I hate Apple with all my guts, but in all fairness:
problem-solving skills surely don’t correlate. Tech-illiteracy though…very likely does. By anectodal knowledge at least.
A hypothesis
Submitted 6 months ago by ickplant@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5e0941c1-c238-483e-81c9-bf4d37cf0378.jpeg
Comments
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Eh, windows definitely throws more shit to fix at you. Apple either works or needs to be taken to an apple store
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Sure thing, doesn’t mean that the apple-heads are unable to solve problems. Just not technical, computer-related ones :-)
Meron35@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Hot take: macOS, being Unix like, fosters more tech literacy than Windows.
It’s much better now with windows terminal and winget, but a decade or so ago even basic things like installing python and adding it to PATH were infinitely easier on Unix-like environments.
For those privileged to have programming classes, the first 2-3 sessions were the teachers going round doing tech support just to install python on shitty locked down Windows laptops.
Windows being terrible makes you learn a lot of stuff, but so much of it is untransferrable.
TASchwitters@lemmings.world 6 months ago
Tech “literacy” is one thing. Let’s also compare productivity between users.
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
In a previous relationship I gave my partner a small tour of the terminal application preinstalled in her Macbook. She had no idea it was even a thing in her computer. The list of commands used was ls, cd, and on a whim I was surprized to find Emacs was preinstalled as well. Her parents saw literally everything I did and still told her I hacked her computer. 🙄
Sabata11792@ani.social 6 months ago
I learned how to fix but never how a PC ran on windows. You just can’t really dig into theinnards and fixing it is 9/10 a reinstall.
dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
A mac is the only non linux machine I’ll willingly use if I didn’t have the choice.
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I think this is pretty reasonable and shouldn’t be a hot take. IMO, what macOS does better is to provide a simple UI that protects less experienced users well enough from themselves while keeping developer tools accessible and close enough to standard Unix stuff. It’s easy to get into but not too hard to move past the basics once you need to. In Windows, I often feel like the opposite is true. The UI is a complicated mess of three different UIs that doesn’t even protect users all that well, and developer tools are often separate products with their own learning curve that are aggressively Windows-specific.
MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
My trajectory was win 3.11, then macos 7 & 8, then windows 98… Windows 7 > macOS again as a dev > Linux when I finally got to pick my own software and IT wasn’t what paid the bills.
Windows was always broken so you had to learn to fix shit
Mac never did quite what you needed so you had to work around stuff and try harder
… Next/Mac got me very literate with Unix
… Linux is just kinda what I know.
But Unix based macos really is an excellent os. It’s just a shame its so locked to their hardware.
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
The command line is not the end all and be all of tech literacy. It’s one access point which doesn’t get used that much outside of copy-pasting sudo commands from the internet.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There was a fairy large era of macs that were way more open to customization then windows. Probably still true because Microsoft has gotten a lot more aggressive about locking down their os and the average gamer has no clue how to install mods if it isn’t from the Steam workshop.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I started with DOS. then windows. I didn’t use Linux until I was in my 20s, and not heavily use it until my 30s.
I just started using a Mac for work because it’s “Unix like”.
Mac’s are fucked up man. I don’t know how anyone gets shit done on them. the UX is developed like it’s for stroke victims with permanent brain damage.
I would rather use W11 than a Mac and a fucking loathe Microsoft and their horrible AI bullshit.
CanadianCarl@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I am still using windows 10.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This. So freaking much this.
Mac is unix in the same way that Android is unix or my car’s infotainment system is Unix.
Yes, there’s unix under the hood, but there’s such a bunch of garbage on top that the unixity really doesn’t help much at all.
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
The 1000 little interface stupidities is what gets me on Mac, like making “cut” part of the “paste” action. I’d get it if they had different terms (Ctrl+c=select, Ctrl+v =duplicate, Ctrl+optV=move) but they’re still called copy paste. Or the delete button on my keyboard being interpreted as page down. Or the enter key being used to rename a file. Or how every action just has to have an animation. It adds up to being just such a mess.
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 6 months ago
As a non autistic Linux user since I was 14, I concur.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Who’re you kidding
confusedbytheBasics@lemmy.world 6 months ago
All the professionals say I’m not even a little autistic and I installed RedHat 5.2 on a cobbled together desktop when I was 14.
