost none of those old hats would know the first thing about rebuilding a modern transmission, and the ones that do probably don't have all of the special equipment needed to do it. If we include gender to this equation, what percentage of women in the general population do you think knew anything about working on cars? There were some, but I'd wager that is a really low percentage.
Your much older brother is an anomaly. There are exactly 0 people that I know that are 50+ years old that would know anything about fixing a TV. That is not a skill that a relatively large amount of people ever learned. I know many people that could identify a blown cap, and maybe with the advent of YouTube, could maybe figure out how to desolder and replace that component. Like with the cars, having skills in electrical engineering was never a generation defining trait.
Computers from the early 90's+ have always been more complicated than old cars and TVs. Being able to do basic things on early PCs required more skills to the end user than knowing how to drive a car or use a TV. It was all new and nothing like anything before them. Cars were preceded by other ground transportation and TVs by radios for many years and knowing how to operate them at a basic level has always been relatively simple. Computers continued to evolve at an exponential rate in capabilities and complexity and if you grew up with them in your prime years, you had to be able to keep up.
Driving cars and using (dumb) TVs is very similar to how it was 70+ years ago. The invention and roll out of these to the masses took place over decades from when they first became available and during that time they were basically the same devices to the end user. Turn a switch and the TV powers on and you turn a knob to change the channel. With a car, you put in the key, put it in gear, gas in the right break on the left, maybe clutch on the far left. That is all most people needed to know, with specialist knowing more. That is very different from computers. Just turning on a computer didn't do anything useful. It wasn't intuitive to figure out and required reading a troubleshooting. That's what every user had to experience, not just the specialists. The 90's through 00's brought with it significant changes in computers. It was a true technological renaissance and it took place over about 10-15 years which is when millennials grew up. That short amount of time and that much change isn't remotely comparable to the slow and simple changes of past technologies.
Yes and you are a techie surrounded by techies. You didn't see the millions your own age who used computers in the 80's and 90's without ever understanding them. I ran a mid sized ISP in the mid and late 90's which meant training and supporting the help desk staff to handle the phone calls. I'm very aware of how stupid the average Millenial was about technology. I hired many smart kids. But they were rare. My company had a relationship with a private school where we'd get some high school students to work at my ISP and it counted as their "computer class". There were maybe two kids per class of 100 students each year that knew how a computer worked rather than just how to click the buttons on their Mac or Windows.
There were more computer techies in the 90's. There were more motorheads in the 50's. Computers are more complicated now such that even an average techy can't modify an iPad just like an average person can't fix a car today because of its encapsulation of complications.
Wrong generation. I'm 50+ (Gen X) and have no idea about how to fix a TV at the component level. Because I grew up with TV's everywhere like kids today grow up with iphones everywhere.
TV repair was a thing. Radio shack and even Woolworths (Walmart of the 1950's) had a tube tester so that people could walk in with the tube from their TV and test it without paying for professional repair.
Average people knew more about repairing TV's than today!
Again, it's not "everyone". It's the techies of each generation. It's the same subset of the population that has the interest and skills to understand things. The only thing that changes is the popular technology that the techies focus on.
Then why is it that several, peer reviewed, scientific studies have shown, repeatedly, that millennials are better with all forms of technology than boomers, X zoomers or alpha?
What happens between around 1995 and 2005 was unprecedented.
The classic "several studies show" followed by exactly 0 mention of any studies.
The studies are on all forms of Computer Technology, not car transmission or TV repair.
The people that built the home computer and the Internet were all Boomers! Woz is a boomer. Vint Cerf is a boomer.
I'm a youngish millennial and I'm pretty sure I'm about to die of old age
God I wish that were me. Socially acceptable death is a blessing for my peers and I
@[email protected] @[email protected] I'm 30 and this is deep (to quote the meme)
Very much so, when I brought up that I am a software developer who just loves using their Macbook, because it just works, I was told I stupid because I am now locked in and what if I want to compile my own flavor of window manager, like with no sense of fucking irony.
