11% of Americans don’t use the internet • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by xvector » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #143

xvector wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> part of me worries about the growing individualist and transactional nature of our social lives that the internet is causing And yet we are growing closer together every day because of the internet. Technologies like Skype, Hangouts, and FaceTime enable human interaction like never before. As VR becomes mainstream, along with eye and face tracking, we can expect interaction over the internet to feel 99% as authenti…

And yet we are growing closer together every day because of the internet. Technologies like Skype, Hangouts, and FaceTime enable human interaction like never before. I don't find looking at a person on a screen makes me feel "close" to them anymore than watching a person on a television show. The people I feel "close" to are people I see in real life. But maybe I have a different definition of "close" than other peop…

This was intended more towards people you don't normally see face to face. My parents live across the country. I can maybe see them twice a year. My college friends have moved elsewhere, but we can definitely play a game of DnD over Hangouts and Roll20. My relatives live abroad, but I still get (virtual) face-to-face time with them.

This would have been incomprehensible 100 years ago, and is a huge innovation in terms of bringing humans closer together. Sure, if you decide to start communicating with your roommate over FaceTime rather than actually talking to them in person, you're going to experience a decline in "closeness", but if you use these technologies normally, I think they absolutely have the potential to maintain strong connections where none could have existed before.

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

#162

Post by RaceWon » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

I'm not a hacker. I got my first PC in '88 (a 286 with a 20mb HD) because for sure it was going to be the thing in a few short years. I was 28 and wanted to use it for my business... the NIGHTMARE of trying to; load software, hookup a printer, get the modem to work and so and so was just unbelievable. I persisted though, in fact when Windows was seriously starting to dominate-I even refused to use for a damn long time. Anyway, my point is I bet more than a few of those 11 percenters are peeps my age who just never got comfortable at the command screen.

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

#163

Post by eldavido » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

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.

Doctors expect to be catered to. They're at the top of an entire apparatus designed for their convenience, that starts by making people come for appointments on their schedule, and ends with it being acceptable for them still to use paper charts in 2018.

I'm not blaming these guys, they're part of a system that treats them like gods.

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

#164

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

Phantasmagoria wrote: post #21

magduf wrote: post #2

Old people can use the internet just fine if they want to; my 80-year-old mother happily uses it to buy all kinds of stuff, to pay her bills, to keep up with family on Facebook, etc.

For some older people the logic of the operating system is nearly incommunicable. They get keyboards, as they've typed. They can get a grip on a mouse. But after that they've got the face of a dog that's just been shown a new trick.

Not just older people. For a lot of people the GUI is the computer, and anything inside may as well be magic. I’ve known more than one who has referred to the whole computer enclosure as the hard drive.

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

#165

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

cirgue wrote: post #101

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #23

I wonder will the internet have matured (jumped the shark with excess commercialism, JS, ads etc) to the extent TV has that people start cord cutting the net. Anecdotally the novelty is starting to wear thin with more than a few people I know who barely use anything beyond a chat service and a little shopping (probably at Amazon).

It already has jumped the shark for me. I go online for HN, arxiv, stackoverflow/other online documentation, and google groups for my ulti league. I don’t use the internet for recreation anymore at all. It’s a cesspit. I have an rss reader that I check for headlines every couple of days, a Spotify account, and Hulu/Netflix/hbo go that I don’t use enough to justify the expense. If there were a way to find non-toxic, n…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

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

#166

Post by hkmurakami » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #137

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.

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. I know a woman who until recently worked as a secretary to one of the presidents of a large regional bank. The first thing she did each morning was to print out the president's e-mails, and bring them to him on paper. He would the…

I know law partners who are like this. If they generate so much value for their employer they can hire an assistant solely to bridge the technology gap.

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

#167

Post by lucideer » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

"don't use the internet" is a vague qualifier.

My father has a Gmail and a Facebook account, both of which he signed up for himself. He last signed into the latter no less than 5 years ago. He interacts with his email account by calling myself or my siblings and asking them to check it for him. A few times a year.

Sometime a year or two ago he borrowed my brother's computer and went online to do some research into something he wanted to buy online; no assistance required so he's not computer illiterate. He just has absolutely zero day-to-day need for them.

11% seems very very low.

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

#168

Post by Ascetik » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

Deinos wrote: post #148

reaperducer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I know a woman who until recently worked as a secretary to one of the presidents of a large regional bank. The first thing she did each morning was to print out the president's e-mails, and bring them to him on paper. He would the…

You read my mind with that last sentence. As I read your anecdote, I was marveling at how much relief she probably created by circumventing the email/slack/txt/messenger treadmill the rest of us are forced to run on during a workday.

>the email/slack/txt/messenger treadmill the rest of us are forced to run on during a workday.

Or at all hours of the evening, night and early morning, since some people we work with don't seem to understand the concept of leaving work at work.

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

#169

Post by Kadin » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

It's more impressive when you turn this number around: 89% of Americans "use the Internet", up from just over 50% less than 20 years ago.

That is an insane adoption curve for a network that basically didn't exist -- at least not in an approachable, mainstream way -- within the current memory of many of its users.

That's faster than the update rate of either the telephone or electricity or indoor plumbing. (Arguably fair I suppose, since those things all require more infrastructure than the Internet does, which if needed can run over existing telephone infrastructure, and did for a long time.)

And of the people who aren't using the Internet, the plurality (according to the article) are declining to use it by their own decision -- "just not interested" -- not because they can't afford to get online, or don't know how to, or some other externally-imposed hurdle. Which is their prerogative; if people aren't online, I'd hope it's by their own choice and not through inability (the same as not reading books -- if someone isn't reading books regularly, one hopes it's because they're not interested, not because they're illiterate).

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

#170

Post by PeCaN » Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 2:34 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #150

EGreg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If literacy involves writing, then most kids are illiterate. Remember the three R’s? Now it’s down to two. Well, maybe one (American kids have long been using calculators). But a deeper question is, what do we actually lose if people can’t write by hand or do arithmetic?

Writing typically refers to composition, not penmanship. I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing. It would be interesting to do a study on it.

> I’m not actually sure penmanship has suffered much from ubiquitous computing.

It certainly has in Japan and China, but I'm not sure that extrapolates to simpler writing systems. I suspect it partially does due to schools spending less time teaching handwriting.