@IanSudbery @mhoye that is exactly what I'm getting at. I'm not telling you that you need to know how to wrench on a car, it is enough to know basic maintenance tasks, and how to communicate to a profressional that there are problems beyond routine maintenance tasks.
Why should anyone be willing to make exceptions for computing?
If you consider the invention of the Unix operating system to be the "beginning" of the modern computing revolution, then that means modern computing has been around for the better part of 50 years. Hell, I'll walk that back and we can say that 1995 can be considered the beginning of the modern home computing revolution -- smack in the middle of the explosive growth of the internet and windows 95. That's still 30 fucking years.
The model T was first created in 1906.
Claiming computer illiteracy would be akin to someone alive during world war II claiming that they have no notion of how to maintain or operate a car. At all.
Why do we accept computer illiteracy as an excuse? All I want is when someone comes across a computer problem for them to be a little more competent than saying "this piece of shit is broke". and when inquiring further 'what, exactly is broke?' not get a response akin to "I DONT KNOW. ARENT YOU SUPPOSED TO FIX IT?" It'd be really neat for them to be able to say:
"I've cleared my browser cache already. I use Microsoft Edge"
"I've made sure that I am connected to the internet."
"Oh, I wrote down the error message. It said..."
It's fucking embarassing.