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11% of Americans don’t use the internet

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Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#111

Post by azernik »

magic_beans wrote: post #109
pathartl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number doesn't surprise me. I personally did not read a book in whole or in part in 2017 or 2016. It's something I don't need to do for my career and is not a past time of mine. My reading primarily comes from the internet. When I do read it's maybe a handful of books in a year.

That’s alarming and sad. No pleasure or drug is as powerful as a good work of fiction.

I have read fiction in the years in question, but most of my fiction consumption lately has been serial TV (by internet). Modulo Sturgeon's Law, the quality in the last decade has gone way up.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#112

Post by mmt »

nine_k wrote: post #61
cm2187 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is interesting is that it seems to have more to do with age than intellectual capacity. I know very smart 60yo+ doctors with a lifetime of scientific achievements, who understands concepts way more complicated than the IP protocol or a browser, and who just refuse to learn it. They might learn just how to use it but have no curiosity on how it works.

If you spent your life becoming very efficient in a particular environment, there's an incentive to keep this environment from changing, and not to expend any effort to learn a new environment. That learning capacity can be more efficiently spent elsewhere. (An IT illustration: there are still places running RHEL6 in production and not seeing an effort to migrate from it worth the while. They have more important thin…

> An IT illustration: there are still places running RHEL6 in production and not seeing an effort to migrate from it worth the while.

I recently interviewed at a startup (though a reasonably far-along/mature, if not spectacularly successful by VC standards) that was both running RHEL6 and depending a remarkable amount on "enterprise" gear, software, and support, which seemed incongruous for any small company, let alone a startup.

They did see it as worthwhile to "migrate" to CentOS6, but I'm pretty sure the interviewer who was the incumbent rejected me quickly and strenuously after I admitted a preference for Ubuntu (due to its package ecosystem better catering to a wider array of developers, making my DevOps culture evangelism and implementation that much easier) and a focus on frugality first when it comes to hardware (that being a huge benefit of it being a commodity).

> They have more important things to do.

Poe's Law aside, I do actually find this to be a valid argument, if it's presented eyes-open, rather than just through inertia.

That is, there's a difference between having considered the migration and deciding it's not worth it (or that the "more important things" are more worth it and take priority) and not having considered the migration at all because those "more important things" completely consumed everyone's attention. I don't mean to present these as a false dichotomy, just two extremes that illustrate my point.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#113

Post by mmirate »

mikec3010 wrote: post #103
mmirate wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets better: there are places selling their software via hardware appliances that run RHEL6.

That is better, actually. If it's proven for that many years why mess with it? Why assume that older is unilaterally worse?

Ecliptic Curve cryptography. In-tree driver modules for last year's 10Gb Ethernet cards. Python 2.7, let alone 3. Official support for kernel 4.x.

I've barely been in the industry for 90 days and I've already had to deal with the lack of the above in RHEL6.

(Indirectly, mind you; but I believe that the transition between RHEL6 and CentOS6 is negligible for the current topic.)

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#114

Post by jedberg »

sandov wrote: post #83

I would like to know what portion use the Internet for whorthwhile activities and what portion uses it only for browsing Facebook and Twitter.

I find it interesting that you consider those activities not worthwhile. I'm sure you use the internet for things that are "less worthwhile" than those things, at least to me. But that's what it's really all about anyway right? Different things have different value to different people.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#116

Post by [deleted] »

cm2187 wrote: post #53
simmons wrote: post #12

My Dad is in his early 70's and has never used the Internet. In fact, he never even had a cellphone until this year when I bought him a flip-phone and convinced him to accept it. I think he's plenty capable of learning such technology, he just doesn't see any compelling reason. And I think that's a perfectly reasonable choice -- I'm certainly not going to tell a senior citizen what they need to be happy. He is starti…

What is interesting is that it seems to have more to do with age than intellectual capacity. I know very smart 60yo+ doctors with a lifetime of scientific achievements, who understands concepts way more complicated than the IP protocol or a browser, and who just refuse to learn it. They might learn just how to use it but have no curiosity on how it works.

[deleted]

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#117

Post by dghughes »

simmons wrote: post #12

My Dad is in his early 70's and has never used the Internet. In fact, he never even had a cellphone until this year when I bought him a flip-phone and convinced him to accept it. I think he's plenty capable of learning such technology, he just doesn't see any compelling reason. And I think that's a perfectly reasonable choice -- I'm certainly not going to tell a senior citizen what they need to be happy. He is starti…

Does the US IRS have an auto-fill feature for tax software?

In Canada you sign up at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA is Canada's IRS) and get a log on. Then at tax time you can download free tax software from links on the CRA website, click auto-fill to populate with your info and then click the e-file button. That's it, done.

My dad in his mid 70s probably wouldn't do it so your dad may not either if it was available in the US. But it is a great feature to have it makes it almost to the point of why is anyone doing this it should be automatic each year.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#118

Post by magic_beans »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #70
jMyles wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm completely floored at how she tries to fill every waking minute passively consuming content such as YouTube. ...is that so bad? She has an incredible world of content at her fingertips; what's the virtue in refraining from involving herself in it?

There are studies about the benefits of boredom: https://www.melbournechildpsychology.com.au/blog/the-benefit... I think there's plenty of "cultural evidence" for this too: the subreddit for wacky revelations is called /r/showerthoughts, and the shower is the last place where we have no screens or books around us.

But you’re not bored in the shower. You are doing a task. The most creative thoughts don’t come when you are bored, but when you are doing something routine or low effort.

Sitting on the couch staring at a wall won’t have the same effect, but doing housework will.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#119

Post by simmons »

jMyles wrote: post #51
simmons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if people or specifically children were happier in the 80s/90s, but after spending a couple of weeks with my 10-year-old niece, I'm completely floored at how she tries to fill every waking minute passively consuming content such as YouTube. It wouldn't be so bad if children were using the Internet to do something constructive or educational. Of course, plenty of people from my generation spent their chil…

> I'm completely floored at how she tries to fill every waking minute passively consuming content such as YouTube. ...is that so bad? She has an incredible world of content at her fingertips; what's the virtue in refraining from involving herself in it?

Having grown up in a small town in the 80's where it was hard to get access to all the media I might have wanted, I can really appreciate how great it is that kids today have access to this incredible world of content! And there's a lot of fun and engaging ways that kids use modern technology, whether it's playing Minecraft or keeping up with friends and family.

I'm mostly concerned about the specific category of content that tries to be as addictive as possible to young minds. Yes, people in the 80's tried to make content as addictive as possible, but people today are so much more skilled at it.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#120

Post by dijit »

mindcrime wrote: post #52
dijit wrote: post #40

Certain parts of my family do not operate on the same timescale as me wrt tech. It's not just a generational divide in my families case. To me, tech is all-emcompassing, I follow new developments as if it's second nature. To the more tech literate of my family they see the stuff that comes out as usually unnecessary in most cases but upgrade to have the new hotness every second major cycle (iphone 4->6 for example).…

It's really not an age/generation thing at all. There are plenty of millennials who know shit about computers, while there are "old farts" like Bill Joy, Brian Kernighan, James Gosling, Rob Pike, Patrick Winston, Gerald Sussman, Bjarne Stroupstrup, etc. who know more about computing than most of us will ever know, and are more comfortable with technology than most kids out there today. I think it's always been the ca…

> It's really not an age/generation thing at all.

You're right, that's why I clarified that originally.

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