[3np]

> I'm computer illiterate, I can't learn any of this fancy tech stuff.

This learned helplessness scares me a bit. It's like the willingness to comprehend stops at "tap".

"What are you talking about, 'steering wheel'?! I'm not a greasemonkey, are you talking about the thing I turn to make the car turn?"

Not knowing is one thing, refusing to take in any new knowledge is another.

[danShumway]

There are a lot of things that contribute to learned helplessness, but in my opinion one underrated cause (for computers) is lack of security.

Particularly with touchscreens, it's really easy to break settings or delete something if you're doing something fiddly. I think people underestimate how powerful concepts like the recycling bin are, history, etc... in making people feel a bit more confident about experimenting.

How to translate that stuff to completely computer-illiterate people is a big challenge. But my experience is that when people feel like it's really easy to revert mistakes, they tend to experiment more and they tend to be bolder about trying to solve their own problems. And in the opposite direction, as they learn more that computers are dangerous even in specific areas, that can bleed over into other contexts and make them scared of trying things in other programs and with other devices.

When I see people who aren't willing to try and figure out what a URL bar is or who are scared to move files around or organize a directory or bookmarks, I sometimes wonder what the rest of their computer looks like and if they're channeling anxieties with other programs.

Of course, that's only one aspect of the problem though, it's an issue with multiple causes.

[dionidium]

> Particularly with touchscreens, it's really easy to break settings or delete something if you're doing something fiddly.

I think this is correct. Turning the steering wheel never randomly creates a bunch of new problems for the user that they don't understand. It works the same way every time over the course of the user's entire life. I've probably made millions of turns of a steering wheel and all it's ever done is turn the wheels.

The "learned helplessness" here is on us, not the users.

[3np]

> The "learned helplessness" here is on us, not the users.

I think the big problem here is everyone of the big players “giving up” and trying to obscure and abstract as much as possible rather than make things clear.

Most people understand a phone number +[country] (area) (number).

Basic URL parts like (http/https)://(server)/(address) is not that much more complicated, is it really?

Google and Apple have really set the trend here in making it feel more difficult for users. Things like “unified bar” and hiding the address are just two concrete examples in two decades of “making it easier”.

[Majromax]

> Basic URL parts like (http/https)://(server)/(address) is not that much more complicated, is it really?

Yes. http[s]://www.facebook.com/my/profile?token=goes_here&other_params and http[s]://evil.co/facebook.com/my/profile?token=goes_here&other_params are very different things, but naïvely presented the visual weight is not on the important parts.

[piperswe]

[phone] and [phone] are also very different things, with one being toll-free and the other being pay-per-call, and people seem to be able to understand that

[presentation]

A lot of people don’t, I didn’t even know that 900 means that. But ignoring that, you’re able to verify that the person on the other line almost certainly isn’t who you intended by just having them say anything, whereas evil.co might look literally identical to Facebook. There are security and performance issues that are totally invisible to you when you use http vs https, and the errors you get aren’t just a “that number you dialed is unavailable” but instead some arcane issue about SSL certificates or something, which you didn’t know even existed, whose error page is designed to make you feel literally unsafe. The length of a phone number in a given locality is generally constrained, whereas URIs can be extremely long and complicated, and the effects of a different URI or query parameter are unbounded and differ from website to website based on no consistent pattern, and on top of that as you’re navigating a site you don’t explicitly interact with the URL at all whatsoever, whereas with phone numbers the input pretty much ends the moment you connect your call.

So yes, URLs are way more complex.

[incongruity]

> Most people understand a phone number +[country] (area) (number)

I’d wager most Americans don’t know what our country code is or what country codes are. Just say’n.

[chmod775]

> Turning the steering wheel never randomly creates a bunch of new problems for the user that they don't understand.

Having seen the kind of situations (untrained) drivers get themselves into while looking at a complete loss of how to proceed, I would like to vehemently disagree.

That's why most western countries have something that passes for "training" as an requirement to be allowed to drive.

No such thing with computers.

With this analogy I suppose an omnibar would be like a self-driving car? Or maybe just an automatic transmission?

[danShumway]

I do think consistency is also an important part of interface design, so I don't think GP is wrong to bring it up as something that modern software often fails at, but the type of consistency they're talking about isn't what I'm talking about with safety to experiment.