I find the echo chamber to be nice when it is semi tech-minded people that aren't an unending diatribe of reposted wholesome stories/fake chatgpt posts/godawful jokes in the comments that stopped being funny in 2012.
I can live with that.
Yes. And everyone thinks they are the smartest human ever because of it. As you can tell by the responses here lol
Most internet forums are this way. Reddit users are also on average more technically literate than average. In fact I'd say it's the more purely social media platforms where it gets back to close to normal. Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/etc etc.
I am not tech literate like most programmers or coders, but I can look up things and read. Usually covers most of my needs overall, so it's better than nothing. Where I work I am seen as on par with any IT person but I just literally read instructions and follow them. Tried to explain it, but they treat it like I was blessed by the tech gods or something.
I lived in a tech echo chamber until I was in my 30s. This is because my dad is a baby boomer computer engineer who was working with computers since the 70s and we always had a computer at home (no consoles, just computers). First was a c64, we even briefly had a c128 (that didn't work) and then we got a 386 followed by pentium machines and we first hooked up to the internet in the 90s... and before the internet we went on dial up BBSes run by ultra nerds.
My dad still keeps up with tech and is probably better with computers than many recent CS graduates. It wasn't until I worked in tech support that I realized... Holy shit! There are people who have no idea their computers have directories! As in, if the shortcut isn't on their desktop, then their program might as well not exist.
Also one thing I learned that if you tell someone to go to a site and you spell the URL to them, then 99.9% of the time they will Google it, because they don't know what an address bar is.
I used to think those 'how to use a computer' courses in college were a giant waste of time (and an easy A for people like us) but I realize that these people could absolutely benefit from something like that.
And that is when I was working with people who had laptops mostly. When I worked in mobile tech support... fuck me! Do you realize that for a sizable chunk of the population the only computer they have is their smart phone? Those people are far, far worse. When I worked in mobility we were not allowed to hang up on clients for any reason (it was grounds for immediate termination) but at least a few times a week I had to deal with a client who did not know how to hang up their phone! No joke. They were accustomed to the other person hanging up and they didn't know how to do it!
This is doubly frustrating when those people are using flip phones rhat have a clear hang up button on them.
So yeah, acknowledging we are in a bubble is a good thing. But it isn't a bad thing to hang out with fellow tech nerds either.
from my interactions with people after i told them i switched from chrome, the average person doesn’t know the difference between a web browser and a search engine…
Are you saying you don't use The Google anymore? But how do you find all of your baking recipes?
The average person doesn't seem to know the difference between a file explorer and a browser at my work. Nevermind trying to explain the difference between a webapp and a desktop app (god I hate teams).
It seems like a lot of people almost delight in their tech illiteracy. And the big corporations are laughing all the way to the bank.
Caught my teenage cousins bragging about how they can "make a video game without any coding". It was this shitty iPad app I'd never heard of.
We've come a long way from re-creating space invaders in mode 7 on a BBC Micro during break times at school.
I mean, technically competent people sometimes do too. "Every technology I don't use is obsolete and insecure" is a badge of honor for some people.
like the early internet the tech gap was a natural filter and i see that as a good thing for the quality of the conversation.
Well, unless quality of conversation includes broad range of ideas and opinions. Personally I'm pretty happy with my little echo chambers lol.
I discovered the USB boot by accident and thought my laptop bricked for no reason!
Pressing random keys as an 8yr old while booting till the computer makes the funny beep noise and the screen turns into a .txt document
Hahaha! I’m sorry.
Gods. Floppies were a PITA with this. The default was (reasonably) to boot the floppy first, but there was no fallback for when the disk was unbootable. So, if you were saving your work to a floppy and left it in when you shutdown, the next time you turned the computer on it would just sit there saying “hey! Your floppy didn’t boot” until you ejected the floppy and powercycled it.
Well that sometimes keeps the conversation clean though. Most computer people seem to be a little more intelligent than the average person.
This used to be what people said about digg and then about reddit
Better than the generally illiterate echo chambers in other parts of my daily life.
The way I look at it is, the more echo chambers you are in and out of, the more complete of a picture you can get as a whole.
