"learned helplessness" & the tech literacy crisis | Internet Analysis

[@tiffanyferg]

legend says no one will read this pinned comment, anyway!! enjoy :-)

[@Mr._Milou]

❤

[@KellyLoom1s]

Legend says that pinned comment is still unread, to this day.

[@johnvincent5594]

I can't read!!

[@SofiaMartinho]

Get to the point!!!

[@kai_ller]

oh i didn’t see it!

[@emilykawaii123]

"Everyone on this website has piss poor reading comprehension." "How dare you say we piss on the poor."

[@tarrynlea]

nice! 😂

[@mightytaiger3000]

🤣 the accuracy

[@theflyingspaget]

​@@TexanServiceTechnicianit's okay, they stole it from an extremely famous tumblr post.

[@ctcstan1406]

I was waiting for this Tumblr post to be brought up lmao

[@claire2088]

"how dare you say we are poor pissers! we are excellent pissers!"

[@colleenorourke6934]

As an Elder Millennial high school teacher, it absolutely destroys my soul that I am apparently forever doomed to spend my days explaining to my Boomer/X coworkers **AND** my Z/Alpha students how to rotate a PDF and attach it to an email.

[@justb4116]

If a hungry man asks you for food, would you share your fish or would you share your spare fishing rode and teach him how to fish? If he came back the next day and asked you for food again, would you share your fish, share your spare fishing rode, or make couple of spare fishing rodes together for him to learn and craft that tool himself? If the same man came to you third day asking for food.. Is it really food the man is after after all this?

[@janewaysmom]

​@justb4116 It's ironic that you're here implying that all these people op is talking about aren't really genuinely asking for help because they didn't learn for themselves how to fix their pdfs, while you also have plenty of access to spelling aids and yet wrote "rode" instead of "rod" every time. "Rode" is the past tense of "ride", which is the verb describing the action of sitting, standing, or laying on a form of transportation in order to go somewhere, or to give lots of persistent, annoying, pestering encouragement to do something or accomplish some goal. I just think that sometimes, people need to be taught things more than once for it to make sense to them, and if they're asking three or more times, that's when we need to take a step back and wonder if the way we're teaching them is maybe what the problem is, rather than deciding that they don't want to learn, like you're implying.

[@mightytaiger3000]

I'm not in that kind of work environment, however any time I see monosyllabic comments like "source" or "song?", I feel a vessel about to pop. Especially because it's always the younger generation. How about type keywords or the fcking lyrics on a search engine, download shazam, talk to another human knowledgable on the matter (when it applies) or find a record store and embarrassingly sing it to the clerk like normal people do?? People are increasingly chronically online, yet they don't use the internet for anything it is actually useful for. And then there's the kicker, those same people WILL try and "learn" about complex and layered topics by "doing a quick google search" and parroting the first answer Google highlighted for them, and act like Duh! HOW can you not parrot the exact same thing they just "learned" 2 seconds ago??

[@helixxia9320]

@txspacemom765 no it should not be their responsebility to teach the ones around them every little thing. tutorials exist. those helpless people just dont go and look for it themselves. did you even watch the video or get the point

[@Fusterclucked00]

It's strange to me. My parents can't seem to comprehend anything new. They don't utilize technology to solve problems. They just let the problems exist and questions go unanswered. It's like they have a resistance to curiosity. I'm seeing similar behavior from young people. Same popsicle, different flavor. They want to be fed funny videos and snippets of information. Actually learning about something is difficult for them because they don't want to spend an extended amount of time on one thing.

[@mollygrace3068]

I’ve been a preschool teacher and now I’m a teacher for the children’s program at church. I come off as a tyrant to the other teachers because of how much I refuse to do for kids, and how much I stop other teachers from doing things for kids. Things like there’s a circle that needs to be cut out and a six year old says he “can’t” do it, so the other teacher picks it up and cuts it out for him. Then they act like I just don’t want to be helpful. Not true. I’ll sit next to a kid, I’ll talk to them, I’ll describe the process, I’ll model it with my OWN circle (or whatever), but I won’t do it for them.

[@romanaww]

Yes, it's kinda even confusing when my 7 year old nephew's first instinct is to say "I don't know/I can't do it" when he is asked about something or asked to do something that he isn't accustomed to or hasn't thought of, so when I babysit him I've tried to encourage him to be a bit more proactive I guess. Props to you for trying to break this cycle :)

[@milikoshki]

Hidden Brain is a great podcast that has multiple episodes about how important it is to let kids figure stuff out on their own. Keep doing what you're doing!

[@squishyPenguin18]

SO IMPORTANT!!

[@someweirdo]

Even if none of the other teachers do it like you, thank you for doing it your way. Teaching kids how to do things for themselves is really important.

[@ianglenn2821]

Watch out for predators, most child abusers are religious people

[@SofiaMartinho]

This happens in offline life as well. I have a brick and mortar shop. The working hours are written in the door. People still don't understand why the door is closed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@BardianAngel]

The number of phone calls I get for my job that are essentially asking questions that our emails/letters have already answered. It takes a lot of willpower from me not to ask why they didn't read it before calling us.

[@mochasucculent]

Reminds me of a road nearby my place that's currently closed, but every single day I've seen more road blocks and signs added because people just don't look for them and try to enter anyway. Idk what you would call that, some sort of spacial awareness or something?

[@coscorrodrift]

lmfao that's crazy

[@SofiaMartinho]

Maybe people are so saturated with information that they simply can't notice things anymore. It's really hard having to say the same thing over and over.

[@mavohq]

this always makes me think of the beginning of the spongebob episode ‘graveyard shift’: “are you open?” “read the sign” * points to a ‘closed’ sign * “……… i’ll have a krabby patty deluxe and double chili kelp fries”

[@dmitrieffect]

I'm an academic librarian and sometimes people ask me 'do we still need librarians? I thought you could just look everything up online now' and I explain that Google actually helps keep me employed because I spend a lot of my time teaching people how to Google properly (and then hopefully eventually getting them on to other sources of information and using their critical thinking skills etc) 😅

[@MissCaraMint]

God bless librarians. So helpful.

[@LeeHawkinsPhoto]

Librarians also know places to look that aren’t Google…because not all information is given away for free online 😳 because some people expect you to buy their book…And libraries buy the book so you don’t have to! 😊

[@doctorphoenix1498]

I’m an aspiring librarian, currently a library clerk in a public library, and I absolutely see this here all the time as well. It’s sometimes disheartening but I’m grateful to the people who come in still willing to learn from the staff.

[@onemadkat]

Librarians know what’s up, but the job is getting harder

[@fernpelt54]

not to mention using academic search engines! I can’t count how many times I’ve explained Boolean phrases, databases, and various search optimizers to my peers

[@amberfuchs398]

This has been going on since before the internet as well. Mortimer Adler wrote the book "How to Read a Book" back in 1940, which is still in print. It's about learning how to read for comprehension. 84 years later and its still as relevant as ever.

[@ourmobilehomemakeover662]

I read that book!

[@AdaireKrickets]

This! It's not new. You just are seeing it more often now because instead of being confined to your town of 10 thousand people, you have access to millions.

[@EepyHarmony]

Yeah I really don’t think this is new. We’ve had Google for years and years and gen x/boomers have really weird ideas about looking up information online-either that it can’t be reliable just bc it’s online, or they have an anti-intellectual stance and have no inner curiosity to look up information for themselves. After all, if you can get your kid to come over every time you forget how browser tabs work, then you don’t have to ask your kid to come over in an emotionally vulnerable way. I think it’s more obvious to TikTok creators and teachers bc they’re just in contact with SO MANY people, and it seems sudden bc of their personal experiences.

[@mightytaiger3000]

Isn't that more frustrating though? that there has been no improvement whatsoever?

[@ambiarock590]

That sounds like a neat book to pick up at some point

[@Dev-ld4gi]

When I graduated college with a BA in history, I felt a little insecure that there was no way I could possibly remember the thousands of dates, names, and events that I learned. After three years out of college, I realized the actual content of what I studied was not extremely important. Rather, it’s the resourcefulness I learned. The ability to take a topic and research it with credible sources to ultimately convey my ideas to others. So, sure, I might not remember the details of the Battle of Saratoga, but in a few hours I could refresh my memory with effective research. I’m so lucky to have had the education I had, and, when I become a teacher in the future, I will reinforce this idea again and again: It’s not *what* you learn in school that matters. School should teach you *how* to learn anything you want.

[@spntageous5249]

maybe in school kids shouldnt be taught to memorize things but how to find the proper resourses for the task. I've seen a lot of posts like "oh why are they making us memorize things in school where in real life you can always google them" well maybe in schools they should make you google/look up the information so you can learn to search it yourself.

[@Dev-ld4gi]

@@spntageous5249 I think a lot of schools are implementing this idea more with open note tests, research papers, etc. I think memorization in moderation is a good exercise for challenging your brain and working on your memory in general. But, yes, the best kind of classes integrates lots of techniques in their homework and exams.

[@no_ononono3074]

Yes!! Fellow history grad here… I am so fucking thankful for studying history because it taught me how to research, fact check, and most importantly CHECK AUTHOR CREDIBILITY!!! It’s so disturbing to watch people have no clue or even a basic drive to want to find truth, let alone actually find it. Memorization definitely needs to be phased out from the American education system with more of an emphasis placed on critical thinking and researching. We have the internet. We don’t need to know dates of wars. What we do need to know is that no one, even a Harvard grad or master doctor, should be immediately seen as credible and listened to. It’s our job to find truth to determine our beliefs. Everyone is biased bc no one can truly separate their work from their lived experiences. No one wants to do the work of learning and growing, and I get it… we’re fucking tired. But we ALL owe it to ourselves to live in the light of the truth and sadly these mega corporations and governments don’t give a fuck that we are perpetually being duped and lied to. Just look at how corporations like Lyft fudged their data to raise stock prices!! And how so much of inflation was just exposed as not being from demand but from these companies just wanting to charge more because they can. That shit is scary!! But ofc no one is reading enough to even realize this is happening. Sorry for my rant but I am so so passionate about this.

[@meghansullivan6812]

Yes!!! I think that’s soooo much what college is about - of course the content is meaningful but it’s the SKILLS learned throughout school and those obtained through doing assignments that i think you really graduate worth!!

[@mallorycarpinski1160]

​@spntageous5249 I have to disagree with this for one reason: practicing memorization is good for your brain and helps your memory work not just keep that particular information.

[@cowgrll]

My personal three horsemen of the apocalypse are weaponized incompetence, learned helplessness, willful ignorance. The fourth horseman is a free space that could at any time be filled by lack of critical thinking skills, misogyny, racism, bigotry, hubris, etc.

[@maria_____.]

The fourth horseman for me is anti-intellectualism

[@netteloveszebras]

Lmao I'm stealing this!!

[@aliameagan7240]

This comment is gold. Do you read Jonathan Haidt at all?

[@WhizPill]

yup basically all facts

[@dylaann]

@@maria_____. as someone who has been getting into philosophy recently, the amount of my friends and family to tell me "why are you interested in that stuff? its just boring long books about the meaning of life and stuff with no real use irl," is astonishing. There's a reason people wrote this stuff down!! Learning and thinking means you don't reinvent the wheel every 100 years as a society.

[@maryp9923]

I think this is happening because curiosity is being lost. Information is so accessible that people don’t sit there with information to formulate their own ideas. It’s easier to just go with whatever you hear. Learning information on your own allows you to formulate your own opinions!

[@yin4296]

My friends joke about how awful our major is because nothing is online and you have to get ultra proficient at google searching to find a morsel of useful information, but we’re also way more curious and willing to help ourselves from what I’ve noticed lol

[@Flippylover_69]

I’ve noticed that too. As an artist on the internet, the online art community is a safe haven for me because it’s one of the only remnants of creativity and childlike curiosity in today’s online landscape. It’s the ones place where people are less concerned with pandering to algorithms and more concerned with mastering their craft and exploring the many options available to them. Sure things like AI art exist, but they can never truly capture or replicate the beauty of what human beings can create, which I’m thankful for. Human beings are products of their environment. We’re meant to be molded and shaped by our passions and experiences, not algorithms and screens! In a world where you can do, say, or create anything with the click of a button, humanity is lost.

[@ariaz1112]

People, especially children, are getting less and less time to sit and think, to be bored and find ways to entertain themselves outside of technology. Times like that are when creativity, imagination, and curiosity develop, and those times are steadily getting drowned out by technology and stimulation

[@ktkchu]

hit the nail on the head @@ariaz1112

[@Alex-sv6wy]

I studied fake news and digital media literacy in my master's program, and it turned the internet into a very stressful place for me. I can't help but see all the false information, lack of critical thinking and awareness, and unwillingness to even attempt to push back on or question the narratives large creators, algorithms, and other channels try to shove down our throats. It is distressing and has me very worried about the future. I'm about to give up on social media entirely.

[@Evermorecurious]

There has to be a better alternative.

[@ernestomurrieta7379]

Any books or resources you recommend to learn more about this? This whole fake news phenomenon has been on my mind lately...

[@user-nl4fp4iv8y]

@@ernestomurrieta7379 I'm so interested in this as well but then I become paranoid that I might be using resources that are also biased and its so stressful sometimes

[@tricky-vixen]

I also focused on mis/disinformation and information ethics in my master’s program. I think what hurts perhaps more than the existence of fake news and decline in critical thinking is the increasing narcissism in not being able to admit wrong or fault. I think perhaps /because/ we have so much access to so much information, we become paralyzed to doing the work to determine what is “correct,” and so we grab onto the first thing that makes “sense” and dig our heels in. It’s the inability to just admit, “I don’t know but I can learn” or even “I don’t know and I don’t /need/ to know because it’s not relevant to me.” And on some level I get it. Learning takes time, and who has any of that these days?

[@Tree-House69]

I feel this, I mostly just use KZbin and some music streaming services, otherwise people seem to get radicalized in the worse of senses, and get extreme, unscientific, anti-people ideals

[@erylaria398]

Reading comprehension is SUCH an undervalued skill. I work in tech support. The number of times i write an email with detailed troubleshooting steps, asking for detailed replies, and then i get back 3 word replies like "didn't work" is TRULY STAGGERING. Like. HOW did it not work? At WHAT POINT? Did it not work? Did you get an error message? Aaaahhh!!! And these are not private consumers. These are other IT professionals. They just DON'T READ THE ENTIRE EMAIL. Nothing about my job makes me angrier than that.

[@basicallybet]

This is why when one of these young adults insists that English was useless to them in school, I just shake my head and reply, “I can tell.”

[@daytime8346]

Fellow IT professional here and I absolutely agree. I remember when I was doing one of my cert trainings, my instructor said "Don't bother coming to me with a question if you haven't tried solving it yourself. And when you do, tell me everything you already tried and what you've ruled out." That has absolutely stuck with me - it's a good rule for tech but also for learning skills in general. I'm just sad many others don't bother with it and want to be spoon fed answers and sometimes that's not even enough.

[@loupgarou95]

God, what a mood. I do IT support for a UNIVERSITY and it's still the same. Professors and deans and librarians just completely unable to properly read and communicate.

