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   piegames (piegames@flausch.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Apr-2024 19:51:31 JST piegames

   Every time I do tech support for my family I get very angry about people who whine about lacking "tech literacy".

   90% of the stuff I have to teach them is how to navigate manipulative software and dark patterns. This has nothing to do with tech, but with capitalism. Tech is not complicated, it is just made maximally confusing on purpose to remove agency.

   Better tech ed won't fix this.

   • Embed this notice
     Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Sunday, 14-Apr-2024 07:17:46 JST Sick Sun

     in reply to
     @piegames > Tech is not complicated,
     
     Maybe it's easy to you but it's still hard to a lot of people even before the dark patterns existed. I have been doing tech support as a job and for family for a _very_ long time.
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     anna (navi@social.vlhl.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Apr-2024 15:58:40 JST anna

     in reply to
     @piegames while i do that too, i've had to show family many times what folders are and how to create one, how to move or copy files, and similar things
     
     and i had to do that for older and younger people...
     
     sure dark patterns are a big part of it when showing them how to do something online, but when doing something on the device itself, tech literacy is usually lacking
     
     that doesn't account for phones tho, phones try to hide as much as that as possible too... ugh...
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Oggie (oggie@woof.group)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Apr-2024 15:59:28 JST Oggie

     in reply to

     @piegames
     You know, there was a time when it was a lot of 'Okay, click on the network that you just named, and...yes okay, but click....okay, the moving thing moves the cursor' tier.

     A lot of really basic, really simple stuff that was a bit frustrating to deal with. However, that time is not now. People know how to open menus, pull up keyboards on their phones, know what 'the back button' is.

     Now it's 'Yes, they deliberately obfuscated this and tricked you because they're awful, do this'.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.