For me, a better car analogy would be something like the fact that your radio controls can't mess with your brakes. You don't have to worry that if you change your radio station that your car suddenly won't start. This means that you probably don't feel nearly as worried about messing with those controls in an unfamiliar rental car. The entertainment system is never going to brick your car and make it impossible to drive (well, in most cars it can't).

----

That's still a kind of tortured analogy though, so I'll dispense with the analogies entirely and just talk technology. When I teach people how to use Git, some of the most important early commands I teach them after the basic data model are:

`git reflog`

`git reset <ref>`

`git rebase -i <ref>` (and importantly, I wire this up to something other than Vim)

I have observed anecdotally that people who have a good grasp of `git reflog` are much more likely to experiment with branching strategies, rebases, and merges, and are much more likely to come up with creative ways to solve their problems. Why? Because they're no longer scared of blowing up their entire repo.

I used to leave those more "complicated" commands out of early conversations with people because I felt like I would be dropping too many concepts on them too quickly, but without that kind of confidence that says "I can undo any Git operation, swap my head to any reference, and reorder, merge and customize any set of commits from any branch", people treated Git more like a set of arcane symbols and they were scared to ever experiment or try to extrapolate to solve their problems, even when their problems could be solved using commands they already knew.

Git could be a lot better about this stuff; the lesson I take is that I want to have very clear designations between dangerous and safe operations, and I want my interfaces to teach people where the undo key is first.

----

You can probably think of other Linux tools that demonstrate this issue as well. It took us a long time to get safety locks around `rm -rf /`. In some ways, the point of those safety locks isn't just to help protect the reckless people who do irresponsible things without thinking. It's also to give more confidence to people who are learning basic terminal commands/Bash that they're not going to accidentally mess up a pipe or regex expression and delete their entire hard drive if they try to experiment a little bit.

We can take that even a step further, one of the best things you can do if you're learning Linux is get a good, reliable hard drive clone pushing regularly to a backup. You'll be in a better position to learn how the low-level system works if you know in the back of your head that you can always just blow the entire thing a way and rewind back a few days whenever you want.

[xyzelement]

> This learned helplessness scares me a bit... Not knowing is one thing, refusing to take in any new knowledge is another.

As a matter of personal philosophy, I agree - but on the level of "empathy for users" this misses the mark pretty widely.

The 'steering wheel' analogy is not applicable (but funny!) because unlike computers, everyone who drives has been licensed so there's a baseline level of education that isn't there for computing. Also, most people (at least in the US) grew up around cars, so you expect a 20 year old and a 70 year old to grasp what a steering wheel is. But likely the people you are making fun of here did not grow up with computing. They are older folks to whom the computer was presented as a way to solve some specific problem (eg: a series of clicks so I can zoom with the grandkids) rather than a general platform that you perceive it as.

You can still say "well, there's a computer now in your life so you should learn about that" and again personally I agree, but - you gotta admit there are things in your life that you could go deeper on but you simply aren't comfortable or interested in doing so. For example, do you know the anatomy of every muscle in your body? Are you perfectly comfortable with public speaking? Are you able to articulate the nuances of policy difference between two local politicians running for office in your area? These are examples of things that you come in contact with on daily basis, and (if you are like most people) you probably did not go as deep in on as you could (and arguably should). Even if you happen to be good at these specific things you can get the larger point that people don't and can't go "deep" on everything they encounter. It may seem weird to you that to someone that thing is their computer, but those people may know things that you don't, also.

[Majromax]

> Also, most people (at least in the US) grew up around cars, so you expect a 20 year old and a 70 year old to grasp what a steering wheel is.

For that matter, the steering wheel the 20 year old is using today is very similar to the steering wheel the 70 year old used 50 years ago. Nothing in computing has been so constant.

[xyzelement]

> For that matter, the steering wheel the 20 year old is using today is very similar to the steering wheel the 70 year old used 50 years ago. Nothing in computing has been so constant.

That's exactly right, the car industry has done a remarkable job maintaining interface compatibility for over a century despite massive implementation changes.

Someone who knew how to "hit the brakes" on a 1908 Model-T will be able to do it in my 2021 Toyota. Despite the fact that my car has regenerative breaking (and ABS and other things) which means that how the pedal does its thing is totally different.

Even the new additions over the basic interface feel pretty optional. EG, my car has radar cruise control but someone can drive the car for 10 years and not notice that button. If you want to drive my car the same way you drove the Model-T, you pretty much can.

[jlawson]

Not to be pedantic, but the Model T has a very different control system than modern cars.