[@b.c.9358]

I can't help but to recall the Tumblr post that stated, "The reading comprehension on this site is piss-poor," and the joke reply was, "How dare you say we piss on the poor!" Sometimes when someone wildly misinterprets what someone else is saying, the screenshot will be added to the replies to point out a lack of thought in a response.

[@kezia8027]

oh my god just reading your comment made my blood begin to boil and makes me glad I left tech support behind many years ago...

[@DJFelixChester]

One bit about the “there is no virtue in struggle” point. Sometimes there’s no virtue in a particular struggle, but there is a purpose to it. I had a wood carving teacher, who when I started, made me wear leather gloves for everything and didn’t let me take them off for the whole instruction period. That included using my reference book. I asked him why, and he said, “because you’ll get so annoyed at trying to use the book you’ll just start remembering.” I took that same philosophy when trying to improve my typing speed and got a keyboard with blank key caps, and almost doubled my typing speed even with dyslexia. When I’m learning a new system at work with new shortcuts I purposely place the notes under my arm where it is inconvenient to constantly reference them, and I get used to them very quickly. Arbitrary difficulty is just gatekeeping, but sometimes the difficulty is the skill.

[@CrystalLily1302]

See, I think that's a different point, that's more just putting in barriers so that the path of least resistance becomes the path that is most useful, the saying that there is no virtue in struggle just means that struggling is not inherently worth anything, not that it's never worth it to struggle.

[@dafoex]

I can agree, and I think that wraps around to the point about exercising the muscle that is the brain. Arbitrarily making people struggle "because you did" is not virtuous, but making people go through the struggle of learning a new thing - like the skill of using a search engine - is a useful struggle. Not everyone learns the same, and I know I struggle to learn without a mentor, but I can still pick up some things, such as how to read the video title and description, without someone showing me how.

[@dafoex]

Although I'll put a little bit of blame on TikTok, it's video description is not very readable. It looks like is smooshes all the "caption" text together with the tags and other metadata, making it less glanceable and looking less conducive to finding general information. I'm not saying that there is anywhere better to put that information, just that it could be better presented and made to look more inviting.

[@icegirl2246]

I like this thread. I appreciate the nuance that's understood here. Struggle in and of itself is not virtuous, but struggle (to a degree) can be a tool for development. It's an awkward thing but so important too. On one end there's the fear of going too far and leaning into struggle alone which may appear - or even actually be - sadistic. While on the other end avoiding any struggle whatsoever can create a kind of dependence, shallowness.. weakness if you will in one's resolve. It's all very delicate, and just talking about it can make someone out to be villainous. But when actually viewed in someone's life (for example: my struggle as a kid to improve at actually getting to the ball in time to hit it in tennis.) The natural event of struggling to develop at a skill is not an inherently bad thing either.

[@heartofstars13]

I had a boss in public health at a health department who used to gripe about how no one read their emails. One day, I wrote a detailed email about my progress on a project she asked me to take over and a couple questions I needed answered. Five minutes later, she was in my office asking me to update her on the project. I was so confused and asked if she got my email. She said, “Yeah, it was too long so I thought this would be faster.” When I tell you my soul left my body… This is a topic I know all too well. 💀

[@aliameagan7240]

Be mindful of bosses time. I am one. Sometimes for them time trumps all and they need things concise and no fluff. Not about comprehension or anything. I’m not saying to discourage you, I just mean if I see a long ass email when I need a short progress report I’d do same. Time is insanely valuable as an owner. It’s different than when you’re in a different role.

[@_holy__ghost]

​@@aliameagan7240no, its not different if youre an owner. your employees work just as hard as you do and are also short on time. that employee just spent actual work time typing up a detailed report, but instead of at least skimming it the boss decided to barge into her office to waste both their time. im sorry if this sounds rude but youre very clearly biased towards the boss in this situation because you yourself are a boss. there is no logical explanation for this course of action

[@HoloFizz]

Getting the answer through text is arguably faster than having someone read it out for you. Unless your reading comprehension is incredibly slow. @@aliameagan7240

[@glenmurie]

Perhaps one of the best things about remote work for me is no longer having to deal with 'drive bys' on my cube exactly like that. And also why so many bosses are screaming for people to return to the office. Although I've also had to learn to be more concise in my communications.

[@azazellon]

Just look at her like "per my previous email".

[@stannummarusova763]

Social anxiety is great for this. I will literally try every avaible way before i need to talk to someone

[@martinen4017]

THIS

[@iiceeglam]

I think this has been my saving grace in life.

[@truckerdave8465]

Same!!

[@meghansullivan6812]

Hahahaja silver lining

[@dancerbabe02]

ABSOLUTELY I will go to the ends of the Earth to find an answer before reaching out

[@oohmyclumsyheart]

As a millennial I think I have that stereotypical “people pleaser” mentality which makes me NEVER ask for help… so seeing people asking the stupidest questions online gives me secondhand embarrassment

[@yunglynda1326]

learned (over)helpfulness

[@DillyBlue]

Damn, I think you just hit the nail of the head of why those kinds of comments cause me physical pain to read.

[@peachy_lili]

oh my lord. it's me

[@kristinnared]

oh dear, this is me too 😬 you explained it perfectly.

[@losermillie]

i’d rather not know the shade name than it be in the caption and i’m being stupid and have just missed it and ask and look dumb

[@beesechurger84]

I also noticed the past few years google search results are extremely diluted with ads and promoted content that it can become a chore to find what you're looking for.

[@d.d.d.a.a.a.n.n.n]

This is exactly part of the problem, and it frustrates me to no end

[@kinseylise8595]

Adblockers are definitely worth the 30 seconds it takes to get one. UBlock Origin is effective and works on many browsers so that's what I'd recommend based on the 3 minutes of research I did a decade ago when I decided I needed one.

[@spacebar9733]

Don’t use google

[@monstamastarc]

Gotta add “Reddit” to the end of your search to actually get any real answers

[@XatxiFly]

​@@monstamastarcI rely so heavily on the "+ reddit" search format and I live in dread of the time when private interests inevitably ruin it through whatever SEO/sockpuppetry saturation they must be working on next.

[@Tarplippy]

Wait, what’s this video topic???

[@foamsoap41]

can you just tell me I dont want to look it up

[@genericsomething]

I think it's something about the helpless tech crisis.

[@tcbobb1613]

Something about the internet maybe???

[@tinawitte420]

There's a video?

[@amb4444.]

Wait what do you mean please explain ?

[@TickTockTimeTraveler]

Frequently I have K-5 students in my art classes asking (or demanding) me to draw the entire project for them. Not a specific object, but the entire art piece. We have 45 minutes to draw and have fun with zero grading and consequences, and still these kids consider it a chore worth passing onto someone less important to them in favor of sitting in an empty desk, trying and failing to sneakily play with their phones. Genuinely mind boggling to experience.

[@TickTockTimeTraveler]

I just wish there was greater support from the schools regarding how to start and finish a task, no matter how small, without help from adults or Tiktok. There's an apprehension to make any mistakes or risks, and personally I believe it has a lot to do with how we structure programming for kids without critical thinking practice built into the curriculum.

[@TickTockTimeTraveler]

There's also an issue of "critical thinking = my emotional opinion without exploring other viewpoints" wrapped up in here, but I gotta start prepping for class. Great vid!!

[@бронза.вафля.конус]

That's sad. Art was my favourite class time as a kid

[@ThatWeirdo04]

I'm concerned that your K-5 students even have phones

[@TickTockTimeTraveler]

@@ThatWeirdo04 we're in an urban center, and a lot of kids don't see their parents/guardians until 6PM or later, so the contact point is useful. A lot of students also struggle to remember their address or important phone numbers -- so I think the phones are mostly for logistical and safety reasons. Unmitigated Internet access in the palm of a child's hand is not a safe decision, and I've had to intervene often when students are consuming dangerous or inappropriate content, but it's unfortunately the reality we're working in.

[@tansbizarreadventure]

reminds me of the girl who was making bean soup and a commenter asked “what if i dont like beans”

[@MiloKuroshiro]

Tiktok has an extra problem where some people really think that all content in the platform has to be made FOR THEM

[@dancerbabe02]

THIS MADE ME CACKLE!!

[@toni2309]

Personally, I don't think it's a bad quesion. If someone made a recipe they have more experience in recipe making and would have an easier time adapting it to something else than beans than someone without that experience. It could actually be some inspiration, that this might be something to try and consider. I mean, you can also just ignore the question.

[@abigailgnome2117]

⁠@@toni2309I think you’re missing the point. The soup is a BEAN soup. It’s in the name. You cannot sub another ingredient for beans in a BEAN soup. If you were to swap out the beans, then it would no longer be a bean soup so the question becomes superfluous.

[@toni2309]

@@abigailgnome2117 ???? Well then call it something else then? I don't understand what this has to do with making the question superfluous. You can still make a recipe like that with something else than beans, then just don't call it bean soup.

[@palasiksivain]

the refusal to google when you have a question that needs an answer is extremely fascinating to me, because i have days when all i do is literally just google random shit i want to know more about. the experience of learning something new on your own is one the most joyful moments i have on a daily basis - if someone were to just give me that information on a silver platter, it wouldn't be nearly as enticing. maybe it's just because i love learning more than anything, but i feel like people forget what it feels like to succeed in your own little google'ing research.

[@wolfferoni]

Same. Having some curiosity about a thing and the drive to seek out the answer (maybe even bonus info!) is great. There's research that says you learn better by searching things for yourself than being spoon fed info so all in all it's a great desire to have.

[@Zectifin]

thats the difference. its a curiosity thing. I became an IT guy at a company a decade ago. nobody taught me. nobody trained me. I didn't have any schooling and I didnt have a parent that trained me in tech stuff. my friends and I just built gaming PCs together and when the last formally educated IT guy left the owner wanted to cheap out and just asked who knew the most tech stuff. I won the interview round and I just googled the rest. my coworkers were dumbfounded by problems and didn't know how to fix them. They were mostly the same age as me. they played the same games and used the same PCs and apps as I did. they just werent tech curious. I got a job years later and had some coworkers that were much younger. they were so tech illiterate other than their favorite social media apps. they made fun of me for never using snapchat and tiktok. I made fun of them for not knowing how to do basic shit with their phone or computers.

[@spntageous5249]

sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night and just go on a google spree where i google the most random shit that wonders me; i really cherish the fact that we have all the information on our hands and i dont even have to get out of bed to find out what's disneys highest grossing movie or what year was facebook created or whatever, literally the most random shit im brainstorming about. and sometimes i go on wikipedia sprees where i just click on links to read random articles, it's so fun

[@MelissaMayhem99]

I've found my people! Prior to smart phones I kept a notepad next to my bed of things I wanted to Google and research the next time I sat down at my computer desk. FF to now and I Google so many damn things. My brain will NOT function or focus until I figure out the answer to something I'm curious about. So when folks just don't have that desire to learn, it just seems so foreign to me.

[@liv97497]

I also feel like I retain much more information if I'm searching for it myself rather than being told about it. Also bonus points if it's completely useless weird tidbits of info haha

[@insederec]

There's an added wrinkle in that Google no longer searches using your query. It changes the search terms to include things that might lead to more targeted marketing. Basically, you're politely asking Google and it's telling you what it searched for you

[@peachy_lili]

yeah, the whole "just google it" thing is a bit difficult now given that literally no search engines actually work. as someone who learned to use Google back when it was brand new, it's insane how much we are totally adrift in space right now as regards info-finding.

[@Joey-vm2jk]

@@peachy_lilii used to google sentences/questions but nowadays i just type nonsensical keywords in and pray. the more specific you are, the less specific the results. its particularly frustrating when you’re trying to find the name of a thing/concept, and when i’m trying to find academic sources

[@gkcadadr]

@@Joey-vm2jkfor academic sources thankfully google scholar isn’t completely in shambles yet. but the days of googling things are over it seems,otherwise

[@jesszo]

@@Joey-vm2jk I feel stupid even researching because it's exactly this: I put three words there and hope for the best

[@mollman69420]

I am 32 and a manager of a vet clinic. I had a young employee message ME (outside of work hours) "can I iron a silky dress" instead of typing that exact phrase into Google. I can't overstate how out of left field it was. I'm not a big fashion girly, we don't work with textiles, it was just that she associates me with answering questions at work and therefore also assumed I'd answer random questions too

[@GS_666]

I feel like this happens because they’re used to influencers answering questions. Like why Google if an algorithm is feeding you marketing answers for questions you kinda had? I think it’s also a modern loneliness thing too, humans are supposed to learn from other people.

[@urbandiscount]

She trusts you as a a source of authoritative knowledge,

[@mollman69420]

@@urbandiscount aww yes that's true. I do have a great relationship with her :)

[@TheRonnieaj]

I had an employee call to say she couldn’t get into work because her car wouldn’t start. I suggested she call roadside assistance or AAA, and SHE ASKED ME if she had AAA. I…how would I know that?? 😂😂 Fifteen years later, I’m still dumbfounded.

[@kalisworl]

@@GS_666I honestly disagree with this being the main reasoning. As a kid growing up well before influencers had any impact on my life id ask my parents questions and they’d frequently respond to me with just google it. The information sticks better and I care about more when it comes from a trusted source. My point is I think it’s more human nature than it being a problem with relying on influencers and algorithms.

[@vanillabeanlady]

I think personality is also part of this. My mom is a gen x-er and my god, she acts like she can't read (she can). Anytime she has to do a tech related task, she starts freaking out and says I or someone else needs to help her. I'll show her the same task over and over and she acts like she can't do it. It got to the point that the last time she wanted my help with something online, I refused to do it and told her to read the instructions. She pouted but did it, and then every time she asked me a question about it, I asked her what the instructions said and then asked what she thought that meant. Surprise, she was able to do it on her own by simply reading the instructions. She also projects her helplessness onto others and acts astounded that I drive myself 20 mins down the road without having a man do it for me.

[@mynameisreallycool1]

My dad also hates reading instructions and is in gen x too. Though, to be fair, it's mostly when he's putting something together (like a small table or something) with me or my other siblings, so it's just easier to have someone else read the instructions to you while you're putting something together. Though he does need my brother's help with computer stuff sometimes too. Heck, even I do, but I at least try to figure things out on my own first, and I ask for help only when I feel that I tried everything.

[@kezia8027]

yup! This is the tactic that has worked best for me. Make it more effort to ask and not do it themselves and suddenly they're capable again! Funny how that works...

[@Taletree92]

I parent my parent too. I hope your mom will eventually realize she's a capable person and enjoy that. I catch myself sometimes neglecting to praise and show respect, and then my "parenting" is just feeding my moms view of herself as bad at important things. But making myself be supportive when I only feel annoyed sometimes just comes out as condescension soo yeah.. better luck to you two!

[@SarahSB575]

I had to do this with my husband when we first lived together… Him: “What setting do I need to put the washing machine on?” Me: “Do you think my vagina came with a washing machine instruction booklet? Do you think I was born and the Doctor handed me over to my Mum saying ‘Congrats, it’s a girl, here’s her secret file of home appliance manuals!’?

