The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
2 years ago by BodaciousMunchkin to c/technology
From what I recall, particularly the younger generations that exclusively use mobile devices (though of course this is not limited to them) actually have terrible tech literacy across the board, primarily related to spending all of their time in apps that basically spoon-feed functionality in a closed ecosystem. In particular, these groups are particularly vulnerable to very basic scams and phishing attacks.
I work in tech at a credit union and we’ve hit a weird full circle point where the new folks entering the job market need a lot of training on using a computer for this reason. It’s been very bizarre being back at a point where I have to explain things like how to right click because a lot of people have grown up only using phone/tablets.
They're also market-locked. If you have so little ability to function outside of an app, you become incredibly resistant to moving from one to another unless it's identical, and you're incapable of using marginally more complex things.
It also gives immense market control to the app stores, have been allowed to exist mostly unregulated. Thankfully that might be changing.
When everyone must be spoon-fed, that makes the only company selling the spoons insanely wealthy and powerful.
It's also going to have a degrading effect on popular software overtime. When the only financially viable thing is to make apps for the masses, you are not incentivized to make something extraordinary.
Compare Apple Music to iTunes, just on a software level. Just on the sheet number of things you can do with iTunes, all the nobs and levers, all the abilities it grants a user willing to use it to its max potential. At some point, it no longer became viable to create an excellent piece of software, because most people have no skills or patience or desire to use it.
So you start making things that don't empower the user, instead you make things that treat them like children, and your products get stupid.
Would be interesting to see if any of these low-level skill folks are actually high (or higher) on mobile skills.
"Mobile skills" are likely still lower skill. Tablets and phones are mostly content consumption devices instead of content creation (photos/videos excluded). Does anyone do serious software development on a phone? How often are mobile users writing papers or prose using only their touchscreen? How many people are doing complicated video edit on an iPhone? Can those tasks be done on a table/phone? Sure, but I don't think its common.
The reason this is a problem is that it means there is a barrier between deeper computer skills and the devices/environment that people are using daily. The reason many of us became computer savvy on a desktop wasn't because we wanted to, its because we had to to get the game running we wanted or we had to write the paper we were required to. So being familiar with other uses on a computer, it is only a very mild extension to writing a script if the need arises. The only "new" or "foreign" part is the script, not the environment or interaction of where you're creating it.
With a tablet/phone as your primary device it means learning not just scripting, but learning all the skills necessary to use a computer. Its a high barrier.
However with their examples you don't need to write a script, you can solve them that way but you really don't need to for these examples. This is some basic search refinement skills (Outlook would even help you build this unlike say a Google search with refinement filters) and either a small spreadsheet or a calculator app to max out at their level 3.
Scripting this I would put at a level 4, but I would be interested where the authors of the paper would fit that in as its their research and what sort of percentage would fit into that skill set.
I always wonder how it's even possible. I can't do half shit that I do on my computer on my phone. And even if I can, I need to spend like 3x-4x more time because how inefficient touch screen is.
I am primarily mobile only, but I am also a Linux user on desktop. I just don't use the desktop very often because it's less convenient to have to sit down in front of a desktop or laptop versus just pulling out your phone and checking something. It's more a, it's the device I have and it's always on and I don't have to go anywhere to get it. As I said though, I'm high in both mobile and desktop because I run Linux and know how to use the command line and I flash custom ROMs on my phone and use primarily open source software. I also submit bugs to many open source, desktop, and mobile applications.
What do you think all those "hacker" scarecrow movies and alarmist articles and laws were aimed at and caused by?
Modern computers allow one person to do the monthly work of the Soviet Genplan on their home machine in a day if they are smart, in a month if they are average, and Soviet Genplan employed more than one person.
Together with the Internet they make power over masses a much less certain thing.
Except if you poison both, you can not just neuter, but invert the effects.
We still have more and less powerful people in our world.
What I mean is that I don't think it's a coincidence that "user-friendly" computing, bloating of the Web and rise of authoritarianism happened with the same intensiveness in the same ~20 years.
I doubt that. Phones hide even more of the internal infrastructure than PCs do.
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Wow, this is bleak.
I read somewhere (I think the deloitte tech survey from a few years ago) that many people have replaced their pc with smartphones and use their phone as their primary tech device. Would be interesting to see if any of these low-level skill folks are actually high (or higher) on mobile skills.
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