Yes, Lemmy is a certain kind of echo chamber. But you can't really be part of an online community these days that doesn't tend toward becoming one.
You just have to diversify to keep the thread. And Lemmy is a very important part of that diversification for me.
Why, obviously. I mean who hasn't read through the ls(1) man page at least once?
since the front page consists of linux and survillance hate
I use Linux because I’m too tech illiterate for Windows, I needed something that just worked out of the box
It totally is. That's why I'm here. Depending on the server, you also get a side of non-authoritarianism and strong privacy beliefs.
About the time they get a list of services to pick for sign up, they lose interest or freeze, exhibiting decision paralysis. That one time they installed ImagineDragns.exe and the computer had to be taken to be cleaned, set them down a path of I don't know what this is, I won't touch it that keep us employed.
in a simplified phrase, fediverse is the linux of social media. I'm not saying this is good or bad.
Tech literacy is following step by step instructions & having an IQ above room temperature? OK.
The comment section here is proof of the echo chamber part…
Definitely very echoey in here.
Hello?
^Hello?^
The store I work at mostly hires immigrants. While I would say that the language barrier is squing things a little, my coworkers generally have never handled technology before, even if they were previously in a role that had a high level of education.
Take one of my coworkers for example. When she asked me what I was reading, my fumbled attempt to explain fanfiction might as well have been pure gibrish. She didn't even have a concept of a book that isn't educational, never mind not knowing the translation of "fiction". After explaining the concept, she said "Oh, like the Bible?"
I think I might have done a mental bluescreen at that one.
Even just this last week, she seemed to be genuenly confuzed when I explained that I was writing a book. She kept asking "oh, are you in school then?" as if the only reason to ever write stuff was for school.
Anyways, my point is; the average everyday person has likely never so much as owned a smartphone, never mind knows how to boot off a usb drive. It's not just an immigrant thing either, my familly is almost utterly unable to have conversations with me because they don't even recognize 3/4ths of the words I need to use to describe the concept I need to explain to explain why I was laughing at a meme.
meme tax!
Post the meme or story is invalid
Here's one, it certainly got a laugh out of me
https://lemmy.world/post/33357611
Squing
Well, how would you spell it? I don't have time to look up every word I don't remember the spelling of when I'm typing from a phone.
You most likely wanted the word skewing
Tip for future: speech recognition can sometimes help you figure out the spelling of a word you only know how to pronounce.
Hadn't thought of that, makes sense though. Thanks
I would spell it correctly, but I'm probably not so pressed for time.
you are 100% correct, however, the longer im here, the more tech literate i become, the easier it becomes for me to explain it to others, and thus, the fediverse grows. word of mouth to those willing to take the plunge.
you cant force people to learn something, but being able to sell it convincingly helps, especially if you know what you are talking about, and arent abbrasive or judgemental.
linux community / privacy communities rock here.
also general conversation feels more honest and constructive. instead of the whole "WeLl AcTuAlLy!" type of shit you get on reddit. it happens, but nowhere nearly as much.
also, way less censorship. comparing feeds from lemmy to reddit, is like apples to oranges.
this feels like a much more human space to me.
How has nobody posted the geology XKCD yet?
We use arch btw.
Nah, I'm an idiot XD
I'm currently trying to usb boot an old Motherboard from 2011 that has a very early version of UEFI. Modern disk imagers do fancy partitions that aren't recognized by this ancient artifact. Just saying it can be challenging.
Nah, I'm only partially tech literate. I don't know how in the fuck to use a terminal or command line stuff.
But I know what HTTPS is and how to check the header of an email to know if its phishing. I know how to use and manage PGP keys (although I have zero people to communicate with so I end up never using it, in practice).
Boot from USB is just spamming one of the F1 F2 F11 F12 button repeatedly then select the USB, very easy, learned that in 2 minutes using a web search.