[@nannybells]

my mom is the same way, atp i feel it's more of a 'i know someone else will do it for me'

[@coffeecupcat310]

I've worked in public libraries for the past 7 years and tech help for patrons is a huge part of my job. I started realizing a few years ago that Gen Z patrons were asking me the kind of computer questions I was used to getting from Boomers (for context, I'm a young millennial). That was when I started to suspect maybe they aren't being taught a lot of important digital skills because there's an assumption they already know.That's something I try to remind patrons who feel embarrassed about having to ask for tech help--you can't be expected to know something you've never been taught, and I'm sure there are other things they know how to do that I don't. Then I walk them through it. A lot of the tech help is for people dealing with taxes, court cases, immigration/asylum, getting government assistance, applying for jobs/school, etc. so I'm glad you're shedding light on this issue, because I see everyday how tech illiteracy creates major obstacles in people's lives.

[@destinationmidtown]

i’m gen z (16) and i can confirm we really weren’t taught many tech skills besides google drive and typing 😭

[@PhoebeMastrandreas]

I've been working in libraries for five years and am an elder gen z/very end of millennial and have encountered the same thing. Working in a K-8 school library really opened my eyes to the realities of public education in the US because I was dealing with the fact that kids are not being taught any of those skills. I have the same approach as you when interacting with patrons at my library. I appreciate your comment!

[@thatonespoon_]

Another piece of the puzzle with Google is the amount of sponsored search results (especially the ones that look like they relate to your search and then go to a completely different site.) You have to scroll past several results that can confuse, distract, or straight up give misinformation. It's not as straightforward as it was a few years ago. If someone is already not super tech literate, google may not feel like the easy option some of us feel like it is

[@hemanthkurthamile4330]

There are other search engines that don't have an abundance of ads, maybe try some of those and see how you like it. it might take a while to get used to.

[@kaeyakow]

Startpage! It's my favorite search engine it always gives relevent responses. No more adding "reddit" to the end of every question lol. Using it in combination with Librewolf or Firefox gives a really easy browsing expirence free of fuller junk.

[@spnked9516]

People might call it being hyperbolic, but I truly believe that the proliferation of access and corporatization killed the internet. Only a fraction of the population can be trusted not to "poop" where they eat, so to speak, and mega corporations can't be trusted to not just jump into an unholy union with governments the first chance they get.

[@bone-a-lisa]

This is a really, really important factor that I think is really under-talked about. Google has become borderline unusable. There is so much crap being bubbled to the front page of Google that It's really hard to tell what's good info, even for someone an early gen Z like me who had classes on doing research through Google. From sponsored results, to SEO poisoned articles, to articles churned out by AI news machines, there is so much sludge that Google has no incentive to get rid of, because it makes them more money... I think trying to show people alternative search engines that don't make you the product is super important to tech literacy and resourcefulness.

[@axureerheeid9136]

I switched search browsers for this. Duck duck go and ecosia saved me.

[@auklett]

Millennial IT tech here! Computer literacy, including search engine literacy, is a necessary skill for all ages. It’s easy to say “just Google it” until you have an obscure subject or issue, and the results aren’t what you want because Google doesn’t understand how you phrased your question. Even still, the answer might be found in an old 2008 forum post several links down in the results list. Most people won’t think to look that far or try multiple times; it is a learned skill to search when the answers aren’t immediately given to you.

[@vidcas1711]

Similar to the 2008 forum posts, I often add “Reddit” to the search terms for very specific tech problems. You’ll sometimes find solutions that generic “tech” websites and articles won’t mention.

[@ballman2010]

Agreed with all this. We're at the point where search results are powered way more by algorithms and ads, and it's not like it was in 2005. The siloing of all internet discussions into a few walled-off gardens doesn't help either. Information beyond very simple facts is HARD to find on today's internet.

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

I havent had anything this obscure to look up, but I was confused when I looked up, "What is the meaning of this bible verse" and the expected answer was not there.

[@kscott2655]

Using search engines effectively is a skill. My husband (same age, 35) has frequently tried to find something himself without success and then asked if I could find it. Five minutes later, I have found what he wanted with only minor difficulty. He compliments my "google-fu" often. In reality, I just know how to use search terms effectively, dig through results, and come at searches in different ways depending on what I'm trying to find. I am aware from growing up that older people may not be as tech literate as I am (and I'm not perfect), but I should also be more aware that younger people may not be as well.

[@vaderladyl]

Yes, definitely.

[@SnugglesTheDragon]

I’m in law school and the amount of time we are SPOONFED information and people still don’t know what is going on is crazy. The information is RIGHT THERE in the readings and the syllabi and yet at least 10% of the class will ask questions anyway that could have been answered with 10 seconds of googling… or looking at the syllabi we are given and class announcements… or just doing the reading… it’s really soul-crushing. We waste so much time in class going over simple things that shouldn’t be problematic instead of getting into the complex issues…

[@madinp1177]

I am a nurse and had the exact same issue when I was at school. It was so concerning to me. Like we're going to have someone's literal LIFE in our hands and you're entirely relying on being spoonfed EVERYTHING? You don't have any motivation to acquire any knowledge about caring for a sick person by yourself? So many of my classmates seemed completely unmotivated to find their own answers or to problem solve in any way. I couldn't help but shake the feeling like we all left that university possessing far less knowledge than we should have because every single one of our sessions was catered to the lowest common denominator. I've been working as a nurse for seven years now and this problem seems to be becoming more prominent with the students that I am working with year on year.The hand holding I am expected to do when supervising the current crop of students is insane. It's gotten to the point where I have students interrupting important handover conversations multipl times - pre-disposing us to mistakes - to ask what x means instead of waiting for a couple of minutes and asking me then. They aren't even aware that there's a space and time for their requests to be spoonfed.

[@jinndiaz3752]

To be fair. I'm one of those people that need to be told exact instructions. Verbally & visually. I don't know what goes through my mind when I read something then get a little confused & have to re-read a bunch of times to make sure it's correct. Y'all complaining about this are hypocrites. Y'all do it too but don't notice. Like have you looked up a recipe online or on a package & keep rereading the simple instructions?! Then throw away the instructions in the trash & check trash to reread instructions one last time?! C'mon.

[@aday-su5om]

I grew up a “car native” - I was around cars and rode in cars my entire life, but I still had to be taught how to drive one safely and correctly. Even now I know the basics of how a car works but if something inside breaks I still need a professional mechanic’s help. The same principle applies to “digital natives”. Yeah the interface might be familiar to them but they don’t instinctively understand all the capabilities of the tech nor how it actually works under the hood. It’s knowledge that has to be taught.

[@projotce]

EXACTLY! It's the same attitude people have towards things like reading -- they assume kids will naturally learn to read when there is no such thing as a "reading center" or "reading network" in the brain, it's parts of the brain evolved to be used for other things like language being taught to read. Just because we have written words (or cars, or computers and smartphones) all around us doesn't mean we will automatically pick up how to use it without being taught. The devaluing of teaching as a profession I think contributes to people take having to be taught things well to be able to use them for granted.

[@somenothing7914]

good analogy... but it's more related to actual literacy & critical thinking skills/resource vetting & motivation also i think

[@wrmsnicket]

This makes me think of the adults around me being impressed when I knew how to work a VCR from like 2 years old. Like yeah, I knew which buttons to push and which way to orient the VHS. But that was all stuff I learned through observation. I didn’t know what all the buttons were for, I couldn’t read. I didn’t know how a VCR worked. I’d never even seen a magnet before, much less understood it, outside of some questionable Looney Tunes logic. Do I have more of an understanding now? Yes. But it’s through outside knowledge that I collected elsewhere. If I did no research and did no experimenting, I’d be in the exact same position as my 2 year old self.

[@Siocain]

I teach digital education and I will be stealing the "car native", brilliant idea, thanks for sharing! 😊

[@tjfm2456]

Very true! I learned in library school that research is very much a skill that one has to develop-knowing how to use Google is just the basics. And not only do many people not know how to use Google, many are not aware of how to vet the results in an efficient way to get the right answers, let alone research in a professional capacity.

[@bunnyellabell]

i see comments every day on pinterest along the lines of "where can i get this?" "what brand is this?" "what is this?" when the image is something clearly vintage, diy/handmade, or something as basic as a PLAIN T-SHIRT. it is absolutely baffling!

[@skinnyrat4277]

omg I was looking for this comment. It will be the most basic tshirt or piece ever and people are asking where to get it, it actually kills me

[@JustARandomInternetUserHere]

If it's plain shirts, but mostly shirts with designs: It's a bot. People pay others to deploy bots, so that their product gets interaction and therefore is picked up by the algorithm. It also avoids breaking the rules, since a lot of the time: advertising is forbidden, but it's not forbidden if other people ask for the product and others provide a link.

[@sayakota3054]

It's really bad on Pinterest, I assume because the users are usually young. The amount of time people ask "title? Anime?" Underneath a photo or illustration with the title written on it...

[@getaloadofthisguycam]

as a plain tshirt enjoyer, the different fabric quality and cut of shirts is probably why they’re asking. the first time i saw someone wearing a specific brand of white tshirt i HAD to ask them (irl) what brand it was because it was and remains the best cut shirt for my body type

[@bookcat123]

I work in marketing. It drives me nuts when we run a social media ad which has “download here” “get the ___” “learn more” etc both in the caption and nice and big in the image or video, but instead of clicking on it and going to our free download people just comment things like “interested” and “more info” and “yes” 🤦🏼‍♀️ I’d love to say it’s bots, but if it is, it’s not bots we’re paying for or want.

[@ThatLuckyBear]

"Have we lost the ability to Google?" Not me but Google has lost the ability to provide answers easily.

[@pieceofpeace35]

Exactly! That's happening, and KZbin searches are nonsense now! You can't find what you're looking for at all

[@antilogism]

Google is not in good shape. I've leaned to never phrase a search as a question. It will often "answer" a question you didn't ask---often with nonsense. The quote symbol is vital to most searches!

[@theophila214]

100% The fact that "advanced search" was taken away by Google, rather than *expanded upon* , shows its torturously limited usefulness as a tool to find really refined, nuanced answers, to very specific questions.

[@antilogism]

@@theophila214 This?: www.google.com/advanced_search

[@emilyb.8219]

They've also lost the ability provide answers without bias, as sponsored results clutter the top of every search, whether they're the most accurate result or not

[@Angel-od1bt]

As someone who works in dog rescue, this is the WOooooooooorrrrrrssssst. We will take care to put all the information in the post, how to contact us, links to the full adoption process, we will say whether the dog is good with other dogs, cats, kids, etc. we will also state in the caption or post depending on the platform, that we don’t get notified of every comment and you need to contact us if interested. The amount of people who leave a comment which we miss, then later they will leave abusive comments screaming about how we don’t care and don’t want to find the animals homes, or they’ll badmouth rescues saying no one replies to them. The amount of people who cannot read a short post and follow a short list of instructions, that think they are capable of caring for such a high maintenance animal as a dog, is wild.

[@annajackson5443]

i just adopted a cat from a shelter and it had “we only schedule meets through facebook” in probably every page on their site, in the moment it seemed excessive, but this makes so much sense

[@Angel-od1bt]

@@annajackson5443 Yeah, it’s unfortunate. I think many shelters get most of their rehoming through social media now and it’s a blessing and a curse lol. Thank you for adopting ❤️ (also just to add I have adhd so I know not everyone is neurotypical, and I don’t wanna be harsh, but I think if you are going to adopt a pet you have to show youre at least willing to put in the work of consuming the available info so you don’t waste rescuers time)

[@mybluecatstudio]

​@@Angel-od1bt i think they were talking about how much the information was repeated then about scheduling on social media. Just replace facebook with phone call and its still gets the same point across.

[@alexisventura7191]

yall should copy-paste and pin a comment in every video saying "adoption process in bio" or smthing

[@ardentdrops]

Tbh it sounds like a great filter

[@jenkinsjrjenkins]

As a teacher, this is so draining to deal with. Learned helplessness goes beyond just reading comprehension though- it's a lack of caring, lack of effort, and most importantly a lack of caring towards others, specifically teachers. I know teenagers have always been known for being in their own little worlds and not thinking about consequences, but dang it is turned up to 11 nowadays. My high school students, even the seniors, don't clean up after themselves (and trust me, they make a HUGE mess to not clean up), never turn in assignments on time, always expect help or the literal answers to be given to them, and act overall very entitled. One (of the many) reasons teachers keep leaving the profession is that it's just so frustrating to work in an environment where you're expected to bend to the whims of every single child who wants special treatment. This job is exhausting.

[@krae9958]

You hit it right on the head. The learned helplessness is especially high with my eighth grade students this year - the amount of times I've had to repeat myself because my students either just didn't read the instructions of an assignment or didn't care enough to listen when someone else asked the same exact question is mind-boggling and so tiring.

[@Echoingsunflowers981]

This is why I left public schools, I had students who couldn’t handle a pre-test and seemed to think that they were invincible because I was a sub as if I didn’t have their teachers contact information on my laptop

[@MrKasenom]

I'm going to be honest with you, what you describe to me sounds like what teenagers have always been like

[@Echoingsunflowers981]

@@MrKasenom it’s also for the you get kids, I worked with elementary students

[@AngryPug76]

@@MrKasenomWhen teachers with years of experience tell you things have gotten much worse over the last few years and you ignore them like the illiterate teens do saying things like “teens have always been like that” then you are a major part of the problem. As a former teacher who has taught more kids than you’ve ever known let me be very clear. The majority of graduating seniors are incapable of succeeding in college and are also unemployable because of how absolutely public schools have failed them. The only thing worse than their intellect is their attitude which is far more violent than it’s ever been. Yes, there have always been a few, or a bit more than that, with those traits. But today every teacher and former teacher is in agreement that over the last several years those few have become the overwhelming majority in many places.

[@AngryPug76]

As a former teacher I’m glad you gave the student in school example. Learned helplessness is formally taught in public education. Don’t turn in any work? Can’t read above a fifth grade average as an 11th grader? Failed all the tests but one? Congratulations on becoming a high school senior with a B level GPA. Schools reward ineptitude so frequently kids become adults without understanding how dumb and unable to do for themselves they’ve become no matter how many bosses try and explain it to them. It’s only going to get worse, especially with students in “no zeros for any reason” schools.

[@grassgeese3916]

our schools teach compliance, not intuition or patience or wisdom. this is a primary cause for most of the issues that managers complain about and it is a consequence of bosses and capitalists not wanting to pay taxes

[@Romanticoutlaw]

no child left behind has poisoned us culturally

[@Kfroguar]

YES. Where I am kids can't get less than a 50% on any assignment. It's coded into the grade records. It's really unfair to kids in the moment as well, because a kid who was getting 10% on assignments improving to 45% won't have that HUGE improvement shown in their records. It's all just a 50%F.

[@natearrigoni]

That's not really learned helplessness, unless the teachers are punishing them without teaching them how to avoid the punishment. But I hope we don't use positive punishment in our schools. You are rewarding someone for doing nothing and they keep doing it thinking that is what is expected of them. That isn't learned helplessness, that's just conditioning poorly.

