Gregory's ServerLBT: "IT support sandwich generation" stings. I'd never heard the term before but it's perfect. People older than me can't use computers because they're recalcitrant jerks who take actual offense at having to learn something that entered existence after 1980. People younger than me can't use computers, because tech companies abstracted all the actual using of computers away.
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31 comments
This, by the way, is why the "Mastodon is hard to use" trope exists. It's obviously fucking trivial to use, but only if you *actually know how to use a computer* If you think about the main (only?) difference between signing up to Twitter and signing up to Mastodon, it's you have to pick a server. But these people DON'T KNOW WHAT A SERVER IS.  @geordie Maybe we could think of other ways to refer to it. Like, your Mastodon Club or Home. (This is not sarcastic) @lachlan I'm not sure. Is the problem the terminology? Or is it that people don't understand why it doesn't work like Tiktok where you open the app and it transparently does its thing? @geordie I'm curious about that myself. @iamstevenrivers Ya know, I'm not sure. Except, now I want to find out. Btw - there's a mended drum server? That's fantastic!  @lachlan @iamstevenrivers there are apps that let you follow local feeds from other servers. I use Fedilab when I want to do this. Pretty sure there are more. @geordie I'm often raising the idea of concepts within IT training. It's not so much the interface between one OS/program that's the problem, but as you say here, if you don't know what a file is, you're screwed. There are a whole slew of concepts coming down the line as well in the security space. Today I've been playing with #Passkeys Try explaining that without mentioning passwords. @geordie Tucker Carlson had to send out a newsletter explaining to his Fox News boomer fanbase how to sign up to Twitter lol @llrd4 @geordie Which sort of proves the point? The internal workings of email that make sure mail gets to where it needs to go are sufficiently complex that most IT people don't know how it actually works. @natalie_romana @llrd4 I don't think anyone was advocating the administration of a Mastodon server, just knowing perhaps how to use Mastodon. @natalie_romana @geordie Not really, if your friends name is John then you follow his Mastodon: john@thisisjohns.instance If you need Johns email: It's the exact same idea, just people are more used to email. If anything, finding people to follow on Mastodon is easier than email, as there are hashtags and feeds to feed you new users. Email is more of a direct communication with little discovery. @natalie_romana @geordie I wasn't saying to administer a server or understand how the internal workings of mastodon function. I was saying that the concept of federation as it relates to an end-user on Mastodon is not difficult to understand, and comparing that to email, which everyone understands (conceptually, as it relates to the end-user). So no, I think if anything that proves that because people understand the concept of email, learning the concept of federation is easy. @llrd4 @geordie @geordie sbs on demand keeps showing me ads for Chrome on Android/iOS where the selling point is that "passwords are too hard but don't worry, chrome can remember them for you". It makes me profoundly sad that market research has clearly found that the average tech literacy is so low that this is somehow a valid angle @geordie I'm a programmer by trade with >15 years of experience, and the necessity to pick a server did throw me off as well. Obviously, I DO know what the server is, but I have ABSOLUTELY no direction which one to pick. What are the differences? Would I be able to see the same posts? Would others be able to see my posts? What if I'm unhappy with a choice I make? Obviously, I can find docs about those things and read them — which is EXACTLY the problem that Twitter doesn't have.  @geordie substitute "server" for "franchise" and maybe people will get it. Only difference here is you don't have to pay a central authority to start your own franchise. @geordie Do too! It's the guy or gal that takes my order and brings me food! So there! {I'll see myself out} |
My aunts can't use computers because they object to having to learn how to use them. My son's looks blankly at me when I tell him to share a file, because iPads don't *have* the concept of files.