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Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

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Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#41
post #37
post #35

When lawyers go drinking together they laugh at stories of criminals who don't even understand the basics of evidence law. When doctors have coffee breaks they share stories about how modern people don't even understand the difference between a virus and a bacteria and demand antibiotics for the common cold. Latin professors share hilarious pictures of people who have tattooed themselves with incoherently mistranslat…

And each of those things is an important thing that the general populace should know in order to navigate life. Aren't sure what that latin tag you're getting permanently tattooed on your body means? Don't get it tattooed on your body.

Each of the original examples was important enough that you delegate to your professional. The whole reason you have a lawyer is so they can handle evidence rules, and correct your misconceptions.

But I'm never going to go to a professional to log into facebook. Or more realistically, understand what XSS attacks are and how to protect myself (or similar). It happens too often to be a consult-an-expert event.

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#42
post #10

It is amazing to this that people need to go to google in order to pull up any site. No, don't type in google.com, type in facebook.com instead. Do you do a google search when logging in to online banking? Checking your email? And seriously? How much time can one sepnd on facebook in the first place? I swear my uncles and aunts and parents play on it for hours .

Having done some work for a local credit union, I can tell you that yes people do actually do a google search for their bank to get to their online banking. One item to consider is that a large portion of these people probably have google as their homepage, so they don't "go" to google, it's just he most conspicuous box when they fire up their browser.

Yeah, that's true. My inlaws though, they have Yahoo! set as their homepage, then go to google to get to a web address. I asked them why not just set it to google, and they said they liked having news and weather on the homepage to check out first. I tried to show them you can do that with google too, they just weren't going for it.

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#44

Contrary to the title, what this article describes is obvious. The people yelling out "OMG WTF LOL" are just teenagers attempting to define their own identity by declaring the cluelessness of the older generation... nothing novel there. Plus, the actual number of comments is unimpressive, given Facebook's size and demographics, a couple hundred confused comments does not seem especially significant considering the pr…

Obvious, huh?

http://uxmag.com/short-news/these-are-your-users-read-and-be...

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I volunteered for one of these before (it was a series of one-on-one sessions). I patiently walked an elderly gent through the absolute bone basics: starting a browser, using the address bar, using Yahoo mail. It was quite slow at times, but he was a pleasant old guy, and at the end of it, I think he really was ready to correspond with his grandkids on his own. It was definitely rewarding, and I'd recommend it to any…

I have an 86-years-old grandmother that is valiantly trying to get used to the Internet. It takes her a LOT of time to learn the most basic tasks, and I know it's an effort on her part (my grandfather doesn't even try). She has now mastered the Google search, and so... she uses nothing else :) . That's probably what happened to these other old gentlemen (my grandmother doesn't have a facebook account because she's wo…

The interesting thing I've noticed with my grandparents and great-aunts/uncles as test cases is that it's not really universal. Both of my grandfathers are over 80.

One of them carefully writes down how many times he has to click on something (he can't ever remember whether to single or double click), doesn't really understand that he's not on a typewriter and can use the backspace, so all of his mistakes are still inline, is comfortable with email and not much more. His little sister, in her 70s, however, has more Facebook friends than I do.

My other grandfather, the older of the two (83), plays backgammon against random people on Yahoo Games, uses instant messaging, regularly buys stuff online, reads my blog and even asked me what Twitter was, commenting that, "It seemed like another kind of blog." When we first set up a company newsletter, he was the first subscriber. He still works most days and complains that he can't get DSL at his house and so he prefers to surf at the office.

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not arguing the web isn't important. He's saying that for a TON of people, they don't need to use it personally, and see no reason to put in the (sometimes) massive amount of effort to learn how to use the web. Their lives go on just fine without their direct involvement. Also, it is useless to cry "How terrible that so many people don't understand! What a failure!" -- The only failure here is the failure to mak…

He said that the internet is not something that society absolutely cannot function without. He is wrong. Society very much depends on the internet. The fact that not everyone has a Faceboook profile is inconsequential to this, and I would point out that the one does not follow the other. Further, saying that the failure lies in the fact that we need to "make software just as intuitive as older technology", is just hi…

This is, honestly, absurd. Society depends on the internet? Sure, some people depend on the internet. And some companies. And some verticals.