[@AngryPug76]

@@natearrigoni You’re wrong. Schools positively reinforce and reward not turning in work, turning in incorrect work, and even violence. It’s not about punishment. It’s about positive reinforcement of negative behaviors. Public schools are actively teaching kids, and have for over a decade, that the more they show they won’t or can’t do a thing like answer questions, turn in work, or self regulate their emotions then the more is given to them like grades and class privileges. Schools are actively teaching kids the more helpless they are the more privileges and rights they are entitled to. Don’t take my word for it. I left teaching around the 5 year mark. Look up the “my final straw” type videos of teachers who quit after 20-30 years. Many have quit with no notice mid-year out of frustration or outright physical fear of violent students and parents. There’s a reason young adults are graduating with B+ averages when they can’t read at a 3rd grade level and we former teachers keep trying to educate people about why that is. Unfortunately adults are as defiant when it comes to listening to teachers as children are. Almost everyone thinks they know more than the teachers especially when it comes to schools and education. Good luck with that. You’re going to need it.

[@tineryn]

I work in digital marketing/SEO, where it's a frequent talking point that "gen z uses tiktok as a search engine." And as a millennial, I've never understood that claim until now. So, thanks for the context! Looking back at my school days in the late 90s/early 00s, we spent a great deal of time not only learning how to use tech but also how to evaluate the trustworthiness of information online. As you noted, the younger generation isn't even getting basic computer classes, much less classes on how to use the internet or do research effectively. Add in the cultural landscape they're growing up in--rampant propaganda, deepfakes, conspiracy theories, and misinformation, and it's no wonder kids prefer to look for a talking head to ask their questions to a "real" person. It probably feels much more trustworthy--even when you and I know that's often not the case.

[@VeronicaWarlock]

Also, there is somewhat of a human impulse to get information from a person instead of doing research in the first place. Not for everyone, so maybe you could say it’s a preference. But as that option is cut off more and more, replaced by search engines that no one bothers to train kids in and just assumes they understand, people are really starving in a pantry for lack of a can opener on the internet. (From my observation working in a high school library, with a former public librarian.)

[@kerblam]

i think it's also what things like gptchat are taking off. regurgitated (or sometimes made up) info directly funneled so you don't have to comb search results on a search engine, or infer things or judge which site is credible and which one is sketchy. "give me the content, and give it now"

[@adish1401]

It really really concerns me honestly. I am a gen-z myself, I use both google and chat gpt to get my answers, in fact it's easier for me to read an article than it is watch a video, when something only has a video tutorial or explanation I genuinely start freaking out. My friends often use KZbin as such, but not TikTok I suppose at this point we are in the minority though...

[@johntodd6413]

I would have assumed Gen alpha was the group using Tiktok as a search engine over Gen Z. I don't know too many helpless Gen Z people personally

[@adish1401]

@@johntodd6413 Looking at my classmates, at least where I'm from it is close to 50/50 in terms of proper search engine usage, though I didn't see the state described in the video where the person can't use a desktop properly and ignores things written on screen in fellow gen z unless they come from a village.

[@kathrynbrooks7159]

CRITICAL THINKING cannot be overstated!! I've seen so many apartment tour videos where people ask in the comments "what building is this? looks like a great deal" like BFFR people are not going to dox themselves on Tiktok just so you can MAYBE find your next apartment!

[@orionred2489]

critical thinking still requires data. if you're not really aware of the dangers of doxxing, that's a valid question.

[@cutienerdgirl]

​@orionred2489 Even when I wasn't aware of doxxing, I still knew people wouldn't want to share their address online lol.

[@orionred2489]

@@cutienerdgirl But that's different from doxxing... so it actually makes my point about critical thinking needing data. I mean WHY would someone not want to share their address?

[@Romanticoutlaw]

@orionred2489 because if someone knows your address they could show up unsolicited or send harmful materials? I'm not sure I understand why someone would NOT be wary of that, other than presuming every person has the best intentions (and I don't know why you would presume THAT if you've interacted with people in your life)

[@orionred2489]

@@Romanticoutlaw My address is printed on the front of my house. It's in whatever passes for a phonebook these days. It's not private.

[@seekittycat]

I use the library often all my life and my older relatives would go "You still read? Why? Libraries are just a waste of tax dollars on something nobody will use cause who still reads?" It makes me tired to imagine if my younger cousins and niblings will think the same way 😵‍💫. It's true they don't enjoy reading but I was hoping as they grow older their curiosity will bloom naturally but who knows.

[@pieceofpeace35]

Reading to kids helps foster a love for reading! As does telling them stories! Idk if they're too old for that in your case though

[@amethystdream8251]

Oop looks like we found the source of the problem: elders who want the power of being an elder, without the backbone to stand up to propaganda and financial short cuts. Also, literacy skills and a love for reading are absolutely an evolutionary advantage

[@tuxegirls]

I’m a teacher on the cusp between millennial and gen z. I remember growing up with typing classes and computer labs and how to be a good “digital citizen”, etc. The kids I teach now in high school got none of that and are at a complete loss. It’s for exactly the reason you described. Adults assumed they would not need it and so it was not taught. I remember after the first week into distance learning, I took a break from my actual math curriculum and spent a whole week just going over the basics of every Google app. I felt silly going over stuff that I thought was so basic and simple, but they really knew none of it.

[@mynameisreallycool1]

Late millennials and early gen zers like us were very privileged to have these classes while we were in school. I don't think that adults assumed that kids "no longer needed it" but rather that they stopped caring. No way they were dumb enough to actually think kids didn't need those classes.

[@Rin-iq8qt]

uh hi as late gen z I did learn these things? we had typing classes (if you choose to take them at least) and we have a digital citizenship thing every year that's literally required but idk maybe it's different near you All of my peers can use Google and vet sources. (Sorry for derailing your comment, just thought I'd let you know some schools DO teach these things, but a lot of students either don't pay attention or don't care)

[@tuxegirls]

@@mynameisreallycool1 I mean, I’ve had countless folks older than me assume that I know how to do all sorts of tech stuff “because I grew up with it”. I don’t think it’s that schools/adults “stopped caring”, but when you’re budgeting for a school and figuring out who you can afford to hire, sometimes you have to make tough choices and, when you see kids be savvy enough to work apps on their phones and growing up with so much tech, I could see how an administrator might decide that class is not as much of a priority. Plus, most people who might be considered “qualified” to teach classes like that can get paid a lot more outside education, so it could be a tough position to fill if you want a decent teacher.

[@tuxegirls]

@@Rin-iq8qt That’s great that you learned those things! I’m sure it does depend on the area what’s available. My comment was never meant to generalize for the whole generation. I just wanted to provide my own observations. And in my district, I believe you can take typing classes, but I don’t think anyone really does. I’ve asked my students about this and none of them took it. And I don’t blame them. Why would you take typing as an elective when you could do something fun like drama or fashion, etc? When I was in school, it was required. And we had digital citizenship discussions at least once a month. It’s not that these things are totally gone, but more that they have become much less of a priority, at least in my area.

[@evelinaz1548]

@@Rin-iq8qt i think a key difference also is that it's a choice for you guys (like you said, "(if you choose to take them at least)") whereas for us back then it was required classes for typing, computer things, using different programs for projects, etc. and it was required every year.

[@jenlindsey]

The lack of independence amongst students has become absolutely ridiculous. On an exam you'll have them asking, "What do I do?" / "I don't know what I'm supposed to do" when it's obvious they didn't even read the instructions. And even if they didn't read the instructions, if you have two colums, one labeled with numbers and the other with letters, it's clearly obvious you're supposed to match them. Teaching has become so draining I'm changing career paths after this school year is over.

[@arinaira1417]

I feel this so much. As a teacher, I want my students to be independent learner and active problem solver. Nowadays they prefer to ask me directly without making any effort first 😅

[@ousontmeslunettes9891]

Lexa... Syndrom

[@castielabloodwings6301]

Uhm, in the exam case, I have ADHD and it’s kinda hard for people like me, sometimes I actually do read and re read over an over again the instructions but I just can’t process it and I struggled all my childhood with that at school because I was diagnosed as an adult and as a child nobody ever helped me. Sometimes I just need someone to explain it to me in different words to actually understand it…and I also struggle with asking for help and it’s really distressing and disappointing when I finally get the courage to ask for help after trying over and over again to understand and the teacher tells you to “read it again” when it’s all you’ve been doing it’s disheartening

[@rachael5025]

getting mad and quitting that you have to teach people things when youre a teacher ....

[@cheerioschelsea]

i teach at a vocational school, so college-age students, and the same problem. they think i can't tell when they havent read the tech manuals and procedures that theyre supposed to be explaining to me, and then wonder why i dont think theyre ready to operate any of the equipment.

[@CatholicSamurai]

Younger Millenial middle school teacher. My students - 8th Grade students - had almost no computer skills outside of using a web browser’s most basic functions. Critical thinking is an entirely different category of lacking. The 8th Graders were functionally incompetent at the level of a 4th Grader from my school days. No ability to assess a problem or to use known patterns to look for possible answers before asking for help. The smallest unexpected obstacle in a task brings my GenA students to a complete halt. We stopped teaching computer skills in class at schools because we thought “since the technology is no longer new, the kids will be more familiar with it.”

[@jacquelinealbin7712]

Unfortunately, Google has been enshittified to the point of being nearly useless. Googling questions for answers just gives you AI SEO verbal diarrhea instead of, like, actual answers like it used to. "Google is free" is true, but "Google is shit" is also true.

[@risxra]

Yes exactly!!! I hate it so much that I stopped using Google altogether a couple years ago. Sometimes if I’m looking for something extremely specific I’ll end up at Google because the sheer number of things they have indexed is so much larger, but those automatic things that just pull a random paragraph from a relevant website that /might/ have the right information totally drive me up the wall. Nowadays I go straight to Wikipedia and I scroll until I figure it out. Much more reliable than Google, in my experience.

[@AesttseA]

This! This is so true! I still remember using some "Google hacks" to effectively find answers to rather precise problems. Today most results are just ads or come up because of search algorithm optimisation and not the actual answer to the question... It's hurts so much

[@Joniness]

Google sucks so bad I have to put in “Reddit” in the search keywords a lot to get real people answering things. I remember when it was so much better u_u

[@MikuHatsune159]

I agree, I have to sift through things to find a real answer. Doesn't bother me personally, but I know a lot of people don't want to do that extra work and would rather get the answer served to them. And it's also a problem that a lot of these easy access sites are malware or fake downloads for real products. Not even people who know how to use the internet are safe from that.

[@averytroester7364]

“thing i want to know” + reddit is my typical google search if i want betters odds of an actual human response, but even that gets filled with ai junk

[@missfeisty]

One of my favorite professors in college would ask you "did you try Googling it?" when people come up to him asking questions. He stated that if you are not actively trying to help yourself with problem solving, then he can't help you. He also stated that professionals in every career Google things all the time. I like that perspective a lot.

[@Noreen_Ni_Riain]

100%! I make a point to only ask instructors and colleagues questions that I can't google(i.e. no "what is" questions, often "how" or "why" based, specific to the course/region/their experiences/a story they told/etc...) and I personally consider it disrespectful to do otherwise. I don't understand people who treat experts in their field (!!!) like siri 🤦‍♀️

[@DrDavidThor]

If you think Google's a trusted source, I can't help you.

[@missfeisty]

@user-hj7ld4ff7p hmmm, not really the point of my comment, but thank you for your input.

[@DrDavidThor]

@@missfeisty oh, sorry. I was responding to someone whose professor thought Google was a source of knowledge students should be using.

[@rpindel6321]

Very true. I'm a nurse and people just think you know every disease and medication. I know a lot, but things I don't see often I need to look up. Plus our equipment can change, and you need to know how to work it and troubleshoot. We don't have manuals-- it's generally ask the most experienced person you know, Google it, ir both.

[@petersonks1]

“Bored and Brilliant” by Manoush Zomorodi is a good read that explores many of these concerns- the impact of constant stimulation on our ability to focus, learn, think deeply/critically. It’s genuinely scary how much we have lost and don’t even realize

[@dianamonge4406]

when i had online classes my classmates would go to the groupchat to ask for the meaning of words or concepts and it's like, you're on a computer for class and are using your phone to text but you can't google a word or concept????

[@sayrith]

“I can do WHAT on a compooter!?”

[@pavlovs-wug]

I was already thrown enough by the day someone asked what a word meant and I and my Nana both reached for a physical dictionary - while my cousins (only 5 years younger than me!) got out their phones 😂

[@toni2309]

Personally, I think it has some advantages: - The answer is the meaning of the word and concept in the right context. Google gives you many meanings, which can be more distracting, and you might have to search a bit to get an explanation of a concept that works for your case - It reminds people who have not understood the word or concept as well and then everyone has the answer - Personally, I find googling WITHIN CLASS really disruptive to the workflow, because it's very task/context-switchy - there is a socializing aspect to it which can be nice for some

[@jojolund7061]

"People are often forgetting how to hand-write, how to spell..." Part of my job entails training new cashiers on registers. I was used to training cashiers who'd never dealt with checks before, as we get a lot of them at our store and younger staff may not have ever learned how to read or use them. It was just a whole new level of mind-boggling that some of these individuals have forgotten how to count paper money and coins. It dawned on me that a lot of our 18 year old staff may have never really seen their parents pay for things with anything other than a debit or credit card. Edit: I want to clarify, I am in no way admonishing the cashier for not knowing. It was a surprise, but I understand that even though I'm only 10 years older, our life experiences are vastly different.

[@xDyxe]

My mom wanted to pay with cash and wanted even change so we overpaid a bit and the cashier COULD NOT UNDERSTAND and ended up giving us less change and my mom was like excuse me?? But I was like mom let's just go she is so confused and the line is long, and probably could not fix it for the life of her... Probably was her first time taking cash at that job

[@jojolund7061]

@@xDyxe Which is so sad, because most point-of-sale systems do the math for you. If you enter the correct amount, it tells you exactly how much change to give back.

[@Lutefisk445]

I have only ever seen people use checks, and even those people have stopped using them. I haven't ever had a checkbook lol

[@cdw2468]

i can’t remember the last time i paid cash for anything

[@cassandratemple45]

@@jojolund7061 What usually happens in these situations though is that the person gives the cashier the extra after the total was put into the register. They're concentrating on counting out the change and suddenly the customer adds more money into the mix. Maybe they're not sure whether to add it or subtract it from the original change and it makes them freeze up. It's not because they can't count or read the total under normal circumstances.

[@emreeculver]

This reminds me of those “cautionary tales” to read the instructions where a supposed professor would give out a test and the instructions would say “write your name on this paper and turn it in” and it would always be that 1-3 students would do that and leave because they were done with the test and the rest of the students would skip the instructions and try to answer the questions that were put there so it looked like a test, and seeing the people done so fast it would stress them out. Then when the results would come back the students that just turned it in with their name on it got 100% but everyone else failed. Because of hearing these stories in elementary/middle school I was a CHRONIC instructions reader and it kinda shifted over to other aspects of my life as well. I don’t often miss stuff that could be read, despite my ADHD or possibly in spite of it. Although you best believe I miss other things because of it.

