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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

#261

Post by TheCapeGreek »

dghughes wrote: post #117
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…

Here in South Africa, you give your employer(s) your tax number and for ordinary employment they report your earnings. Then come tax time, you log onto the e-filing system and most of it is done for you already.

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

#262

Post by piva00 »

adpirz wrote: post #198
gcatalfamo wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Italian here, Can confirm.

Can you explain why? And does that manifest on a daily level?

I can give you my anecdote from Brazil: there are people of my age (25-35) that have been through basic education (quite a big chunk of them through high school even) that can't express themselves, that can't do basic arithmetic most of the times.

It manifests in a lot of ways on a daily level, from people who can't explain what exactly they want from a store, from a hospital. Communication breaks down easily so they are used to be shouting all the time when talking to try to get a point across, etc.

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

#263

Post by mmirate »

icebraining wrote: post #211
mmirate wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing so means putting all Python packages into a single opaque OS-level package. Not fun when your build system and related infrastructure, were all designed to work with OS-level packages.

Why? You just use package dependencies to indicated that they depend on the New Python.

Third-party dependencies. Their BRPMs will all install to the OS's old Python. Pull them from PyPI using setup.py, and we get the problem I describe; the alternative is to build our own BRPMs, which is a massive headache to set up.

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

#264

Post by randomdata »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #226
null000 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media comes in a lot of forms these days. I've definitely read a book in the past year, but - especially if you restrict it to written word (e.g. no visual novels) - there's a good chance that the 3 otherwise reasonably intelligent people I live with haven't done the same. They've listened to audio books, watched movies and tv, played video games, gone to plays, played board games, read both long and short form artic…

I'm pretty sure audiobook counts.

If performances of literary works count, then presumably TV, movies, and plays are included as well?

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

#265

Post by skocznymroczny »

mr_toad wrote: post #164
Phantasmagoria wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously, because the screen is the computer, so the big box has to be the hard drive :)

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

#266

Post by tim333 »

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…

Warren Buffett I believe works in a similar way - his emails are printed out and he dictates responses. It probably saves quite a lot of time over checking the inbox in the usual way.

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

#267

Post by ConceptJunkie »

Bromskloss wrote: post #234
NotCamelCase wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chuckle every time I remember that when my dad used to interview secretaries to hire ~20 yrs ago, he'd always ask "Can you use computer?" which sounds like a quite funny question to ask a 20-something years old person nowadays, let alone kids.

By the way, I used to think that in the future, when people have had computers already from childhood, everyone would know their way around them really well and be advanced users who know programming and what not. That did not happen.

I would expect that the average computer/smart phone user in 2018 is much less computer-literate than the average computer user in 1998.

You don't have to know anything about computers to use them now. I would expect for most non-technical users, the computer consists of the web browser, and maybe Microsoft Office and a few games and that's it.

It's good that you don't have to know how a computer works to use it, but there are lots of downsides to that as well.

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

#268

Post by ConceptJunkie »

krageon wrote: post #236
mjevans wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you want out of kids. I can tell you how to NOT do it. Don't start with block lettering for all of pre and grade school, then switch to ONLY cursive for 3 years... now I can't write anything nicely. It's still readable, more so to me. As for actual composition, don't force kids in to a rigid structure all the time. Maybe they've changed that too. It took me years to write in a more free form.

I had only cursive for my entire first twelve years of school, then slowly switched to block letters. My handwriting is really nice, but I don't think it had much to do with my school(s). I can't really glean from your comment why you think the kind of writing you are taught has anything to do with the kind of writing you use now.

I stopped writing in cursive the minute I graduated from high school and never looked back. I understand the point and purpose of cursive, I just never liked it.

By the early 90s, my ability to write began to atrophy, not that I couldn't write fine, but that I couldn't write much without my hand getting tired. Now, I can't write more than a few sentences before my hand gets really tired, but I very seldom have a reason to write anything more than a short note. I still make hand-written notes while working (as a software developer), but I find I'm doing that much less than even 5 years ago.

At this point in time, I'd be more concerned about people's ability to compose good communication than their ability to physically write. If social media is any indication, a lot of people can't write simple sentences that follow basic grammar and spelling rules.

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

#269

Post by reaperducer »

Bromskloss wrote: post #250
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll keep the computer but I'm planning to disconnect from the internet once I retire.

For what tasks do you intend to use the computer?

Everything that computers were used for before the internet?

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

#270

Post by ConceptJunkie »

CalRobert wrote: post #220
pmiller2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anecdatum, but my handwriting looks like a 5 year old's. It was best when I was a teenager but now that I probably write fewer than 30 words a week on average it's really taken a nosedive. I don't view it as a huge problem, but it's a bit embarrassing. Still, turns out being able to type well and quickly is far, far more important in my line of work.

I can write very nicely if a make an effort, thanks to a lot of drafting I took in high school back in the Dark Ages, but after more than few sentences, my hand starts hurting.
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