It’s helpful to take a few steps back from time to time to reassess where we’re each coming from on our knowledge of tech (or anything) to better communicate.
I had a coworker get livid when an end user didn’t know what “the start menu” was.
Pointing out that the last version version of Windows to actually say “Start” on the start menu is old enough to drink (XP was released over 22 years ago; mainstream support ended 15 years ago) did not quell his anger.
Now that you mention it…What are we supposed to call that anymore? The…Windows menu, I guess? This reminds me that the “icon-ification” so to speak, of interfaces has made things frustrating for everyone involved since there’s no name/label for the icons to rely on to communicate what to click/tap.
Microsoft themselves still call it the start menu:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/open-the-start-menu-4ed57ad7-ed1f-3cc9-c9e4-f329822f5aeb
Many people are very uncomfortable with the degree to which their work and life depend on computer systems they do not understand. They feel vulnerable to computer problems, pressured into depending on more tech than they really want, and do not believe they have the knowledge or resources to remedy problems with it.
So when something goes wrong, they feel helpless. This is not unfounded, but it can often make the problem worse.
Depending on the person, this can lead to blaming or blame-dodging behavior. IT folks — did you ever ask someone what the error message was and they say “It’s not my fault!” or “It’s not my job to fix it, you’re the computer person!” … as if blame ever helped!
The “tech person” differs not so much in knowledge but in having a different emotional response to tech doing a weird/broken thing: when something goes wrong, they jump to curiosity. It’s not “I already know how to fix this” but “We don’t know what happened here yet, but we can find out.” Knowledge comes from exercising this curiosity.
But this is not something that everyone can do, because people who feel unsafe don’t typically go to curiosity to resolve their unsafety.
If only they had any idea how complex and unreliable the non tech things their lives depend on and they imagine they know are.
I agree, but also computers break differently. Using a computer is just like other everyday activities like driving a car, until something goes wrong
Imagine if you broke down, but you didn’t know if it was ‘the car’ (call a mechanic), or the road, or the traffic lights…
Imagine if you broke down
soo just another Tuesday? 🥲
I have worked in IT for 10+ years, IT support is 90% psycology, especially over the phone.
True that. I got tired of the tech support theatre. Fix a problem in two minutes = unhappy user. Fix a problem in a quarter hour and make it look difficult = happy user. I just want to do my job and leave without any human interaction, y’know?
Then why do you have that job?
I don’t, any more. I switched to supply chain.
How do you like it?
The work’s not exciting but the money’s better and I’m sharing an office with people I like. So I think it was worthwhile.
Glad to hear it. Excitement’s for kids anyway. I’d rather have the most boring job the in the world at this stage of life. People I like and good money’s just about perfect. Also, so long as I’m not doing anything wrong on the job: lying to people, screwing people over, etc.
I personally don’t think most people would even know how to make a text file on their computer without looking it up. Anything beyond usage of a Web browser and maybe connecting to WiFi is black magic for most.
I always have to explain to people that the internet and Wi-Fi are two different things.
I used to work at an internet service provider and oftentimes people would call up to say that they couldn’t connect to the internet and the problem was actually that they couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi because the router was broken / out of range / had been turned off because they read something about 5G on Facebook. Their internet service was fine.
I work in an admin role in the construction industry. I regularly encounter seasoned engineers, project managers, and architects who don’t know the difference between a website and an app, or how to scan a QR code.
But then I remember that they know how to build a house from scratch, and I don’t. We’re all good at different things.
We assume that people know what an OS is, what OS they’re running, and how to install an OS.
I’ve seen it dozens of times, especially on here, where someone describes Linux, convinces the person that they’ll like it, and then gets the equivalent of a blank stare when they say ‘You just need to download the ISO and install the OS’
My mother is in her 70s, and if you set up her computer to run Linux in the same way that it comes ready to run Windows, she’d be fine after a short readjustment. If you gave her a USB stick with Linux on it, she wouldn’t get anywhere because she has no clue what she’s supposed to do with it.
She doesn’t care about the OS, as long as her browser opens and loads Facebook, letting her keep in touch with her friends.