There are three pedals and a throttle pusher on the wheel. The brake is on the right, the middle pedal is reverse. To accelerate, you work a combination of left pedal to select gear, handbrake/clutch, and a pusher for throttle on the steering wheel.

You would need retraining to go from this to a modern car or vice versa.

[xyzelement]

> Not to be pedantic, but the Model T

You got me! I actually knew this but wanted to make my point. Technically my post is correct because I focused on the operation of the brake pedal specifically but it definitely doesn't stand to this level of scrutiny :)

[pkulak]

It feels to me like they're scared to try, because they still might not get it, and then what does that say about them? But dammit, if my relatives just tried, even a little bit, things would be so much better.

[sseagull]

They are also afraid of breaking things, which isn't entirely unreasonable.

I think we've all had relatives do something and then be unable to "get it back". Task bars deleted, icons deleted, etc.

So they don't try to venture too far out because past experiences make everything seem fragile.

[conductr]

It's true. What I don't get is the reluctance to seek out learning opportunities. They won't watch a video, attend a class, read a book, none of that. It's like picking up a hobby if you're computer illiterate. They spend all the money on the device and expect what exactly? Yet if they bought a DSLR they would know it's a hobby and they need to learn a thing or two. They'd invest in learning like people do with any hobby.

[throwaway472927]

It's a cliché at this point but they don't want a hobby, they just don't want to be an outcast from society (especially in the last year and a half)

[conductr]

I guess hobby isn’t the best word. I suppose it could be a chore too. I have to learn all kinds of stuff to DIY pool maintenance. Either way, it’s an endeavor.

[asdff]

It's really because most adults don't have time to tinker like we did, being children and adolescents with computers. When I grew up in the windows xp era, I became the family tech support, and not because I was smart or anything. Just because I had time on my hands, being a child with little responsibilities compared to my parents, to go through the control panel and click every single button and option just to see what it did, so when something did go wrong I had some idea to guess where the fix was to be found. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't mess things up more often. Fast forward to today, and there is a lot of common software that I struggle with like my parents did 20 years ago because I don't have the time to fiddle like I did 20 years ago. I can't do much of anything on windows anymore, after years of using macos and unix, that knowledge has left my brain and I don't have the time to get it all back.

[HelixEndeavor]

As self-driving cars come closer to reality, I fear your hypothetical will eventually become a real conversation someone will have to unironically have.

[eru]

Well, that's how progress looks like.

Computers also used to be only for those willing to geek out and geniuses. Now they are used without thinking too much about them.

[lnx01]

I have no idea how to shoe a horse.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Did anyone complain when people stopped being able to use rotary phones?

[delecti]

But if someone told you that a horse needed to be shod before riding, you'd at least know what the sentence meant.

[jeffjeff2]

I'm pretty sure a lot of people wouldn't understand the word "shod". It's not really a word in common usage.

I just hope nobody would mishear it as "shot". That could be unpleasant.

[cblconfederate]

Tech has gone to great lengths to convince people to be illiterate. "There's an app for that" was the worse form of handicap and users were heavily incentivized to seek premade solutions rather than trying to solve their own problems

[JohnWhigham]

People get old and obstinate. It's sad but at the end of the day, they choose to be like this.

[jabroni_salad]

I promise you it is younger people too. I train bank workers from freshly minted tellers to longtime officers, none of them can navigate to a URL unless it is a clickable hyperlink. The URL is one of the most foundational elements of internet usage, it is the way to get directly to where you want to go. Having a map is nice, but don't you need to know how to walk in order to get where you are going?

Heck, there have recently been articles about STEM students that do not know how to work with a basic file directory.

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...

[windowsrookie]

I've actually been hearing and interesting theory that the younger generation is becoming even more computer illiterate than the generation before them.

The younger generation was raised on iPads and iPhones where everything is easy to use and "just works". They've never had to do anything beyond tap the icon for the App they want.

Edit: Was going to talk about that same article about File directories.

[JohnWhigham]

where everything is easy to use and "just works"

And that's unironically a good thing. To poorly paraphrase Alan Kay, you know a certain piece of technology works when it gets out of the way and becomes second nature.

However we're now encountering one of those pesky questions that we never hear about in sci-fi because it's hard to solve and it's not fun for authors to write about: are we setting up future generations for failure by making technology too easy? And it's most likely "yes". I wonder out loud: are children not getting courses on how to use a desktop computer anymore like they used to in the 90s/2000s? It seems like it. Even if they never encounter having to browse a file system again until they graduate, the fact that it's at least introduced to them while their brains are still terrific sponges would be beneficial.

