[klibertp]

Quoting from the article:

> That one quarter of the population can’t use a computer at all is the most serious element of the digital divide.

Frightening... but why?

> To a great extent, this problem is caused by computers still being much too complicated for many people.

Ok, but this doesn't answer my other question - is it possible to educate these people to use the current computers, or do computers really need to be streamlined that much?

[majewsky]

> Frightening... but why?

I asked myself the same question when I saw a documentary about analphabets. They quoted a number of about 8 million total and functional analphabets for Germany (among 80 million population), which is absolutely staggering.

To witness, people who cannot use a computer are often called "digital analphabets" or similar.

[webmaven]

> is it possible to educate these people to use the current computers[?]

Some can be taught, but not all of them.

There is a significant fraction of the population that simply can't "get" certain concepts in a usable form. These are the same folks that are only capable of solving an algebra problem by rote, don't see the difference between making a word bold & italic and doing it indirectly by applying a custom style, etc.

It is important to note that this doesn't have anything to do with a lack of intelligence. Many smart developers struggle in an analogous way with pointers and pointer arithmetic, for example. Some people's brains just don't easily bend very far in certain directions.