Even as someone relatively comfortable with computers, Linux intimidates me. I want to use it but there’re so many variations and it’s a massive rabbit hole to go down; I just don’t have the time or energy to spend several days getting it set up how I want it and fixing any errors that I cause
Tech people presume that normal people think about how technology works
They don’t even try to conceptualise how something on their phone gets there from the internet or ‘the cloud’ - when things stop working they don’t think about the fact that their an app on their phone is using a network connection to a router, which distributes an internet service that connects them to a server, that is running a program, on which they have an authenticated account…
They wouldn’t even know where to begin with troubleshooting, it’s just ‘broken’ and they get frustrated
Here’s the difference you’re probably not understanding about your self: people don’t need to know everything about everything, and they couldn’t if they tried.
A very small part of my job involves lubricating large industrial fans. Easy enough. What grease should we use? Hang on to your fucking panties
Lube or grease? Lithium-based? Urea? Composite? What was used previously? What should have been used previously? Have you ever done sampling? What’s the vibration frequency?
Did you know there are people with PhD’s in grease composition?
I bet you never even realized that was a thing.
So no, I don’t know what TCP/IP means, or what port and protocols are or what the hell a subnet mask is. I don’t even know what I don’t know. And that’s okay, because YOU know. Doesn’t make you any smarter than me, any more than it makes a grease expert smarter than either of us.
That’s basically me when my car has an issue. I don’t care how it works, I just want someone to fix it.
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And for many people, computers are basically at that level. As long as it works, it’s convenient magic.
honestly it’s magic even when you understand it. Computers are pieces of rocks drawn on with runes in rare mineral ink, infused with lighting, and then made to do maths by generations of magicians perfecting the translation from the primal language of what can be only described as a pulse of being only made apparent by the times when it’s not being, to words humans can comprehend, then with that maths they somehow they create illusions of entire new worlds, and did I mention they can telepathically communicate with other magical rocks? all through mystical waves all around us created by beacons big and small in key locations. Previously, to talk with a person on the other side of the planet, a single attempt to communicate would require months, if not years, now? seconds. if not less. Computers are magic.
Everything.
From the difference between WiFi, cellular data, and wired Ethernet to the ports on a computer.
People don’t know shit, and it’s getting worse thanks to the abundance of things like tablets and phones. Nobody knows anything about operating systems, file system structure or types, or even how to turn Bluetooth on.
And I am not what I consider highly tech literate. Plenty of stuff stumps me or I simply don’t know how to do. Yet I’m the family “IT guy” that has to troubleshoot and fix stuff.
Probably the worst part isn’t people not knowing. That’s fine. There’s tons of shit I don’t know. It’s the unwillingness to remember and learn about the system. That’s pretty maddening.
Also not to mention today, your computer hides shit from you. Back in the old days (around 10 years ago) you would get an error message, something you could search and understand but increasingly all you get now is “operation failed”. You get this kind of thing on Mac’s, iPhones, android and increasingly windows.
And of course phones/tablets are much more locked down and you see any of the “nitty gritty” computing, just icons and bubbles.
The government created the Internet, not Elon Musk
I’m old enough to remember when Al Gore created the internet
Basically everything.
Like, even filling out a basic Excel sheet can be difficult to some people who have absolutely no experience in it.
I had to stop watching how other people use computers for my own sanity. Even people who use computers (allegedly) 40 hours a week for the past 20 years are no better than those chimps who learned to touch squares on a screen. If a triangle pops up they start throwing shit.
But I no longer assume a user knows anything. If someone asked me what a curser was I wouldn’t even blink. The only thing that really annoys me is a refusal to try anything. I don’t even care if you learn about what you are doing, at least try what I’m telling you.
I have a coworker who had literally never used a computer his entire life before getting this job. He’s almost 50 and was hired shortly aftet me.
But he’s put in the effort. He can now type relatively fast, he knows what the file system is, what browsers do, how to send and read emails, how to send and read slack messages. He’s even starting to get a sense, when something goes wrong, whether he did something incorrect or whether the software he’s using is just shit. Tabs took him a long time to wrap his mind around but he’s getting it. All this in about a year.
Tabs are weird because they only make sense intuitively to someone who uses paper files, which is becoming less common
This, but also don’t underestimate people’s curiosity to learn a bit more about a niche topic over some beers. I love hearing about crap I understanding nothing about. I watched a PhD defence about sea slugs and it was really cool.
sea slugs
really coolWell thats just obvious
Turning it off and on again fixes so many things.