I've never had to do long division after ~6th grade, but given a few minutes of recall, I can get right back into it because of the rote learning I had.

[Jerrrry]

This is true, the ease of use and proliferation of simplified and straightforward user interface conventions has had the adverse effect of making everyone born after 1998 practically unable to use a computer outside of the 4 major websites and apps.

[lowlevel]

I have witnessed this with younger people joining the company I work at. Most of them don't seem to have much of an idea how a computer works, why putting the internet between them and their deadlines might be bad or just can't figure out where their files are. I have to do a lot of hand holding for the first few months anyway.

[handrous]

> Heck, there have recently been articles about STEM students that do not know how to work with a basic file directory.

File directories, and the filesystem generally, confuse the hell out of the vast majority of computer users. We nerds forget this stuff because at age 12 we really gave a shit about it and took the time to internalize what it all means, and it's been second nature ever since, but most people haven't had the "a-ha" moment we did about it, so far back we've almost forgotten we needed an "a-ha" moment for something so "simple and obvious".

We get that this over here and that over there "are" the same thing, but that neither "is" the thing it's representing, which may also be represented entirely differently over in this other place. When we search in a file explorer window and it "becomes" something totally different, we get what's happened and that nothing's "gone anywhere". Normal people don't.

[Sophira]

I feel like a big part of the problem is that back when computers were newly introduced to the world at large, there were actually good tutorials on how to use them.

Consider the Windows 3.1 interactive mouse tutorial/Windows tutorial. [0] This was designed for an age where both mice and Windows were relatively new and people didn't know how to use them, and it's one of the better designed tutorials out there, I think, allowing the user to interact with the tutorial and instantly see the results of their actions.

However, nowadays if you try to look up a tutorial on how to use a mouse, you're probably not going to find very much. The best I could find was hosted at gcfglobal.org [1], and explained the concepts and how to do things with a mouse, and has relevant interactive parts, but requires knowledge of how to scroll the page (which it does tell you how to do at the top, but there's only so much room there). There was also a set of pages called hosted at pbclibrary.org [2] which goes over the mouse basics and doesn't require scrolling before the concept is introduced, but it's somewhat outdated.

But those two were about it. The rest were mostly non-interactive videos. And in all these cases, discovery is a major problem - most of the time, the only way you're going to be able to get to those in the first place is through someone who already knows how to use a mouse.

We're all assuming that schools are teaching these basics. But what if they're not?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmFzIllvHzU

[1] https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/mousetutorial/mouse-tutorial/1/

[2] http://www.pbclibrary.org/mousing/

[SketchySeaBeast]

And it's limited to the systems we're exposed to. I grew up with DOS and then windows so I know file structure there no problem, but I'm still not comfortable with how Linux organizes things, and I haven't the faintest clue about Mac.

[jkfdrsak]

I used a friend's mac once and I (a competent windows/linux user) could not find the top most file directory. Scary times.

[handrous]

"ls /" ?

[hateful]

I think that the fact newer versions of popular OSes (Windows, Android) try hard and harder to hide the filesystem from the users - probably because "they won't understand". But in the long run, hiding it makes the problem even worse.

[wffurr]

The transition to mobile computing devalued typing and greatly increased the attraction of icon grids.

There was some series of essays recently that I read (linked from HN maybe) that went into some details about the economic differences between search-based desktop computing and "juicy springboard of icons" mobile computing.

[burnished]

It isn't surprising, really. Computers are wonderful and complicated devices but a lot of knowledge about them is handed down more as an oral history, and it is dense and has had over fifty years of tumultuous growth.

Have you ever thought about even just the jargon you need to know to be fluent today? Not even just the important computer systems terms, but the names of tools, all the acronyms, the context of why things are the way they are.. its huge, and its endless. The stuff we think about as basic really never was, and now it gets hidden behind a slick user interface, and you might reasonably get to your third year in a CS program before getting a handle on how everything sort of fits together.

[lowlevel]

I see this all the time, with people not understanding where files are or that there is some kind of hierarchical filesystem lurking behind the covers. Thanks for the link.

[thrashh]

Pretty much everyone is like this somewhere though. Not many people eagerly learn in every domain.

[ronenlh]

I had a computer illiterate boss once. He said “please understand it, I’m disabled”