Disclaimer: I have been asked if I was autistic when flirting at bars though.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu 6 months ago
Same. Got a pc at 13 and my windows didn’t last a whole year
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As always, this is a relatively tech-knowledgeable platform. 99% of people didn’t know shit about computers before or after the advent of the iphone, and even before that, building a PC wasn’t on the radar for most.
OTOH fixing issues with computers, PC users would know way more than a Apple user because PCs had way more issues. Not really a flex, but certainly relevant to the discussion.
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
If someone has a PC they may be more likely to use it to game and also to pirate games and mod games. That can actually lead to learning quite a bit about computers when it comes to the file system which lot of people don’t understand these days, and also following instructions when it comes to completing computer tasks. That sets a pretty good basic starting point. It can also lead to wanting to build their own PC and watch more tech related content.
So can push people from just a simple media consumption device to wanting to tinker.
Valmond@lemmy.world 6 months ago
PCs had way more options, as it was an open hardware system sort of (any company could make the hardware). If your apple broke, there was just nothing you could do too.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Sure. That was the pro and con for PCs. You could do whatever with them, but it meant that in doing whatever there was plenty of opportunity to break things or discover incompatibilities. Apple otoh was fuck you, you’re only doing what we let you do. I despised the walled garden, so I’ve been PC/Windows/Linux forever.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 6 months ago
I’d take macOS over Windows anyday if those were my only choices. It’s UNIX so a ton of Linux knowledge is transferrable.
Hegar@fedia.io 6 months ago
Any correlation would likely be related to socio-economic status ie class. Macs were always more expensive, that's going to skew wealthier, which has way more impact on developement and learning than which OS you used as a kid.
Quokka@quokk.au 6 months ago
I grew up with DOS.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Don’t forget desqview. Best multitasking ever. One of my PCs could run 3 nodes of my BBS and a working session.
Or GEOS. An os-thingie with mouse and shit 😁
Also don’t forget OS/2. Which really was great compared to the first windows…
Fallofturkey@lemmy.world 6 months ago
286 in the house, … like literally in the center of the house, but we did have like a gui program called ezmenu. Still had to launch a lot of programs/games from directories though
Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 6 months ago
I remember running QEMM because “640k should be enough for anyone”.
Feeling like a hacker for writing a batch file that automatically started Windows from boot up.
Good times.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 months ago
How about the tech skills of kids who actually built their first computer?
Denjin@feddit.uk 6 months ago
If they’re implying that growing up with a Mac means worse problem solving skills because they don’t go wrong as much clearly didn’t experience MacOS prior to 10.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Also Apple IIe to start then Power Mac briefly, thanks to school. Later at home Windows 3.1 - Windows 7 I think, Back to OS X, Back to Win 10, Win 11, terror and enlightenment, now Linux.
Knowing how awesome a computer could be with the Power Mac made me demand more from a Windows machine, and then understand early on the disappointment with Windows that would last most of my life.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 6 months ago
terror and enlightenment, now Linux.
As Bhuddism teaches, suffering is the human experience. Acceptance of this is necessary to reach nirvana.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well, it’s really more that pain is part of the human experience. Suffering is our reaction to the pain. We don’t have to suffer when we experience inevitable pain if we are enlightened.
In context: Using Windows 11 is pain. Continuing to use it by choice is suffering. Accepting Linux into your heart and treating the inevitable tweaks like no big deal is enlightenment.
Broadfern@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think the issue is not having a desktop-type computer at all and having a tablet/phone that’s so locked down the kid isn’t given the opportunity to explore or troubleshoot.
Tinkering is how you learn to solve problems, which requires having something tinker-able without having to go down a hacky rabbithole.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Exactly.
A background of tinkering with stuff without fear of the consequences of breaking it (which is a common mindset mainly amongst kids and teens) is the difference between a tool-maker and a tool-user, IMHO, and thinkering is far more natural to start doing and to do much further with an open system than with a closed system.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I think the issue is not having a desktop-type computer at all and having a tablet/phone that’s so locked down the kid isn’t given the opportunity to explore or troubleshoot
True. That being said, I’m pretty sure that a Mac is roughly at the middle point between that and a Windows PC, with Linux users being way more tech savvy still.
