Is being 'computer savvy' teachable to the average person, particularly boomers

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guiltyspark85

guiltyspark85

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19 de Ago, 2020
I'm asking this question prompted by @seri0us asking if my mother is 'liking' Linux from the Linux thread. My response below:
She's going okay with Linux. I've got her on KDE since it's pretty Windows like. It's kind of frustrating though, despite her regularly using computers for 35+ years, she's not particularly proficient with them. So for instance she was having trouble location a file she'd downloaded. I've got the task manager set up real simple with just Dolphin, Chromium and OnlyOffice pinned - it's more simple than her Windows 11 taskbar without Copilot and other shit. But asking her to "click on the blue folder icon in the bottom left" got her a bit flustered at which icon to click on.

But before I installed Linux on her computer I created an image of her Windows install and told her it's very straightforward for me to restore Windows to the way it was set up before. She's been on Linux for about a month, so I'm pretty sure she'll stick with it.
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To give some more context, I've been using computers for a similar period to my mother ie 35+ years. She has worked office jobs for most of that period where she's had her own PC that she's used most of the working day. She has used many major versions of Windows. At the least 3.1, 95, 98, XP, 7, 10 and 11. But still she finds it difficult to adapt to KDE that is very Windows like, but to me it feels very natural.

I'd like to explore teaching a more overall and general use of computers to the average person, particularly boomers. Does anyone know of any resources around teaching computers as a general tool? I might be autistic as fuck, but I am generally extremely patient with my mother when it comes to her computer queries so think teaching others might be viable.
 
Boomer have refused to learn how to use computers for 40 years, what do you think you will do to change that? Boomers feel entitled that they should never have to learn anything new. The entire world has been held back for decades because boomers refuse to let go of fax machines or whatever. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them "read the text, no, read it all, left to right, top to bottom" they just won't listen. They'll just start randomly clicking things without reading and act confused. They're functionally illiterate.
 
Sure you can teach. But you have to be realistic about time.

A computer savvy person might spend 3 or 4 hours a day using and exploring a computer on their own, say, from the age they can read. That comes out to about 30,000 hours by the time you turn 30.

Unless you are going to commit to 10,000 hours of teaching, you are not going to achieve all that much. So in the end it really has to be self motivated to explore and learn.
 
If I had a dime for every time I had to "fix" a boomer's phone and it turned out that they just had it on do not disturb or had deleted an app. My uncle once called Amazon because he couldn't figure out how to order something. This is a guy that used to put together powered wheelchairs for Jerry's Kids. And yet he cannot order a metal plant stand without help from customer service.

It's futile. Even when boomers have some computer experience the entire process of teaching them the simplest thing will drive you completely insane.
 
No, the average person prides themselves on what they don't know and actively refuses to diminish their pool of unknowledge.
 
my grandma isnt to bad with tech actually and thats cool
 
Like a lot of tech, you don't need to have a strong understanding to use it. So many people don't, same with cars.
 
Yes, but the person you're teaching has to be willing to learn. I find reminding people how much they can accomplish by just reading helps. Literacy is a superpower. If someone refuses to use this superpower, they aren't learning shit.
 
Some people view such things only as a tool. Without a mindset shift, there's no reason for them to develop a deeper understanding. Lots of people drive their cars for decades and never learn anything much about it mechanically. Same thing, it's just a tool they use to achieve a goal.
 
Última edición:
If they actually want to learn, they can. I know a handful of older people who use computers just fine.

The problem is most of them don't want to learn, they just want to complete certain tasks, and never put any thought into what's actually happening under the hood when they follow the instructions a younger co-worker left on a post-it note. They might remember that they need to click on a certain icon to open their emails, but they're not learning, they're just reciting a process they've done before.

Imagine somebody teaches you how to say "I'd like a Diet Coke with no ice" in Spanish. If you went up to a bar in Spain, you could order a Diet Coke with no ice perfectly fine - but you wouldn't have the skills to adapt that if your order changed. That's how most boomers interact with computers.
 
I think to be savvy with anything, you have to actually want it enough that you are willing to explore that thing yourself. You can give people information to do what they need to and you can even help them understand things a little, but they will never be savvy with your help if they don't care beyond the things they want to do. I assume many of us reading this thread are at least enthusiasts, maybe a few of us are even professionals, so it may be hard to put yourself in the mind of the average user and understand how little they care.

I've worked in IT for a long time, and it's not just boomers. We even had a couple threads here about Gen Z tech literacy and the fact that many of them don't understand files and folders because everything is in a self-contained app. Gen Z at least has an excuse, all most of them have been exposed to is apps. Boomers, Gen X, and Millenials have at least some memory of when the only thing in the house with a microprocessor was the computer kept by the kitchen running anything from Windows 3.1 to XP (or some early form of MacOS), and a few of them may have some memory of the DOS command line.
 
Hff201 dijo:
If they actually want to learn, they can. I know a handful of older people who use computers just fine.

The problem is most of them don't want to learn, they just want to complete certain tasks, and never put any thought into what's actually happening under the hood when they follow the instructions a younger co-worker left on a post-it note. They might remember that they need to click on a certain icon to open their emails, but they're not learning, they're just reciting a process they've done before.

Imagine somebody teaches you how to say "I'd like a Diet Coke with no ice" in Spanish. If you went up to a bar in Spain, you could order a Diet Coke with no ice perfectly fine - but you wouldn't have the skills to adapt that if your order changed. That's how most boomers interact with computers.
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This, and when they want to you will need to guide them along and encourage good habits. It took years but I taught my parents to just google a lot of basic tech problems and a lot of times they do end up solving it themselves.
I think the big turning points were:
1. Realizing the issue they're having might be really REALLY common
2. Most issues in the home are simple issues with simple answers and guides.
From there they just realized there's step by step guides on the internet for most things.
 
Computers have become less user friendly for the last decade. I grew up with computers, and having to google how to shut off the new annoying feature pushed on me, with a mandatory up grade I can't stop. Nope, boomers are not the the problem. It's the nonsense built into them.
 
Hff201 dijo:
The problem is most of them don't want to learn, they just want to complete certain tasks
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This is both the problem and why it's not actually a problem.

If grandma is just sending e-mails or mom is just playing bejeweled all day, they don't actually need to know shit about how it works, nor is there any reason for them to do so to begin with. They are also incredibly unlikely to fuck anything up if they use a computer for a small set of tasks/enjoyment and nothing else.

My great aunt uses her 15+ year old windows computer to play old card games with other 80 year olds across the world. The only time she has ever had a "computer issue" is when either an actual hardware component broke, or when her husband died and took every password with him.
 
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