[@TheoPhilpot]

2001 kiddo here. We learned typing with physical key cap covers so we had to figure out where the letters were. We had to teach ourselves to get good at all these programs; and to me, an iPad (or really any tech that attempts to be SUPER user friendly) end up actually being so frustrating. The gestures. The tapping. The swypying

[@vinnm4516]

I was just talking with a friend about this-- I don't want my computer to be ultra intuitive and force me into one specific use style. I want to know how to change my computer to work for what MY needs are, and it's getting so much harder to do that. I can't believe I'm going to turn into a Linux person out of sheer frustration.

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

Ugh, 1992 millennial here and I could go on a rant about Apple and their "intuitive" UI. My job got me an iPad recently and I actively hate it lol. Thankfully it's only for testing the app suite we're developing. But yeah, couldn't agree with you more.

[@raeoverhere923]

@@Crazy_Diamond_75 1988 millennial and I can confirm that Apple never had an intuitive UI, even on their home PCs. My husband recently got an iPhone to replace a busted Samsung (it was literally the only phone in the store we could take home that day), and the difference between the two operating systems has never been more clear for me, lol.

[@dominiccasts]

Yeah, "intuitive UIs" work really well until you hit the limits of their abstractions, then they work really badly. Best you can really do (you know, when your goal is to make the UI get out of the way, rather than to use the UI as a tool to strongarm users into doing things that are more profitable for you) is have reasonable enough defaults and deep customization options that can be gradually explored.

[@tisvana18]

God, I hate iPads. Why do I want something that can’t do what a computer can do AND ALSO CAN’T DO WHAT A PHONE CAN DO? They came out when I was a kid and I instantly became an old person, because I despised them so much lol.

[@user-cq5gl1ri7q]

I felt like I was dying inside every single time someone in my class asked "wait, what are we supposed to do in this exercise????" during a test literally 12 seconds after our teacher explained exactly what we were supposed to do in a said exercise 💀

[@sarapocorn]

As a teacher.. Oh boy I understand you haha I will just point at their exams. where.. it is.. all.. written down.. :‘) mind you: my students are 17y+

[@oulafursson]

I mean sometimes you just have it fly over your head

[@WhiteWolf-lm7gj]

​@@oulafurssonYeah, and people just zone out sometimes

[@oulafursson]

@@WhiteWolf-lm7gj exactly, not a big deal and certainly not the same as issue described in the video

[@cassieshoemaker4733]

I had a teacher that would hide answer keys in the instructions to train us to read them 😂

[@schwomps]

I kid you not, my professor for one of my classes has a step-by-step tutorial video on how to complete an assignment and people will still say they have absolutely no idea on how to get started 💀

[@BianaBova]

It's the weaponized and malicious comments that get me. People will misunderstand something, draw the most extreme conclusions from that misunderstanding, then attack the creator for being "problematic". I literally just saw a tiktok about vets not liking people using retractable leashes on their dogs when they visit the clinic, and the resounding response in the comment section was "well sorry some of us are too POOR for a fixed leash! Guess I'll just NEVER have a pet!" Like how tf much do you think a leash costs?? HOW was that your conclusion??? Reels are the worst, I s2g the most innocuous content will have the most vile and absurd comments over NOTHING. We're gonna get to a point where no one wants to be a creator because it's literally impossible to post something without being engulfed by angry comments.

[@lllSASlll]

wait till they find out how much dog food is gonna cost them, not to mention heartworm and flea meds! There's so much to unpack with how wrong that comment is. It blows my mind how people act and think(or rather dont think)

[@peachesncharlotte]

The way I know the EXACT reel and the EXACT comment your talking ab

[@rachelmccoy6447]

also fixed leashes are... cheaper?

[@Kaybye555]

Some people are just dumb and these types of comments just... No words

[@paultapping9510]

the fact that anything can spark these scenarios, literally any innocuous thing, points to it being a deeper/wider issue, I think

[@allieconzola]

This reminded me of a similar phenomenon I’ve observed while browsing social media. I see a lot of comments asking something along the lines of “What category does this fit into?” For example, someone posts an OOTD picture or a makeup tutorial, and many commenters are asking “What aesthetic is this?” But it goes beyond outfits and makeup. I’ve seen artists or illustrators post their work, and people are asking “What is this art style called?” when it’s just the way that specific person draws. Or even someone posting a simple selfie and commenters asking “What aesthetic is this person?” It seems like the compulsion to categorize everything into a vibe or an aesthetic is erasing the gray areas of culture where creativity and individuality thrive.

[@vidcas1711]

In all fairness, humans have had a tendency to categorize things for a long time, but I don’t doubt that it’s ramping up nowadays and people are unhelpfully categorizing things that really shouldn’t be. Architecture has been thought of in “categories” and “styles” for a long time, but usually those “styles” categorizations become evident over a long time, or well after the “style” in question falls out of fashion.

[@phoebexxlouise]

It's weird because I grew up with the message that "everyone is unique" and I don't think everyone got that message. Individuality is like my most precious asset

[@MattJH]

These questions are often asked by people who need to know the correct phrase to use in their AI prompt.

[@bambiisbonkers]

@@vidcas1711it’s definitely human nature but to an extent. in no other point in history you would see people looking at someone’s outfit or decor and incessantly ask what aesthetic it is or what box to put their style into. we have lost all individuality and uniqueness.

[@erinkinsella91]

I litro just left almost the same comment but about Pinterest, its bizarre

[@bluenitriletouch2842]

Working in tech has drastically improved my Google search skills, often times because you’ll need to look up something hyper-specific.

[@k4piii]

and niche

[@elainealibrandi6364]

I'm 64, so I've seen technology change dramatically, from rotary phones and stencil machines through email and fax machines to iPhones and texting. I can't tell you how much I love that I have immeasurable information at my fingertips now instead of having to look it up at the library, and what a gift it is to have an iPhone when I remember a time they didn't exist. I'd be stuck in traffic and unable to tell the person I was meeting that I'm still coming but I'll be late. The stress was awful. Even caller ID is a blessing. And taking photos you can see instantly and easily edit yourself. The difference between my being a graphic designer and having to draw and present designs on paper in a large, clumsy, zippered portfolio, compared to using Photoshop, Illustrator, and then Google Drive to upload them is unimaginable for people who never had to do that. I love technology!

[@aintnolittlegirl9322]

I'm 62 and I agree 100%. Technology is awesome!

[@okaycola2]

I remember the days you’re describing. You sat wondering all day HOW MANY LICKS DOES IT TAKE?

[@amelliamendel2227]

Until AI replaces you, 😭

[@aimansaqib5000]

This was really nice to read

[@AB-wf8ek]

​​​​@@amelliamendel2227 I'm an artist in my 40's, I notice it's more younger people who are afraid of AI technology. I think the disconnect is not recognizing what new technology can actually do. AI tech is marketed as push button and conversational, but the reality is much more complicated. I think this video actually gets at the heart of it. People who haven't really learned for themselves what the creative process is, fail to recognize what the creative potential actually is. AI tech is being marketed as a tool that copies things that already exist, because that's the easiest way for engineers to demonstrate its capabilities, but a real artist uses it to make things that could never have existed before. When you've lived through the invention of digital photography, Photoshop, and visual effects, you start to recognize for yourself what a tool is good for.

[@deeji6098]

Im a computers teacher at an elementary school, and the whole "kids cant use computers" thing is 100% true. These kids didn't know how to open apps, like google, on the computer. They didnt know how to double click, right click, use the mouse pad, etc. Sometimes, they still try to tap the screen like a touch screen 😅 I'm so glad to be able to teach these kids how to type & use a computer. I think it's an integral life skill in the modern age. It's important for parents, teachers & adults in general to understand that this knowledge is learned, not inherited.

[@elynbeth]

Do you have a read on how many children are growing up in households with only touch screens (tablets and phones)? Or is it just that they aren't using them because they are given their own touchscreen devices so have no reason to use a parent's laptop or desktop computer?

[@karinareis64]

same! i used to teach at a language school with a computer lab that all kids went to at least once a month and the youngest kids could not for the life of them hold a mouse properly and gave up the mouse often to try to touch the screen. plus the pre teens had a really hard time with typing on the keyboard

[@josh-rz3uq]

The fact that you called Google an "app" shows that this is a blind leading the blind situation, as is often the case in elementary education.

[@aphrodieMonkey]

@@josh-rz3uq Google is an app genius

[@victoriab8186]

@@karinareis64 pre teens have always had a hard time typing with keyboards - it's why as a kid I had typing lessons at school weekly for *years* - it is a hard skill to learn, and requires enough fine motor skill that you can't learn it well until a significant time after starting school. The pervasiveness of keyboards that younger children need to use from the start of learning to write means that most kids will be initially using keyboards 'wrong' - and this will 1) make it seem like they can 'get by', and thus don't get the support to learn how to type and 2) make it harder for them to learn how to do it differently

[@barryswigart1432]

I posted a photo of a disc golf hole in Alabama. In the corner of the photo, maybe 15% of the photo it said the name of the course, the city, and Alabama. Posted it in discord and one of my friend said "looks dope. Where is this?" After joking for two minutes, I realized he was actually serious. I was so disappointed I just told him, and now I treat him like a toddler. He's a 33 year old man.

[@helgashouseofpain]

Last night in my college class, I made 3 arguments about a topic of open discussion. Directly following my statements, another classmate reported the EXACT information, point for point, just in a different order. I am convinced that many people simply don’t listen to others. They are so caught up in their own thoughts, opinions, or emotions, that we have slowly lost the ability to truly listen and receive others. Also, Individuals digest information through such different lenses, that they can’t comprehend the information from another worldview…it has to be processed and delivered on their own terms or they can’t accept or even understand the information. I also agree with your point about attention span.

[@ashtonavocado]

i find myself saying "like i just said" sooooo often because of stuff like this

[@bambiisbonkers]

totally agree, i think our lack of attention span has definitely spilled over to regular everyday conversations, even between friends or families. on the bright side, when i’m feeling insecure or wanting to fly under the radar, i can now confidently think that everyone is so caught up in their own heads they’re not paying attention to me lol

[@helgashouseofpain]

@@bambiisbonkers I had a mentor say something similar…something to the effect; why are you so worried what everyone else thinks? They don’t care about you, they are too wrapped up in their own nonsense to give two craps about your silly self flagellation.

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

Decades before tech was 'in the room for discussion,' pop psychologists could observe that some people aren't really listening to you. They're just waiting for you to finish talking so they can hear themselves speak. I wouldn't think that tech would change that in them.

[@littlestbroccoli]

The other day I watched an interview filmed in the 90s. The lack of interrupting each other and the patience they had to let the entire sentence be heard and responded to fully was stunning. We've lost a lot with on-demand everything.

[@fortunomancy]

it was mind blowing to me when my cousin’s kids told me they didn’t have computer labs or computer literacy classes. I remember learning search engine optimization when ask jeeves was still around, way back in 6th grade. It’s really no wonder that the kids aren’t literate- no one is teaching them :l

[@00allison00]

I worked at beauty counter in Macys (in late 90's) and right above my station was a huge sign that said, "BATHROOM" with an arrow pointing to where it was. Guess how many times a day I got asked where the bathroom was?!!!!!!!!! So while the internet magnifies the situation, trust me, its always been there.

[@skoo4221]

There was this phenomenon on Tumblr a few years ago where people would get so mad at articles for not naming the people they were talking about, i.e. "16-year-old from Brooklyn Invents Solar-Powered Water Purifier" or similar. Of course, if they had actually read past the headlines, they would have seen that all those articles state the subject's name, usually in the first paragraph. People would post articles like that all the time and I got swept up in it too without going and finding the articles myself because I thought surely these people couldn't be screenshotting headlines, posting them to Tumblr, and making whole posts complaining about the articles not using the subjects' names without actually reading them first...but of course they were! Finally someone said "guys they can't say 'Jennifer Smith Invents Cool Thing' because no one knows who that is and that means it's not an attention-grabbing headline, but journalists very explicitly do name the people they write about!! All these articles name the people they're about right at the beginning!!" and it did eventually die down, but that was just such a bonkers time in Tumblr history.

[@balsawoodbones]

I thought they were complaining about names not being in the headlines specifically

[@careless_daughter]

ugh this one irritates me SO much, i still see it around quite a bit too. it's literally journalistic standard to not name people in headlines unless they are known figures! it's about efficient use of space! communicating FIRST what is most relevant to the story and THEN filling in details! also made worse by the fact that people often turn it into a self-righteous thing about the article subjects being supposedly disrespected on the basis of race/gender/etc, and you can't easily just tell them "yes those are real issues but this is actually about your lack of media literacy and unwillingness to click on articles" bc social media is where nuance goes to die. tbh i put a good part of the blame on the companies for making the culture around this worse bc they actively discourage people from reading articles (twitter at one point removing link text and just showing images, ig and others not allowing clickable links in posts) it's all profit-motivated bc they want you to spend more time on their apps

[@skoo4221]

@@balsawoodbones I've definitely misunderstood people's intentions before so you might be right! As far as I saw they never specified that it was just about headlines though, and acted like these people were being totally erased and not properly credited so it led lots of us (or maybe just me lol) to believe they were talking about the whole articles.

[@Allison1111]

I remember people got mad about the same thing on Twitter years back. They wouldn’t accept the journalistic standards response. You wouldn’t/be less likely click on an article with a random name in the title.

[@PhoebeMastrandreas]

I'm 27 and a public librarian in the US and see this issue every day. A few years ago, I worked in a K-8 school and nearly every kid was "technologically illiterate". Yes they could navigate apps on an iPad, but had very little understanding of search engines, navigating to different websites and discerning between reliable versus untrustworthy information. I think this is really indicative of the defunding of public schools because the educations kids are getting are so poor. Most, if not all, public libraries try to fill the gap of public education with a focus on literacy because of this issue. This obviously isn't enough, though. I am curious as to why the same behavior exists in adults too, though. I think this topic is really important because critical thinking skills and literacy are vital and something every person should be taught, like as a prerequisite to engaging with media (print or digital). Glad it's being discussed here, especially by so many librarians and teachers.

[@starlalalala4460]

I wonder if us being in the age group who was on the wild west of the internet at a young age has a lot to do with most of us being more tech literate. We had to put effort into figuring it out and learned to be critical of what to trust online. Unlike other groups who weren't really online until it was more streamlined.

[@PhoebeMastrandreas]

@@starlalalala4460 I think you're right. I think there's a difference between those of us who had to search for pretty much everything we wanted to get to versus clicking on an app and navigating content contained within it. I think those are different skills that I've noticed from working with patrons of all ages in libraries.

[@hospitable_ghost]

The lack of reading comprehension and self reliance absolutely annoys me to no end. Especially with older people, who act like they don't have to learn how "new" tech (that's been around for decades at this point) works. I always tell people "use your brain to figure it out, not mine".

[@TofuDinoNugs]

I have my parent asking me questions about tech. It’s a new technology to them so they don’t know how to use it, fine sure. But I don’t know how to explain it so I google it, find a how-to article and send it to her. Why am I the middle man?

[@kezia8027]

This has been my attitude since 2010 - the internet and computers have been basically a staple of every home and office for (at the time) 20 years now. If you still don't know how to use one, then you're clearly willfully ignorant. We're nearing 40 years now, if you still don't know how to use a computer, you have clearly never even made an attempt to learn.

[@kellychuang8373]

That really is getting to be an awful experience.