But don't ask me to set up a Lemmy Instance, I aint got the brain power for it, I'm likely to mess up setting up the security aspect of it then a hacker is gonna deface it like lemmy.world that time when they got hacked. I actually have zero clue on how to set up self-host stuff. I don't bother with a NAS, I just copy my photos, videos, movies, wikipedia .zim files via a USB cable directly to a portable SSD (I keep multiple copies of the same files). If I need my files on the go, I just take one of the SSDs and put it in my pocket. No NAS needed.
(Also NAS are kinda expensive, and you have to buy the drives separately, so the NAS thing is kinda just expensive stuff on top of the storage you already have to pay for, so I don't bother, I love my portable SSDs)
Probably true but the amount of tech posts fade into insignificance compared to the 60 - 70% Trump/Musk did/says this stupid thing posts.
I know, and it's been going on for years.
Not everyone is american or wants to read about them 20 times per day.
It's also why I think people say they don't want lemmy to change, that they want to filter out people, whenever the state of the platform is discussed, how it's not user friendly and properly thought out to be scalable.
As someone who is way too tech literate I would argue tech should be made more accessible. I wholeheartedly disagree with the walled garden approach, but the fact that I just had a conversation with my friends with the result of "but I won't use a password manager, because it's too complicated" is very eye opening.
Here's my setup for instance: Bitwarden, I log into my own server (which it self is kind of a hidden setting), then go into Settings > Autofill, check everything, grant a dozen obscure permissions (most people won't know what they are) and then sometimes it just doesn't work. Yet again sometimes it randomly loses said permissions and I have to grant them again, meaning I couldn't even help someone while setting it up, because eventually it might break.
People should be able to download a password manager of their choosing and then grant a "this is a password manager" option, which shouldn't be easily exploitable. Instead apps and websites should clearly declare login forms, but they don't really so these apps need a fuckton of permissions, over which we should obviously have granular control, so fucking password managers of all things become a powertool.
And these kinds of things happen ridiculously often, over way too much different tech stuff.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
If you don't host Bitwarden and use the extension, it pretty much is that easy out of the box. Some pages are ass and Bitwarden won't detect a login form, but in my experience, 9/10 times it works fine. You can and should harden the security settings for it, but for most people, vanilla settings are better than their current solution.
Autofill is still an issue though. I can't recall which settings are off by default but I found I need them a lot of times and so I always have to enable them and give accessibility permissions to Bitwarden, which sometimes it loses. It really annoys me and if it can annoy me it can't be used by people who don't want to deal with any tech that doesn't work out of the box.
When I first read this I thought the title was "tech illiterate" which I thought was a bit rude, but anecdotally true.
Sure we've got healthy linux and programmers communities, but I think most people are just regular degular folx.
I am not a programmer, not a geek, but just the ability to recognize problems and then find and implement the solution gives me the aura of an omniscient wizard. Simple things like: We have an automatic drying machine for work clothes here, but we haven't been able to use it for YEARS! A Google search, manual found. We now have the third coffee machine. They always break because of the chalky water. When we descale, the display still lights up: If I really go through the instructions in the manual step by step, it suddenly works. And that's before we get to any multiple screens or Excel problems with the sum function.
If you can interpret your car's manual, you're a hero. If you can also get hold of the vehicle's repair manual, then you're a wizard. And if you understand the sum function in Excel, then you are a danger to your supervisor.
No it’s not.
…checkmate, mothafucka!
i don't claim to have much computer knowledge, but people look at me like I have two heads when I suggest using a YouTube client without ads or download Blokada. Hell, the amount of people who don't use Firefox (or a fork of it) and uBlock Origing are insane
On the topic of echo chambers - At what point did we decide that a bunch of people over a wide geographical area with similar interests and a common code of standards/preferences of civility... Is a bad thing?
It's kind of how social clubs exist irl.
can't code but can oddly setup a pretty fucking dope server
100%. Thats why I like it here hahaha
and the problem is?
They are as tech literate as they are sport iliterate in my experience.
The fact that the community superbowl exists here to continue perpetuating a meme is peak irony. There are so few people interested in american football here that the intention has flipped, meaning a picture of an American football match would be funny.
I’ve been saying it’s an echo chamber for a while now and it makes me spend less time here.