But "depends" sounds to me like... without it, society will crumble or go through some dramatic metamorphosis. I find that... questionable to say the least. I don't remember much about the 1980s, I was 8, but I'm faily certain it wasn't the dark ages as it seems you're suggesting. Eliminate the internet off tomorrow, and society will carry on.

Eliminate motor vehicles? Electricity? Complete chaos.

The idea that it's some big problem because people can't differentiate between Facebook and some blog?

This is more myopic thinking. You're acting like if you're not on the internet you must either be amish or impoverished. Please.

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#48
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done some work for a local credit union, I can tell you that yes people do actually do a google search for their bank to get to their online banking. One item to consider is that a large portion of these people probably have google as their homepage, so they don't "go" to google, it's just he most conspicuous box when they fire up their browser.

Yeah, that's true. My inlaws though, they have Yahoo! set as their homepage, then go to google to get to a web address. I asked them why not just set it to google, and they said they liked having news and weather on the homepage to check out first. I tried to show them you can do that with google too, they just weren't going for it.

People hate change a lot more than they hate inefficiency!

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#49
660 comments.

Based on the fact that a large majority google "facebook login" to access the site, at least that I have seen, I'd say actually this suggests users are reasonably smart on average :-)

would be interesting to see the analytics for that post to get real figures.

Re: Confused Facebook user debacle not what it seems.

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said that the internet is not something that society absolutely cannot function without. He is wrong. Society very much depends on the internet. The fact that not everyone has a Faceboook profile is inconsequential to this, and I would point out that the one does not follow the other. Further, saying that the failure lies in the fact that we need to "make software just as intuitive as older technology", is just hi…

This is, honestly, absurd. Society depends on the internet? Sure, some people depend on the internet. And some companies. And some verticals. But "depends" sounds to me like... without it, society will crumble or go through some dramatic metamorphosis. I find that... questionable to say the least. I don't remember much about the 1980s, I was 8, but I'm faily certain it wasn't the dark ages as it seems you're suggesti…

HA! You just don't get it. ALL the processes for which the internet provides a mission-critical service are going to freeze. What happens when MasterCard suddenly can't access the balance of its creditees anymore? What happens when you need your social security check? What happens when you need money from a bank? Who's tracking stocks? How are you going to get all your important emails, or your contacts, or your off-site financial records from company x? All these processes are not trivially related to the internet; they depend on it in a way that cannot just be "fixed". Make not mistake, our financial system is completely and 100% dependent on internet, and if you take it away, there will be a complete disaster. Sure, some of it will eventually get where it needs to go, but some of it won't. And some of that information you need NOW.

I'll say it again: without the internet, these processes FREEZE. And that's just the effects that don't involve the lack of ability to communicate. Here are some more:

Google is worth $154 billion. That's one company alone. There are lots of companies, lots of small business that are purely internet companies. I'd say, what, a couple trillion dollars worth just in the valley alone? What happens when the internet disappears? They are all suddenly useless. Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal, but there is a LOT of money tied up in those companies. Not only would investors lose basically all money (and thus, losing their ability to leverage more bets, etc., depending on how deep they were in), the companies that were banking on those companies to buy things would lose money. And many, many more companies would lose time and energy due to vastly decreased productivity related to not being able to get those products in as fast a manner as the internet allows.

Then there's the fact that there is a lot of valuable information stored on the internet. What happens when MasterCard suddenly can't access the balance of its creditees anymore? Who's going to absorb that debt? You? What happens when you need your social security check? What happens when you need money from a bank?

It's no secret that e-commerce is big business in the US. Even a lot of businesses that are relatively small do e-commerce a lot of times, so you also have to count the fact that all their investments are sunk, too. Then there's the cost of the lost business that brought them, which they may have been banking on. Then there's the fact that, again, they can't get goods as fast as they used to because the efficient means of communication are gone.

Then there are the international implications, which means you can take all of what's said up there, and cross-apply the affects to them, as well as how those effects will affect us.

Oh, and I still haven't discussed the fact that you benefit more than you even know from information accessibility. For the last 10+ years, you've been slowly teaching yourself that you don't need to memorize everything because you have the internet. What happens when you need all those facts, but now they're gone? What happens when reporters don't have access to those facts? What happens when vital government organizations don't have access to those facts? And it's not just you: our entire society is built around this accessibility of information. Without it, we are blind.

So yes, the internet is integral to our way of living, and in fact, the way of living of the world as a whole. If you cannot see that, you need to exit the tech sector immediately.

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