In fact, the fact that so much exploration and troubleshooting is REQUIRED to make most if not all Linux distros do what you want is (along with game compatibility/availability) the main reason for many people who are sick of Windows to be hesitant to make the switch, myself included.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 6 months ago
You don’t really need to tinker too much tbf, install distros like Bazzite and you have all done pratically
NABDad@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Witnessed a radiology resident typing her password into a computer and for each uppercase letter she would press shift-lock, type the letter, then press shift-lock again.
I couldn’t figure it out until my mom pointed out she probably only ever used a phone or tablet.
Which is crazy, because I can’t imagine getting through high school, college, and medical school without ever working on a desktop computer.
Eq0@literature.cafe 6 months ago
I know a bit about teaching about computers/programming to kids in the first years of high school. Their understanding of anything computer is abysmal. They have grown up with smartphones and maybe tablet, never were able to tinker with anything. Even just what internet is was confusing to them. It had to be reframed as “when can you watch youtube” for it to make sense…
Tower@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Anytime this topic comes up, I reshare this blog post. With things being “that bad” over a decade ago, I can’t imagine how much worse it’s gotten.
Valmond@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Like kids back in the 1980s ☺️ many couldn’t even read a floppy on the C64!
I wonder if they, I mean today’s kids, learn other things we miss out on.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
the iphone was the beginning of the downfall
striping menue options down for usability and “natural gestures” like swiping caused a whole generation to be able to partake in internet discourse without having a basic understanding of how they got there
Rhaedas@fedia.io 6 months ago
C-64 -> DOS (at school) -> Unix (at uni) -> Every Windows from 3.1 to Win10 including some NT -> Linux/Win10
That pretty much dates me, with that huge stretch of time.
Messed around with Linux a few times on and off (Mandrake was first), never took the plunge until recently where it's now my primary. And it's not Arch.
impudentmortal@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If you’re using Lemmy there’s a good chance you’ll be excluded from the study. Some of the largest Lemmy communities are Linux related.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 months ago
My first machine was an Apple 2e. The first IBM machine I used was on DOS. I don’t think I even saw Windows until Windows 95.
fleebleneeble@reddthat.com 6 months ago
Mac as a kid, Windows for most of my life so far, Linux as a couple years now. I graduated a tech bootcamp with some good certs for DevOps/Cybersecurity, but they’re expiring soon because the area I live has zero job openings and I completed the whole thing right as the AI “boom” was starting. Ugh
capnminus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
“discluded”
sidebro@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I built by first PC when I was 12, I guess I’m autistic.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
The majority of people I know who have major computer problems solve them by buying another computer
victorz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I started on Mac, then went to Windows, and now Linux. 🤷♂️ Work as a software engineer… Nothing to see here, folks.
Cryan24@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I started on a commodore 64, you kids that started on a machine with a gui were coddled.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Apple ][e was my first. We also had an XP machine for internet (Neopets) but I didn’t have to fight for turns on the Apple.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I had an Apple ][e I could use at school. It was preferable to the ][census for the same reason.
fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Are you joking? C64 was the bomb back in the day! My Atari and Amiga mates were enjoying colors and music and games while I had sat there on my colourless, mute PC. All I had was Flight Simulator 2 in black and white. And DrBrush for drawing in Hercules “graphics” mode.
Soapbox@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I can technically claim I started with a hand me down C64 from my grandmother in the early 90s. But I was like 6 years old, and I didn’t really get into computers until we got a Windows 95 machine a couple of years later. Though by 99-2000 I was regularly playing around with the C64 for the novelty of what felt like ancient tech.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, it was just MSDOS. I saw “Abort, retry, fail” so many times, and I didn’t even know what it meant because I was four and I just wanted to play Family Feud with my brother.
h0rnman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
C64 gang, represent!
Seriously though, I feel like that generation of machines was the last time you could look at hardware and say “yeah, I understand literally everything about how this works” and that knowledge has made even some of my (tech sector) coworkers think I’m a wizard
MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I had a GUI - windows 3.11
But it was so slow. So I made my own gui/menu system that ran in dos. I was between 9-11 I reckon.
Not sure where that lands me on the spectrum of coddledness
FridaySteve@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Vic-20 here. What a time to be alive.
Botzo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
TRS-80 then IBM PCjr here. Both hand-me-downs though.
Mom wouldn’t let me on the 386 until I could touch-type and write a program in BASIC. She was a Cobol and IBM RPG programmer.