I am a software developer so yes on the coding.
I think it's always going to be about 20% of the population (I'm guessing but I also don't think its a high percentage) that will always be tech literate ... or tech capable.
Everyone is skilled in some areas more than others. And the general population will always be like that no matter the era, generation or geography or capability or access.
I grew up poor in northern Ontario in Canada in an Indigenous community. I really have no real training to speak of, nor do I have any post secondary education ... I have high school but never had the opportunity to go further than that. But I have a good brain (at least I think I do) ... I learned about computer tech on my own - first learning how to use Windows, installing uninstalling stuff, then fixing updating, repairing and maintaining systems ... then drifted into the software cracking, windows cracking stuff ... then over to patching, fixing and maintaining hardware to just keep everything working ... I'm not wealthy, so I always had to figure stuff out on my own. Then once private software became too difficult, I went over to open source software with Linux and freeware and now build and repair and maintain my own systems and fix stuff for other people.
All the while, the majority of everyone else I knew never learned to do these things. I few of my friends are like me and did stuff on their own but not many (which is why I say 20%) .. the majority of everyone else just shell out money they don't have to buy $1,000 phones and $2,000 laptops to fix their problems.
Do you think creating a Lemmy account is that much harder then creating a reddit account (or any other website account)?
Yes it is. Because immediately you are faced with having to pick a server. And then grasp and navigate the fediverse, which depending on the use case is not as straightforward. There's generally more hoops to make things happen. Depending on the server you pick, the UI is not all that intuitive. And then you have things like mbin forks which swap terminology.
So no harder than email then
Signing up to Gmail is way more streamlined than any Lemmy instance sign up
There's that echo chamber at play
That accounts for some users I guess, there's probably also some who stumble upon some instance directly and don't learn about federation until some time after they register
Yes because people from reddit are constantly asking how to do it and what an instance is
In my opinon its because there is an approval gap. When create a reddit account you open reddit > enter email and password > you're dropped into reddit on an unverified account.
For lemmy: you get linked to lemmy (could be any instance) then you press the sign up button and submit an application > then you wait for hours to days for that to be approved and you cant login during that period.
Yeah true but the verification is avoidable on certain instances. It's just hard to explain that different instances have different sign up rules.
Have you looked at the signup page for your Lemmy instance lately?
I just did. The age verification is the only thing that looks slightly confusing, and anyone keen enough would deal with that fine. It's not a technical skills/knowledge barrier, it's just reading comprehension.
People ask how to make a Lemmy account all the goddamn time. You're experiencing is preventing you from understanding how it looks to a new user. Go to any big sm platform and there'll be so much less clutter on the screen and fewer things to do
Where's the meme of the wojack at the party standing in the corner saying "They don't even know how to boot from USB"
The average person probably couldn't figure it out because they don't care to. If you tell someone "Make a Lemmy account"ntheyll be confused. If you tell someone "Make an account at https://lemmy.world/" they'll figure it out. It's like if you give someone a puzzle but it's boring and they don't care to solve it, they're probably not gonna take the time to solve it.
The reason I am still with .world is because I cant be arsed to figure out how to kove instance or remember hownI set it up.
I can copy command line prompts from forums and chatgpt to my newly linted linux pc...that I dont really use because I cant figure shit out.
Me being like "what does it mean to boot from a USB 👁️👄👁️"
Fr though, the account thing is not too far off. When I made my first account (when the Reddit thing happened, it was on lemm.ee) I absolutely didn't understand jack shit and what I was doing. I was very ready to throw in the towel. I didn't understand how to add communities, how to search for communities, anything. I still have problems grasping the whole server thing. (Or what a server is.)
So a lot of times I feel excluded here, or at least like an unallowed invader, or a feral maniac just running around, throwing stuff at a wall and looking for what sticks. But that's ok. I'm happy I'm still here and one day I might even know what a command line is.
I can confirm I can do the other things but can't do some form of coding or at least navigate a directory through the command line.
Strangely in work I'm the 'computer guy' as I can navigate Microsoft office.