[@DrDavidThor]

Really? In the comments I'm seeing a lot of piling on when it comes to elders and technology. Supposedly the elders are engaging in "learned helplessness" when they can't understand simple, obvious directions on smartphones. In fact it's the elders whose behaviour is resistant to smartphones who actually understand the technology. They're resistant not because they're old but because they have actually witnessed a world with vastly superior technology: the vastly superior technological innovation of not having smartphones fingering them up with dirty digital intrusions and revoking centuries of freedom. Go ahead and tell me that smartphones are a form of technology working for the common good of humans. [long silence] The elders who refuse to suck up to smartphones understand, consciously or otherwise, the prime mandate of technology: machines made for humans, not humans for machines. Oh foolish and wayward generation, what do you not understand here? Your petulant foot-stamping when elders come on laggardly, what the actual eff? Not to mention your calls to spend more time in the googlepedia unified knowledge field rather then less, what the actual eff? Funny to see people pretending that they don't mean the word 'boomer' as a form of contempt, as if pretending it's not contempt isn't exactly analogous to such pretensions with the n-word three-quarters of a century ago. I have six degrees, I taught in the same century as Einstein and at the same school in New Jersey, and I have not owned, in this century, anything that you would call a phone. For the common good as well my own, I have refused and continue to refuse the filthiest machine. I collude and am dirty in many other ways, and if I need a lecture from the young it is not for refusing bad tech but because I have not refused enough. Elders who through love of their young or from folly induced by advertising may have browbeaten themselves into taking up the self-destructive smartphone. And in their half-hearted attempts to master the machine they might well be exhibiting unconscious behavior. Thank goodness. An awakening of virtue staged as a rehearsal of incompetence! If elders can't follow the prime mandate consciously, fortunately their unconscious is still attempting, with brainfog, to save them and, by extension, the world. What part of the prime mandate is unclear here? Follow the mandate, or die. Machines for humans, not humans for machines. --Dr. David Thor writes from the Niagara montrecoastal.

[@kezia8027]

@@DrDavidThor lol okay boomer. I think you just can't be bothered to learn a new skill because you think you're too good to have to continue to grow as a human being and think the world owes you everything on a silver platter. Grow up boomer or stay away from civilization because you're slowing the rest of us down for your own egotistical laziness.

[@dominikarutowicz1500]

Digital sociology student here! There is a term for the issue that Tiffany is talking about. It is called data literacy (Jan van Dijk - The Digital Divide) and describes 3 levels of digital knowledge and how the lack of each level of knowledge is making people unable to understand the digital world and easily navigate the web. This means people who don't use Google entered the internet in an era of comments not finding information. So asking in comments is their first response as Tiffany says. Thank you for reading :)

[@katarinka_jpg]

thanks for the recommendation, it sounds super interesting!

[@eric6cartman9]

my dad raised me on "I can't help u if u don't help yourself" and im so grateful for that

[@catis4]

I watch a lot of tutorials for cooking, sewing knitting, etc. and a lot of questions are just "can I use this very similar thing to the thing you're using, instead of the the thing you're using?". Certain questions are fair and not very easy to find on google, but others are just so obvious that even if someone doesn't know much about the subject they should be able to understand.

[@allisondeanjones]

I get the impression that many folks are scared to experiment and possibly fail. Like subbing an ingredient in a recipe: They’d rather ask than risk the recipe not turning out.

[@jeanwire3221]

To be fair, with all of those skills, there is a learning curve to understanding what substitutions are okay or not. A lot of websites say that baking soda can be replaced in a recipe with 3 times as much baking powder. However, this can affect rise, since the chemistry is different. It also can add a nasty metallic taste. I've seen a lot of people try this substitution and fail, because there's a lot of bad advice out there!

[@starzies]

​@@MaejorArrayI remember watching a short video about a bean soup recipe. Guess what people were saying in the comment section. "I don't like beans, how do I make this soup?"

[@edgaranalhoe7678]

Oh my god the cooking videos comment section makes me so angry for no reason. „Can I use X instead of Y?” NO YOU CAN’T! YOUR HOME IS GONNA EXPLODE!

[@nixxdra]

@@allisondeanjones To be fair, things like cooking and knitting can potentially take a lot of time, effort, and resources to complete that you can’t get back if it doesn’t turn out well. I kind of understand wanting to know if making a change will be worth it.

[@Lau3464l]

I was going to comment that my perception of this problem was that the people commenting these questions on everything are kids that are being perceived as adults online and are just behaving the way kids behave, but now that I’m reading the comments, it seems this is way worse than I thought…

[@TheOwlQueen]

I've perceived commenters who act this way as children before, only to see clear indicators of adulthood "my spouse/my kids" etc.

[@rileyroseinabox6754]

I manage interns who are in top universities and I can barely get my work done because they ask me so many questions - most of which are things that either: a) i am SHOCKED have never come up before university (they have, they just don’t retain the information) or b) I have answered multiple times in multiple ways already. I intentionally approach any educational opportunity, training, task delegation, etc. with the assumption that someone knows nothing and I try to be very particular about explaining everything in lay terms bc I never want anyone to feel lesser than for not having had access to the same information I did. But the blank stares I get, or the questions after an explanation that were answered *in the explanation* are unbearable sometimes. It would be fascinating if it wasn’t so concerning.

[@iiceeglam]

If you think they’re only children, you’re in for a rudeeeee awakening lol

[@DrDavidThor]

In the comments I'm seeing a lot of piling on when it comes to elders and technology. Supposedly the elders are engaging in "learned helplessness" when they can't understand simple, obvious directions on smartphones. In fact it's the elders whose behaviour is resistant to smartphones who actually understand the technology. They're resistant not because they're old but because they have actually witnessed a world with vastly superior technology: the vastly superior technological innovation of not having smartphones fingering them up with dirty digital intrusions and revoking centuries of freedom. Go ahead and tell me that smartphones are a form of technology working for the common good of humans. [long silence] The elders who refuse to suck up to smartphones understand, consciously or otherwise, the prime mandate of technology: machines made for humans, not humans for machines. Oh foolish and wayward generation, what do you not understand here? Your petulant foot-stamping when elders come on laggardly, what the actual eff? Not to mention your calls to spend more time in the googlepedia unified knowledge field rather then less, what the actual eff? Funny to see people pretending that they don't mean the word 'boomer' as a form of contempt, as if pretending it's not contempt isn't exactly analogous to such pretensions with the n-word three-quarters of a century ago. I have six degrees, I taught in the same century as Einstein and at the same school in New Jersey, and I have not owned, in this century, anything that you would call a phone. For the common good as well my own, I have refused and continue to refuse the filthiest machine. I collude and am dirty in many other ways, and if I need a lecture from the young it is not for refusing bad tech but because I have not refused enough. Elders who through love of their young or from folly induced by advertising may have browbeaten themselves into taking up the self-destructive smartphone. And in their half-hearted attempts to master the machine they might well be exhibiting unconscious behavior. Thank goodness. An awakening of virtue staged as a rehearsal of incompetence! If elders can't follow the prime mandate consciously, fortunately their unconscious is still attempting, with brainfog, to save them and, by extension, the world. What part of the prime mandate is unclear here? Follow the mandate, or die. Machines for humans, not humans for machines. --Dr. David Thor writes from the Niagara montrecoastal.

[@Lizndip]

@@DrDavidThorbro enough with the copy and paste

[@Sunandskyhawaii]

I've been told by several managers that they are grateful for how I'm resourceful and "figure things out".. working in customer service, I thought it was mostly older generations that didn't grow up with technology that couldn't figure out things like "how do I reset my password".. but after managing people in their early 20's that can't figure things out themselves, I find that way more frustrating. This certainly provided some interesting insight to that!

[@antisphinx]

The push towards apps and away from websites/desktop applications is really concerning. Prioritizing convenience & smooth user experience over openness and modifiability means that you are ceding a lot of control to companies- ever open a website for a company and get besieged by popups begging you to use their app? A lot of that has to do with advertising. Removing the encryption from an app to install adblockers is a felony. Younger kids don't have the tech skills they need to empower themselves in an increasingly digital world. We should be very concerned about corporations turning all tech into an unmodifiable black box.

[@pavlovs-wug]

I don't know if it counts as a 'millenial' experience but I remember customising everything to within an inch of its life - when you could download 'skins' for your media players and some lightweight coding on social profiles/statuses, and overcome plenty of restrictions by hooking a phone/mp3 player up to a PC and editing files directly - all while avoiding the viruses when firewalls didn't come as standard 😂 It's why I'm an android user because I did have a couple of ipod touches but hated how locked down it all was, like requiring everything be ported to iTunes instead of using the native media player/file management Mind you I found out recently that android/Samsung have added multiple really OTT measures to kill background processes, that have to be sought out and turned off manually, so some apps simply don't work if they rely on running in the background! It's second nature to me to fiddle around with settings as soon as I set something up and check on them from time to time, but I'm realising that's not the case for most and perhaps why some people avoid android/Windows- let alone things like linux 😅

[@FlamesofRebirth3836]

@@pavlovs-wugI’m one of those iPhone people that prefers convenience over customizing things, but I also don’t like how I’m forced to use iTunes and some of the music I had for years I can’t play for some reason or another. I don’t like worrying about the nuts and bolts of things but I kinda get why some people do it now. It always seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth but I’m rethinking that now

[@kellychuang8373]

The times now and with this description just seems to get worse and worse.

[@helplessheroine2641]

And sometimes apps lack some of the functions the website has. I despise when a site forces me to download an app by making their mobile site completely unusable or making it just an ad for their app

[@kellychuang8373]

@@helplessheroine2641 That's also something to know about and also interesting to point out.

[@sfdko3291]

It reminds me of WallE. The answer is right in front of them but they refuse to look down or turn their head that shows what they're looking for

[@jalapeno1119]

My theory as to one main reason why reading comprehension skills are going down is the anti-intellectual movement. Specifically when it comes to English class. You have a bunch of people saying that English class is stupid and that it doesn't matter or isn't as important as math. Students are encouraged to rebel against learning how to interpret literature, how to research, and the cirtical thinking skills required to do that. Maybe the curtains being blue DOES matrer. I literally came across a YT short where people in the comments were encouraging kids to NOT learn neat handwriting. We live in a culture that says communication art is not important, and then wonder why graduating 18 year olds can't read a chapter book.

[@ladyflimflam]

I have a little theory that this is a Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft problem. My mother, who is 75 and spent her entire life living in small towns, will turn for information to her community network. It doesn’t even occur to her that if she wants to know, for instance, how to get the garbage toter that her neighbors use she should call the public utilities office where she pays her garbage bill and ask them. Instead, she asks several neighbors how to get this garbage toter. My Gen Z niece looks for information in the same way, tapping into her network rather than seeking it out on her own.

[@spriddlez]

On top of that, there is something pro-social about asking people when you know you could just look it up. My friend tells me he is playing a new game, I ask him about the game. I could google it and watch trailers but really I don't care for me, I care because my friend is interested so asking them is me trying to engage with their hobbies. There is a distinction between that and "what lipgloss is that" but I think there might be a related psychology. One thing I've noticed among my millenial peers is many people are afraid to "look dumb" because they have a question so they don't ask it. So in some ways I'm glad people are comfortable asking for help now.

[@profsalam524]

As a sociology professor, I loved that you used these terms. Modern society was supposed to be too much Gesellschaft and this is perhaps a desire to connect with others or perhaps distrust of institutions.

[@MysteryUser-Who-Is-Mysterious]

Guess social anxiety teaches tech literacy

[@DrDavidThor]

So your mother's instinct to use her human community is folly, and you wish she would enter more fully into the kafkaesque bureaucracy that's every town everywhere good-copping for the bad cops of the utilities and other corporate bad players. Sounds more like the difference between Gemeinschaft and getting the shaft. Even if I knew how to get a toter, I'd ask my neighbors because human interaction is what humans do. I remain curious about how multiple neighbors were unable to answer her question. --Thor

[@Nikitomate]

In advertisement this is called having an "opinion leader". People Trust someone, they know, more in their judgement and act on their advice more than in a strangers advice. That's why advertisement companies often hire celebrities with a certain fanbase or public personality to let their goodwill by the population rub off on them. This is also how Tupperware Parties came to be.

[@GarliccDread]

This happens in stream chats all the time too. "Is this a speedrun?" "What category/difficulty is this?" There's literally a timer going while the game is being played and the title says ANY% Speedrun. "What's the world record for this run?" You'd find out very quickly by checking the leaderboard.

[@claudiabcarvalho]

It also feels like some sort of main character syndrome, they think everyone has to stop everything they're doing in order to provide them special treatment. There are hundreds, thousands of comments, why do they think people will be able to notice them in the first place? 🙄

[@rinthebaddest]

Honestly this makes me love KZbin even more, because other than Shorts, the long-form content creation model that still exists here is incredible. It's probably the only social platform I actually enjoy using - to me, there's much less brain rot here, and it helps me exercise my attention span. I've noticed the impatience I've acquired because of apps like Instagram, and I miss my deep focus. One thing I know that could help me is to literally read more physical books.

[@loppyrae]

Sometimes I also wonder if it has anything to do with craving human interaction. When I want to connect with someone, I find myself defaulting to asking a question.

[@jan_Masewin]

I think you might be right, dealing with humans can be a lot more soothing and it's easier to stay focused

[@ballman2010]

I scrolled to see if anyone had suggested this. "Too lazy to google" is a convenient scapegoat (and in fairness I don't fault anyone for being frustrated by this), but I think it's also plausible that this is a normal subconscious reaction to a society that expects us to be increasingly tech-savvy but also isolated from one another.

[@netteloveszebras]

I definitely like having someone explain things to me. But I am actually aware of this, and I only ask someone I think will actually know, and then if they don't I google and then share with them what I learned.

[@ketameanii]

I do like googling things myself but I also ask ppl for their personal opinions like “oh is it cold there I have never been to a drier place in the winter” even though I know the temperatures it helps

[@abigailgnome2117]

This is anecdotal but in my experience - you can tell the difference between someone who craves connection/has an easier time getting explanations from a person vs someone who simply doesn’t want to try to figure it out. I used to work IT at a local historical society, and our demographic skewed MUCH older. We had many lovely older folks who were really willing to learn the tech - they just needed a guiding hand. I fully believe those people were the type who just benefitted from the human intersection. Meanwhile, we had people who would throw a huge fit every time I tried to show them someone, would demand I come in off hours to fix things, and would demand I simply do their jobs for them. Those people clearly had no intention of learning and just didn’t want to attention the problem themselves. All of this to say I think you can almost always parse out the difference! Maybe taking a beat between automatically assuming the worst of someone’s intentions would be nice, but I think the truth usually presents itself quite quickly.

[@nergregga]

I concur with other commenters who say that google results has gotten less and less useful over the years. I remember when you could type in a query and the results matched, and wasn’t an endless stream of irrelevant sponsored content. You just can’t do that anymore. It’s not that google is necessarily biased, it’s just that they have allowed money to be the deciding factor in what gets shown to users, which is a huge disadvantage if you are looking for information.

[@selfcaresally]

yes! It’s infuriating when I am just trying to figure out if something I thought up exists, or research info about a topic, and Google INSISTS on prioritizing items to be purchased in the results.

