I feel like the people I interact with irl don’t even know how to boot from a USB. People here probably know how to do some form of coding or at least navigate a directory through the command line. Stg I would bet money on the average person not even being able to create a Lemmy account without assistance.
The average person can’t even download the right authenticator app when prompted. The average person can’t type their password the same way two times in a password change field. The average person does not know how to plug monitors and peripherals into a docking station.
Whatever you think the average skill level is? It’s lower than that. By a lot.
About the app thing. The other day I had to download from the Google play store. The app you search for is NEVER the first app in the resulting list. The first slot is always sponsor slot. I consider myself quite tech literate and I have accidentally installed that sponsored app because I searched for an app (with very specific search terms) and without thought selected the first. Google is one step away from that trope of the moving X button to close the ad. It’s infuriating. Now imagine a tech illiterate trying to get an app.
I completely agree. This is infuriating. I have to tell people to NOT download the first one because Google allows the first result to be a fakeware ad. I’ve stopped many people from getting the wrong app.
I work electronics in walmart and you would be shocked at the questions I get on things like laptops from collage age kids. A very frequent one is ‘if it isn’t touchscreen then how do you work it’. One of my favorite ever was a girl who went down the line asking can you type on them because i need to be able to type. Every time I told her you can type on all laptops but she just kept asking.
I know a huge part of it is some kind of ‘location bias’ because the kids who know something about computers are shopping online or at microcenter or something.
We’re also two generations into those trained to use tablets and phones over all. Locked down, locked out, one USB port and that’s for charging
Oh god that’s horrifying.
You are absolutely right. I completely forgot how dumb people are. Thank you for the reminder. Time to make my distro install itself without buttons and read their mind to make a user.