Yeahh exactly right. Like IRL you're a tech guy but here you'd be on the lower end of the spectrum.
mastodon is the same way; I feel like I'm in a linux fórum sometimes
I don't understand any of that shit. Nerd
I do read hardcopys of 2600 though
Yuck, hardcopy.
At least I can read . I'm just here to add to the echo chamber my friend
So was Twitter way back in the day (I’m talking ~ 2006 when I still worked in tech news). In a similar way, I think it’s up to us
canariesearly adopters to help them learn.There was a time when no one knew how to @ someone and the pound sign was still known as the pound sign. People learned (and yes, platforms got much better and more polished). They can learn again. But we teachers need patience and kindness when helping them.
Yep
not sure how most do anything. echo? most need a button says 'click here'. can drag a horse to water...
How dare you call me literate my accent is actively fucking me over with swapping As and Os. Also I am tech literate for old broken shit, I actively hate my phone because I can barely use it. Mostly because it spits me at every instance fuck you machine spirit! I don't want you to give me the news you are an over glorified MP3 player half the time!
It's been like this in some online communities since mIRC was popular. mIRC was not user friendly and people had to know how to access it, change servers, use commands. This seemed simple to me back then but most of my friends could not be bothered.
With Meta's slop, TikTok, and Reddit being so easy people rarely step outside those bubbles anymore.
I would, too. Because I've literally seen Reddit users complain that it's too hard when it's just as easy as signing up for Reddit outside of a few instances that make you jump through hoops to sign up.
Yeah thats true, but there are things that lemmy fights over. AI for example, theres a few AI enjoyers here. Linux v the world.
Its to be expected that the people who share this space are a little bit likeminded.
I-feel-like-the-people-I-interact-with-irl-don't-even-know-how-to-boot-from-a-USB.-People-here-probably-know-how-to-do-some-form-of-coding-or-at-least-navigate-a-directory-through-the-command-line.-Stg-I-would-bet-money-on-the-average-person-not-even-being-able-to-create-a-Lemmy-account-without-assistance.2y ago (during the reddit app lockdown) there was a lot of groundswell for joining other communities. Quite a few people made how-to videos showing the process. Although I bet they're a little outdated now...
I mean creating an account is no different than creating any other online account so I have to think the average netizen can do that. navigating the command line is much more rare of a thing and coding more so although it does not take much command line before you might want to modify some home directory files and that leads to scripting. Booting from a usb setup already to do it I think is not toooo uncommon but setting up a usb drive to boot an iso you put on it is a different story. Your right though that given what the federation is Im guessing it likely has a tech ratio similar to slashdot I reckon.
See even this is over my head. I have no idea what a tor network is. Maybe next year I will know more.
Ditto. And they keep pumping up Linux and refusing to accept that not everyone is tech savvy.
I've had someone I o kw mention this and it's true for me also. We underestimate our own skills and over estimate the general others.
I disagree. The amount of stagnant backwards ignorance about what AI and llms are and how they function would suggest to me there is only a cursory level knowledge of technology on this platform.
Like you said just enough to create a Lemmy account without assistance but not enough to understand the nuance of emerging tech.
"don't even know how to boot from USB"
Are you serious with this post?
Yeah, there's a strong contingent of computer people here. I'm one. If I had been a twitter user, I'd be on Mastadon because the same thing happened there.
But, hopefully you can prune your topics to match your taste. It took me a little bit to filter out the stuff I didn't want and subscribe to the stuff I only found by accident and now my feed very much fits what I want to see. Mine involves tech. But it doesn't have to.
This is where everyone from the old internet retreated to.
All we need now are instances that allow freedom of speech.
Oh no an echo chamber of people that know things or care about privacy. Do you really think I should go read 4chan or youtube comments to broaden my horizon?
I just wish I could go one single day on Lemmy without the Linux bros yelling to the heavens and going on and on about Linux. If there’s one thing that makes me avoid it, it’s the fanboys here
"Literate" is being generous. This place is pure pop tech, and generally just regurgitates tech YouTube meta.
"youtube tech meta"
That's going straight into the folder