[@spacebar9733]

Switch from google !! There are more ethical search engines.

[@dancerbabe02]

And “Ask Jeeves” is gone

[@erzulihearts222]

Now we have ChatGPT 😊

[@amicaaranearum]

Agreed. I think a lot of it has to do with the proliferation of low-effort content that exists only to be monetized (often via Google’s AdSense program). And with AI-generated content, we can only expect that to get worse.

[@DimaRakesah]

I feel this so hard. I run an online based business and people will absolutely message me to ask questions that are right in the ad graphic. They ignore all help info, all signage meant to catch them before they message me, all contact info other than how to message me. They will message a whole group of people to ask a question they can easily look up, expecting other people to look it up for them, and if you point out where the information is available they take it as you being "rude". It's infuriating!

[@bleeploughly6311]

I’m an academic advisor at a university. Students will ask me how to do something and I’ll send step by step instructions with pictures. They won’t even open the instructions and they’ll just ask me to do it for them. I don’t get it. Or they’ll forward me an email (that has very clear information) and ask what it means. Literally the email will say “you need to fill out a form here’s the link to the form” and they’ll be like do I need to fill out this form? I don’t mind helping, university is confusing, but sometimes it feels like students aren’t even trying

[@jo0ls_dee]

This happens in the workplace too. I'e worked in many different orgs doing many different things but something that tends to be a constant throughout all my jobs is that I have to process forms people fill out. 75% of them are filled out incorrectly. When I started this type of task in 2005 it was closer to 30%. I wish I knew where the disconnect was so we could fix it because it's SO frustrating. I'll send a form back with clear instructions, screen captures and coloured arrows, where I'll say "where you see the pink arrow, please do this" and they still don't do it. Sometimes it's back and forth more than 5x. I do this in my current job in compensation and benefits (I work in HR) and I process group insurance change request forms. Some of these people are literally doctors and they can't fill out these forms properly. I could go on and on but I won't keep boring u 😉I guess I needed to vent and commiserate ☺

[@ambergreen981]

They’re accustomed to not trying and making their parents do it for them. I had a roommate like this. She bought an Amazon Firestick and said, “How do I set this up?”, which was really just her asking me to do it for her. I just pointed to the instructions and said, “That might be a good place to start.”

[@aubreymorgan9763]

i had a teacher in like 6th grade that would sometimes put a trick question on the test to make sure people were reading the test thoroughly, and if you didn't do as instructed you'd just fail it. it was all kinds of tests too..math or science or history it was random. she wanted us to learn to read the test before starting it and process what was written first. so it would be questions like "9. put your name on this and nothing else" or question "7. draw a smiley face at the bottom of the page".

[@brooklynrouse5824]

As someone who works in University who interacts with students, I feel this on a soul level. I am very detailed in my emails and even let them know who they need to talk to if they still have issues or need something else regarding a situation. They will reply to my email with a question that I have already covered in the email. I understand that things can be confusing, but just not reading the WHOLE email before you email me....makes me frustrated. I cannot sit with you and walk you through step by step how to order a transcript. I sent you a link to the ordering site, emailed you the instructions, and gave you contact information of who can assist you with any issues you may have. I am the only person in my office most days so there are other students waiting. Meet me halfway please.

[@paultapping9510]

​@@ambergreen981we need to bring back RTFM

[@merefinl6914]

It's interesting that these same conversations have been happening around older people for decades now. Older people didn't grow up with 'excessive screen time', and their attention spans are never called into question, but they have the same tech struggles as young gen z and gen alpha. My grandmother would be right there with all of these tech illiterate kids in commenting 'what is that?' 'please explain' and 'how do i find that book' on a tiktok. I think that shows that it is mostly a tech literacy crisis, and that in this tech-dominated world people get incredibly frustrated when the things they find confusing are presented as easy and effortless. This seems like a pretty unique issue for yonger gen x to older gen z, because we are dealing with people both older and younger than us who weren't taught how to use computers and search engines. The assumption that iPad baby = future tech genius might end up kneecapping our ability to pass down skills and information to the next generation.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

They have different struggles. They're often afraid of breaking it.

[@gwennorthcutt421]

reminds me of the move in the 00s of "let me google that for you". on a more pertinent note, i wonder how much long covid is impacting childrens mental abilities too. like ppl complaining about kids being unable to read but then not connecting it to the whole pandemic the US tried to sweep under the run, and the longterm neurological effects we're finding out.... anyway schools used to have computer classes and stuff, and im glad you brought that up

[@foamsoap41]

We read "Is Google Making Us Stupid" in university back in 2014 and I still think about it at least once a week.

[@ZeeZeeNg]

When you look at the design of modern tech products, it is clear that they actively discourage users from tinkering with them. Users are being directed to use tech products in "approved ways" only. For example, non-replaceable batteries, the lack of expandable storage slots, non-upgradable RAM etc. People who use only iPhones never get the chance to learn how to install apps outside of a centralised app store, people don't get to familiarise with proper file managers and understand the concept of file directories (FAT32/NTFS/exFAT etc.). Android is somewhat less restrictive, but also going down a similar route, with some essential apps not working when Developer Options is enabled, on rooted devices etc. Such restrictive practices were less prominent in the early 2000s when technology was less mature and polished. Users were given a chance to experiment and tinker with computers in "unapproved ways", without being stopped by operating systems and device manufacturers. While Apple made tech more user friendly and accessible to a wider audience, their practices have also encouraged the acceleration of dumbed-down product designs and declining tech literacy.

[@natanderson9021]

This! People always ask why I'm anti iPhone. And I'm like I don't hate the phone. I hate that the software is so restrictive to any outside changes. Then I get the "it's so simple to use". It's only simple/easy if you never imagine using it in any other way. Android is headed the same way 😪

[@jennifer__e]

i like the iphone software but reading these comments i totally understand why people are anti apple/ios now. i never even considered that angle, wow. i remember as a kid seeing people design their own tumblr pages and blogs, or i knew how to torrent, so to me it’s obvious, but i totally forgot that it took a lot of time to learn how to do that, as did the people that designed their own websites, or put up files for download. so when i’m on the same iphone other lids grew up on i’m like “how do yall not know this” when no actually i had classes where all we would do is learn how to use microsoft excel or program a turtle to move in a line like duhhhh ofc i know how to do a bit more than the ipad kids. the system has failed us all. i do truly miss when tech was more juvenile tbh, cuz to use my computer i didnt need my account connected to the internet, there were zero cloud saves, what have you. everything is waaay too simplified and dumbed down now.

[@ZeeZeeNg]

@@jennifer__e Yup, I remember in the early days of KZbin, it was possible for users to have customised page designs for their channel pages, before a standardised uniform channel page was mandated starting from the early 2010s. Same for how personalised blogspot/wordpress blogs in the 2000s gave way to modern-day social media which do not allow html customisation in favour of a consistent standardised experience. Storing data in the cloud is convenient coz it can be accessed from anywhere, but it also means less control & less literacy for users. For example, with streaming services everything is just tap-to-play without requiring any thinking...whereas in the CD/DVD era, if you want to digitise a disc onto a computer you have to learn about what ripping software to use (e.g iTunes, HandBrake, MakeMKV), what codecs to use (e.g MP3/AAC/FLAC for audio, H.264/VP9 for video etc.), what bitrate to use to strike a balance between file-size & quality... While this is in the context of digital media files, such experiential learning can help develop thinking processes that can be applied to other areas of using tech as well.

[@teaartist6455]

@@jennifer__e I hate to be that person but. You can do that still. ~~Come to the Linux side, we have penguins.~~ *cough* Okay, but on a serious note. Linux has become pretty great these days. Gaming has come far, most things work (mostly) out of the box, there's nice desktop environments and you're not forced to sign up to or with anything. And the nice thing is, if things do NOT work (rare but not unheard of) you can generally look into it and find out far more than with a black box like Windows. (Just for context, the most privacy/potentially data grabby questions/toggles when installing Debian last weekend were the option to use location services and offering to safe logins for a few online accounts on setup. 100% optional and, compared to what's standard even with restrictive privacy settings basically anywhere, extremely minor.)

[@enicot]

"there is no virtue in struggle" is wrong "there is no virtue in unproductive struggle" is true learning to make an effort without expecting immediate and proportionate reward IS an important skill

[@alocinici]

People spend all of their time on their phones and have absolutely no idea how technology works. The amount of times I've seen an edited video (clearly manually edited by a person) and people in the comments all ask "Is this AI?" How are we as a society supposed to deal with things like deepfakes when a lot of us don't even understand basic concepts and terminology?

[@risxra]

The thing that bugs me is that nobody teaches us how technology works. I was a computer science major for two years and even /they/ didn’t teach me anything beyond some basic Java and what the difference between ROM and RAM is.

[@animasuperfreakgirl]

Gosh this reminds me of the trend of people claiming a picture is AI when the artist is credited and there are links to the process of making the piece. Like read at the description first if you're suspicious. I know I'm not perfect and have ignorance of technology as well but I at least try the bear minimum before I comment.

[@Allison1111]

I feel this so much especially working in retail. Our app literally tells you the aisle number yet I constantly get phones shoved in my face "Where is this item??????" Another thing I've really noticed lately is people refusing to read below the headlines. Especially on Twitter people will read some salacious headline and run with it refusing to read any further. Journalists will put a catchy headline to draw the reader in or to get them riled up, this isn't anything new. I thought that was an obvious fact but maybe not.

[@bloodyneptune]

I had a whole argument about whether life outside earth had been discovered or not. People kept smugly replying with links to articles that were like "life found on mars?" and the article is about how _we_ accidentally sent bacteria _to_ mars _from_ earth, and then they 'found' that out. I swear, there had to be a dozen replies like that, and every last article proved _my_ point. It was wild to realize that people were willing to wholeheartedly believe alien life had been discovered based on one news article _headline_ they read

[@Hawther]

To be fair, at least at Target, the app says it's there but it is, in fact, not. Is it out of stock or somewhere else? Who knows! But then people jump to being frustrated and shitty with staff, which is not ok.

[@anzaia2164]

Tbf there are sooo many shit articles nowadays that basically just repeat the headline 5 times, ads between every paragraph... I feel like that may have contributed to people giving up on reading articles.

[@spacebar9733]

@@Hawther yes idk where this person works but I go to target with a list on my phone I leave with about half of what they said was there.

[@alyssumbread]

​@@anzaia2164or quality articles are behind a paywall/require you to create an account

[@kirchcampbell726]

Hey, this video was truly fantastic. I have carried so much fear and confusion for so long, guilt and self hatred from growing up neurodivergent, you have given me such peace of mind I will truly have the first night of good rest I have had in a long time. Thank you

[@malvavisco10]

In social studies in high school in about 1999, we had an assignment where we had to research an internet rumor and learn to vet sources for reliability, etc. I thought that people would grow more savvy with time, but it seems we’ve become more credulous and naive. And with the ever-expanding technology, people have acted more and more helpless. Not only do they believe every bit of specious content posted on SM, but they expect random other commenters to google things for them. Or they accept the first result on Google (they don’t even click the link; they just view the auto preview) as gospel. They don’t take a moment to check whether the source they’re looking at is from a reliable source or from some tradwife blog. They don’t get that Google is just a search engine, not a source in itself. People certainly have not grown wiser with time, just lazier.

[@Nassifeh]

I was thinking about this some but being in the same age bracket, I got to thinking... you know, I prefer using a laptop for a reason. And partly this is because it is so stupid and awkward to try to do anything real on my phone. I know I'm old, but I think it is genuinely harder to interact with phones than PCs if you aren't on a clearly-defined application task flow, and nobody made task flows for "go verify this piece of information". I just went and looked and realized only just now that without adblock and on a phone, if you search for something on Google, it is very likely that the ENTIRE FIRST SCREEN will be taken up by the first, sponsored(!!!) result or by Google's "snippets". You will have to go down potentially multiple pages to get literally any real results at all, and the first crop of those results may be garbage. Reddit results were so high on every single attempt I tried, and those aren't exactly what I'd call authoritative. This whole system is really set up to push you away from seeing what the 18th search result is and that it's markedly better than anything that came before it. Google even tries to redirect you to other related queries before you get that far, which implies that you've done something wrong if you're reading past that point. I don't even know what you do about this, but I"m just mentioning this because it really had not occurred to me how bad this experience is for people who primarily experience the internet through their phones. Google is actually *really* hostile to users "just Googling it".

[@Riona146]

Yes! Vetting sources, understanding primary, secondary sources. When we did this, I asked my teacher if she had to do these things at work when she spoke about stuff, and she said, “of course not!” I then asked her how you actually vet anything anyone says then, and she just looked at me. How can we teach credibility for one small moment and then seemingly throw away its value and enforcement in everyday life! 🫠🫠 I swear we should require people to cite their sources before posts are made to social media. Imagine if posts were stopped before they were even made because of misinformation, or a link that isn’t credible.

[@Hawther]

It can be really hard when you start with a general search about a topic you don't know much about. There are so many hits from things like personal blogs or sponsored content in between more reliable sources and it's not always immediately apparent what's a trustworthy source. Like I was trying to figure out how to make my home wifi better. There's no quick answer and it got kind of overwhelming.

[@malvavisco10]

@@Hawther exactly… and just because its posted on some obscure blog, that doesn’t make it necessarily wrong. It just means the reader needs to exercise critical thinking and use a more reliable source to cite for factual info

[@qryptid]

I was just talking to my partner last night about how we did a similar project in middle school around 2010. We concluded that type of assignment must be rare the way people act, trusting every obviously biased opinion piece they see as actual fact 🙄 though in reality that should be considered vital internet literacy learning

[@Sarcasmhime]

I'm Gen X and it is deeply troubling to me how I've observed my attention span completely nosedive as a result of social media. I find myself picking up my phone constantly for literally no reason. I can't even watch a movie or TV show without checking my phone every few minutes and my information retention has absolutely been affected.

[@balsawoodbones]

I think it’s more helpful to acknowledge that your actual attention span has not reduced, but that everything is competing to grab your attention and that competition has made them all VERY good at it unfortunately

[@mastersnet18]

@@balsawoodbonesthe attention span HAS reduced though. I find when I’m good and stay off my phone more I have a MUCH better attention span. It just takes practice.

[@nonono6537]

you are the only video essay youtuber i consistently love watching! i love how chill, non-dramatic and inclusive you are - it never feels like you are sensationalising or being extra for no reason. i get really overwhelmed by unnecessary drama and loud people so i super appreciate your content ❤

[@ecocodex4431]

I suffer from ADHD, and it makes my life a living hell... ...but I still feel that I pay attention to things better than the average person. Granted, it's not a new thing, this has been happening even as far back as the dawn of KZbin and even far before the advent of the internet.

[@vashsunglasses]

I'm an elder millenial with ADHD and I'm very self reliant because nobody ever helped me with anything. If I want something I have to figure it out myself, so I figure it out myself. It's honestly infuriating when other people don't. Sometimes I feel like some sort of galaxy brained super genius because I can do basic stuff like understand what I read and google for information.

[@harrietdrums]

Yeah I have ADHD but I'm curious as hell and am physically incapable of wondering something without googling the answer. The fact that people can just be content with not knowing something is wild to me. I feel like ADHD people are so used to adapting to stuff all the time that we are better at problem solving and finding ways around things.

[@Homodemon]

Tbh me with autism Sometimes I feel incredibly competent comparing myself to other people who claim they're well adjusted on the internet while being huge fuck ups Like Shit If that's well adjusted then I'm fucking enlightened Is a huge ego boost considering I still think this shitty ass diagnosis has ruined my life but also, it makes me feel terrible for people being basically percetual toddlers nowadayd who need to be explained with pictures in order to understand how to function and like this weird pride on being "stupid and Neuro divergent" or even equating the two as inseparable, makes me feel like I've never shake the stigma off with all these dumb bitches perpetuating the stereotypes that have ruined my life this entire time and make them an intrinsic part of the diagnoses now... If I sound bitter then I'm sorry, life hasn't been kind to me and I can't find comfort in anything lately, not even the community that I should find comfort in because it sucks I don't wanna be lumped in with adult toddlers who began about being useless all my fucking life...

[@sugrslt]

i also have adhd and while my attention span comes and goes, if i want to know something i spend as much time as i need to find an answer. even before i got diagnosed my dad would purposely not help me with things because he wanted me to be self reliant. AND IT PAYED OFF! i am incredibly self sufficient, i taught myself how to cook, im a quick reader, i pick up activities quickly and there's literally no down sides so i dont understand why people are so against doing things for themselves.

[@Tnya099]

I relate highly to have very bad adhd but also I'd say my main trait is curiousity, and I'm more resourceful than most people I meet even if I often think outside the box to find a solution. If i am really stumped, THEN I'll ask for help

[@rachelauerbach309]

This is fascinating to me - I will literally go to the end of the earth to avoid commenting asking where something is from

[@XxTaiMTxX]

The important factors of "learned helplessness" is the tendancy of people who "are smart" to not want to wait around for someone else, "not as smart" to understand it. I've been called "the best teacher I ever had" by way too many people at work that I've had to train. Do you know what I generally do? Explain something, explain why, and then force the person I'm teaching to do it instead of me. I then challenge them on it later when they're doing some aspect of the job and I ask, "are you sure?" after an action, which makes them pause, question themselves, and pay really close attention to what they're doing and have been doing. Sometimes, I do this when I catch an error. Sometimes, I do it when there is no error. If there's no error, they say, "I hate you, don't do that to me, you made me think I was wrong", which is also a good thing. Considering you might be wrong is a good mindset to have. Especially when you're doing a job that requires you pay the heck attention. But, if there is an error when I say it and they catch it, they feel good about being able to spot the mistake and fix it (because it reinforces what they learned, and it's also application of what they learned, which develops critical thinking skills). In the context of "I put it in the description!". That's actually the fault of the idiot who put it in the description. When you are essentially putting together something that is "an advertisement", then people who watch, expect it to be structured as an advertisement. As in, you tell everyone what it is and where you got it, because you're showing it off. This is actually something more akin to "being user friendly". I attribute it to "you did no QA Testing", because it is a part of QA Testing in tech to do something like that. To provide an explanation in a common sense and easily accessible place that operators would find INSTINCTIVELY. It's a video, so if you're talking about your makeup, you should tell everyone what shade it is and its details of where you got it and other nonsense as you are applying it or talking about it. You are effectively acting as an advertising arm of that product if you are talking about it, so you need to present it as an advertisement would in order to avoid the questions about it in the comments section later. As for "other forms of tech", it tends to just be "perceived quickness". I work largely in a customer service job (it's not all I do, but it's my primary task) and when a customer calls in and asks a question... it's because they think it's faster and easier to just get it answered by a person than it would be to google the answer or to browse are website. Often times... they're correct. Our website is designed atrociously by an IT team that thinks "QA Testing is a great idea", because they've never done it. Our IT Team has also never had to USE the website or NAVIGATE IT to find things, so it's all really difficult and confusing for any user to find what they're looking for. This doesn't even include the amount of repeated and redundant information as well as "poorly worded legalese" style of writing on our website that turns off "the layperson". I find a great many websites online are like this. Go ahead, go look. Look at the website for say... Pizza Hut. Then, compare how easy it is to order a pizza to say... your bank account website and how you can set up a payment on it... or how you can cancel a payment on it... or even just how you can find your last 50 transactions on it. You'll notice the difference in "ease of use" immediately. Much of the "learned helplessness" comes from incompetent people being put in charge of "designing for the customer". In short, people who think they're smart, but who are actually below stupid, designing things for people of average intelligence. I am not an IT person. I know very little about computers other than what I've gleaned over the years in needing things or fiddling with things. I can read programming languages because I use a simplified "programming language" in a game making program. But, I am not a coder. I am not a programmer. Yet... the IT department where I work has attempted to hire me twice, and every department I've ever worked in has used me as "the IT Department" while I was in it. Even blatantly saying it to my face that "You're the actual IT Department" and "I don't want to call the IT department, because you do it better and faster". I know NOTHING about being an IT person and I AM MORE QUALIFIED TO DO THE JOB. So qualified, that the IT department has tried to hire me... and I have no degrees or education in it. I have no college degree what-so-ever. That's the level of incompetence we're dealing with in the world. People wholly unqualified for the jobs they hold, doing those jobs, and the general public ends up suffering. Yes, this includes the teachers complaining about their students "not trying". They're "not trying" because you suck at teaching and are incompetent at the job. You lack leadership skills and common sense. You should've worked in an Office Drone job instead. That's what you're qualified for if you can't figure out how to teach your kids and they "give up" or "don't try". That's not a "someone else broke them" situation. That's a "you can't figure out how to motivate them and teach them" problem. You don't get to pass the buck for literal incomptence.

[@24lizliz24]

The sheer lack of reading also translates into real-life and human interactions. I work in a grocery store. The amount of people who simply do not read or look and just expect information to be given to them is astounding. Questions like "how much is this?" as they hold an item up and show it to you from six feet away, or "how much sugar is in this?" when it's on the nutrition label on the item in their hand. Like the price is in front of you, not me, as is the nutrition information. I do not know these things off the top of my head. Sometimes people genuinely do miss it and will make a comment like "oh right in front of my face, I'm stupid" and they feel bad but most of the time they do not. They just want the information handed to them, they don't want to put any effort into finding it themselves.

[@ElijahStroud]

Just like everyone I definitely have instances like not being able to find something in the fridge despite looking all over only for someone else to immediately find it because it's in plain sight. I've sometimes asked for help about things that should've been immediately obvious, but that's only because I did put in a reasonable effort to figure it out myself first but just happened to have a brain glitch. I have noticed that when im working at my computer sometimes I'll ask someone a question that could be immediately answered by a Google search, but only because it would be faster for them to just tell me if they happen to know it off the top of their head.

[@mori6434]

I'd just like to point out that adult illiteracy (at least in America) is actually way more common than you'd think. It's possibly those people actually, genuinely cannot read and try to play it off to hide that fact.

[@thatjillgirl]

Yep. I'm a pharmacist and have had too many instances of people showing me two products, asking, "Are these the same thing?" and then trying really hard to not sound condescending as I point out what is printed right on the front of the box: "This is a cough suppressant. This is a pain reliever. No, they're not the same thing."

[@TheLexikitty]

I’m legally blind and I don’t even do this. I have to bring magnifiers and use my phone to read text and I’d rather do all of that than bug a service worker…

[@vertiian]

@@mori6434 My sister didn't realize her ex-boyfriend couldn't read until they were signing some forms one day. By then she was already pregnant. Their child is dyslexic so it's possible he is too and just never received help

[@edgaranalhoe7678]

Thank god I’m not the only one noticing that cause I felt like a b*tch. For the past couple months I was sometimes thinking „are people getting dumb or what?” while reading comments.

[@truckerdave8465]

Nah. Anyone who thinks that people are getting dumb or blaming ‘kids these days’ really need to get on Nextdoor and see how grown people, especially old people, act.

[@edgaranalhoe7678]

@@truckerdave8465 I’m not talking about kids but people online as a whole. Teens, young adults, boomers, you name it. Like their logic is out of the window

[@overgrownkudzu]

i always think to myself that they're probably 13 and genuinely nobody has ever taught them any better. esp on tiktok etc. which is still depressing but at least for kids it's not their fault they aren't being taught those skills

[@Zzooey]

As I was doing my master's dissertation I realised how difficult is to find actual and factual information about any subject. Good and educative information are not easily accessible through a simple google search. At least when in comes to academic knowledge. We were taught to read but not to critically evaluate what we read. The evaluating we learn how to do oursevles.

[@RENNAgadeCosplay]

I have taught jr high for the last 10 years, and I can confirm this problem is only getting worse. I write CLEAR and EXPLICIT instructions on the board or the worksheet, and I still have kids asking me questions where the answer is staring them straight in the face. During homework time I put a giant timer on the whiteboard counting down to the end of class, and still have students asking me "how much time is there left in class?" They also have no desire to solve their own problems. If their Chromebooks have any kind of issue, they immediately bring it to me for help. The solution is usually refreshing the webpage, or at worst, restarting the Chromebook. But they don't want to even try to figure it out. If I weren't there to push the button for them, they would just say "oh well, guess I can't do this assignment." It's infurating.

[@JW-vi2nh]

Yes! I feel like I'm going crazy some days with the number of 7th and 8th graders who are like "My Chromebook isn't working!" No details about what's going on. It just "isn't working." I tell them to restart it and sit there and watch them SLAM the screen closed, wait one second and re-open it, then stare at me like "Well of course THAT didn't work." They literally have no idea that restarting a device is different from simply turning the screen off and back on. I've watched students purposely "forget" to plug their Chromebooks in for the weekend/ extended weekends, then admit that they were hoping I wouldn't notice and they'd return to school to a dead battery so "Yay! I can't work today!" I just had that happen this past Friday with the upcoming President's Day 3-day weekend coming up. It's ridiculous.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

Do the kids know that's what the timer is for? Did they even notice the timer?

[@RENNAgadeCosplay]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 I do it literally every day. They know what it’s for. I respond by pointing at it, and they usually go “oh. Yeah.” The issue is that they don’t think before asking.

[@RENNAgadeCosplay]

@@JW-vi2nh ha! Yes. It’s been surprising to me how many students think logging off is the same as restarting. 😂😅

[@beauregarden]

17:48 Accessibility is so important and it is being taken away every day from people whose disabilities get in the way of tech literacy. Taxes, banking, even applying for disability benefits. Everything is online. Local bank branches are closing left right and centre (especially in remote rural areas) and there is a whole invisible group of people suffering from this move to 'paper free'. I understand that it is better for the environment but we need to keep options open for people who CANNOT do these things online. Yet again the minority gets overlooked because 'most people' can manage it fine. Sorry, I feel very strongly about this as one of my family members has no tech literacy due to disability and it makes her life insurmountably harder. There is an episode of Star Trek that is about a planet where all the STEM stuff was handled by a super computer so advanced that they no longer needed to know anything about it, and lived their lives in a creative chill bliss. Until the computer broke. Then they were screwed because none of them had a clue how to fix it. This video essay reminded me of that 😂

[@sarapocorn]

Absolutely agree. I also think the environmental argument is mainly a convenient cover for companies doing what they always aim to do: cut costs. Luckily where I live people with disabilities get help from social workers when it comes to taxes, insurance, etc. But I am also thinking of our elders who are not legally disabled, their opportunities for socialising are getting fewer and fewer and we are not letting them take part in our productivity-centric society as is.

[@alyssumbread]

definitely, but i've seen the opposite, when disability-related resources are in-person and/or phone call only, which causes the same issues of inaccessibility (can't physically get to the location, can't communicate verbally or over phone, etc.)

[@sarapocorn]

@@alyssumbread this is very true. We do have home visits and housing with varying degrees of support in and around the institution I work at. But this is not common I‘m afraid.

[@TheLexikitty]

I see both sides of this. I’m legally blind and can only do what I do because of assistive technology and it’s so much harder for me to do things in person when the government won’t give you a drivers license.

[@beauregarden]

@@TheLexikitty Oh, absolutely! I'm not arguing against technology at all. I myself have made use of assistive technology when I had a chronic health condition. It helped me complete my degree. I just wish they would keep as many options available as possible rather than going completely paper-free to cut costs. That way nobody misses out.

[@anothercolour89]

This phenomenon fascinates and baffles me, my absolute last resort is asking for help/clarity (which also isn’t healthy, for sure)… the idea of asking for information when it’s right there mortifies me. This is one of so many areas where millennials are in a pretty unique position with one foot either side of the big technology shift, and the ‘I’ll work it out’ reflex we seem to have developed from it

[@user-mh7db7ei1s]

I used to get so fed up when I was in my undergrad program. I majored in molecular and cellular (cancer) biology, which meant I was in the same classes as a lot of pre-med students. These students, who wanted to be LITERAL DOCTORS were absolutely useless in group projects. Just after the professor would be done explaining what we had to do, they'd be completely clueless and just... stare blankly until they were given instructions. Yet they want to be doctors. Someday, our lives could be in these peoples' hands. And they can't even read what's written on the board.

[@Sjsjsj135]

When I was in grad school, there were some students who could BARELY read and consistently misspelled words that were longer than three letters

[@kristenbooks]

I used to run a KPop edit channel and this was by far my biggest frustration. At first I tried to be helpful by quickly answering questions, linking everything in the description, putting FAQs in a pinned comment. Nothing worked. I even briefly put in my video intro "look in the description before asking a question, I've probably already answered it!" No one read it, and I replied to comments with "read the description" more times than I could count. Like you could have typed "what is Seveneen's fandom name" into google and gotten an immediate response, but instead you typed it in a comment. FOR. WHAT?!! Like Katie said in her tiktok, I eventually got to the point where I just gave up trying and had to just tell myself it was good for engagement even if it made my blood boil a bit. I think it's especially frustrating bc I'm the exact opposite-- I will *always* try to figure out something on my own before asking for an answer because 1- I'm impatient, google is fast. 2- info from multiple sources is more reliable, comprehensive, and comprehensible than one person's potentially poorly-worded response/explanation in a comment. This also makes it super frustrating when I *do* eventually need to ask for help bc I have to clarify that I've already done all the searching I know to do-- just for people to reply with unhelpful info I'd already found while trying to get the answer on my own (because they don't read and assume I'm being helpless). It's an incredibly irritating cycle.

[@ankavoskuilen1725]

I think most of them don't even want to know. It is just a way of saying "Hey, I was here!" when they have no real comment to make. It is about getting attention and thumbs up.

[@KittyWhite38]

tbf a lot of kpop edits tag a buncha random groups in the caption for engagement 😭 kudos if u dont tho

[@MediaEdLab]

Thanks for creating this great episode, Tiffany! You have captured the essence of McLuhan's key quote: "We shape our tools and then our tools shape us." Throughout human history, media technologies have reshaped human consciousness, and you're right to notice how increasingly short-form media can compromise comprehension and critical thinking. Thanks for being the internet's greatest media literacy influencer!

[@nataliiagodis9773]

After this video, I feel so old because most of the time, I prefer to read a comment section and description more than the video itself😅

[@GS_666]

I love spoiling videos for myself