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> I would suggest the people in the article cannot "maintain" a computer.

That's definitely too restrictive of a description.

Laypeople don't tell their mechanic "the car won't work". They say that it won't start, or that a tire is flat or a headlight is burned out or that the check engine light is on or that it's making an unusual sound under certain circumstances. Even if they don't have any skill as a mechanic, you usually get at least a specific identification of the symptom relative to the expected behavior. And while you're not expected to perform all the maintenance, you are expected to be able to read and understand the basics from the owner's manual and apply that knowledge.

But the average technically illiterate user has even shallower mental models for their computer than for their car, and is disinclined to attempt any amount of diagnosis.

> But the average technically illiterate user has even shallower mental models for their computer than for their car, and is disinclined to attempt any amount of diagnosis.

When have you truly encountered this? If you read through the article, the behavior the guy complains about is actually users going through the process of building a mental model of what their computer does.

E.g. the woman from the article expects PowerPoint presentations to just work despite Internet video being blocked, because she has a (correct) mental model that PowerPoint presentations should be local. This is what I would expect from someone who was trying to understand their computer and has made an honest attempt at diagnosis.

I've dealt with a lot of relatively computer illiterate users, including friends and family, and I can count on my fingers the number of times I've felt someone was being willfully ignorant. 95% of the time, people are making an honest effort to learn, and bashing them for not knowing everything yet is a very unfair reaction.

> "E.g. the woman from the article expects PowerPoint presentations to just work despite Internet video being blocked, because she has a (correct) mental model that PowerPoint presentations should be local. This is what I would expect from someone who was trying to understand their computer and has made an honest attempt at diagnosis."

The PowerPoint embedded video issue in specific is a case of not understanding the difference between a link/reference and the object itself. That class of misunderstanding occurs all over the place and PowerPoint's UI probably wasn't helping the situation, but it's still an extremely basic thing to be confused about. The user certainly did not have a correct understanding of what PowerPoint was up to; she was expecting PowerPoint to conform to her vague wishes, rather than deriving her expectations from any technical reality.

And taken as a whole, the anecdote shows a user that immediately gave up in the face of both simple and hard problems, was unwilling to help in the diagnosis process, and arrogantly rejected the author's attempts to educate the user. This wasn't a user that was trying to learn or understand, this was a user that had clearly decided not to learn anything more and was trying to outsource all further need for technical knowledge.

We're conflating two different things, which is the user's attitude toward the author, vs. the user's attitude towards learning the tech itself.

Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to be less technically literate from the very start, I wouldn't be surprised at the user's reaction, although I agree she should show some level of appreciation for what is essentially unpaid IT work.

> extremely basic thing to be confused about

No, the confusion is that PowerPoint even allows links and references, rather than directly embedding the content. You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely.

It doesn't help that the software purposefully hides the fact that it's a reference in order to make the experience more seamless.

> "Given that the author showed sarcasm and hostility towards anyone perceived to be less technically literate from the very start,"

The author mentions that his usual tactic is sarcasm, but that during this encounter he was polite.

> "You're expecting the user to be familiar with PowerPoint's feature set, and in my experience the linking/referencing feature is used rarely."

The user has just been told that PowerPoint was trying to stream the video. At this point, she no longer needs specific prior knowledge that PowerPoint has a linking/referencing feature. She has been presented with enough information to infer that the feature exists, if she has enough technical knowledge to recognize the general concept of a link. But instead of rethinking her situation, she patronizingly rejects the author's explanation—the first occasion in the encounter where she engaged in any discussion of the technical details.

Again, we have only the author's account for the interaction, and he sounds like he's got a big chip on his shoulder. I wouldn't be surprised if his attitude his coloring his interpretation.

Even if this particular user was being willfully ignorant, it's not been my experience with many, many other tech 'illiterate' people, who I've found by and large ask good questions and listen to explanations. I think computer-literate people really forget how much background knowledge they've absorbed over the years and how it helps them learn more.

Existing knowledge helps acquire more knowledge, and the effect compounds over time.

For example, a lot of posts here seem to be saying 'just Google it', but even knowing what terms to Google for is confusing for someone who doesn't have a knowledge base, because they don't even know what search terms to Google for, and which sources to trust.

For example, here's the first link you hit if you search 'remove viruses from computer':

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243818/security/how-to-remove...

Among other things, it recommends installing third-party AVX and random 'malware scanners'. Given how poor antivirus software is, following this advice will often slow down the computer and causes other problems down the line.

For someone who really doesn't know what they're doing, and knows that they don't know, another barrier to trying to learn is simple risk aversion. I'm hesitant to work on my own car because I know that I'm ignorant, to the point that I don't have a clear idea of what the failure modes are and the cost to me to fix them if I screw up.

Similarly, if a computer user really has no clue what they're doing and they know that they're ignorant, they might perceive the process of experimenting and learning as potentially very costly -- maybe they can lose all their files, or bork their computer for a week, etc.

There's also a second-order effect here -- some people are just not that quick at picking up new things, and they know that they're bad at it. I bet most software engineers are in the top 5% of the population in being able to teach themselves new things and learning them quickly. Unwillingness to learn a new task or fact can be rational if you have strong reasons to suspect that the cost of learning more is high.

To me, I think it is the other way round. Claiming that those people can use computer is a bit like claiming that a person who knows how to call a taxi can use cars. We do not have a word for car users like that, but I think we would need a word for people who have a computer and somehow every now and then manage to interact with it to get some tiny set of tasks done, but who are completely unable to use the computer unassisted.

> people who have a computer and somehow every now and then manage to interact with it to get some tiny set of tasks done

Cars can do far more than what the vast majority of drivers use it for (getting from point A to point B safely and within the law). But we don't complain that not everyone is capable of stunt driving.

Plus, you're ignoring the fact that even the best software engineer can only use a computer for a small fraction of what it's capable, since there is specialized software in every field.

A violin-maker and a violinist are two very different sets of skills, and I'd argue IT specialists are closer to the former.

I am not talking about being able to take advantage of every capability of the device in use, but capability to use the device autonomously in basic use cases. In the case of cars, it means that you are able to turn the engine on, refuel when needed, use steering wheel and engage gears. If you complain to the mechanic that the car is broken and the problem is that you have not turned the engine on you can't use a car. If you need to call IT support because ehternet cable is not connected, display is off or because the shortcut to browser in your desktop has moved, you can't use a computer.

And what if the kids in question are neither?

That's fine? Our modern economy is based on specialization. I don't see a very strong argument for why every person should know how their computer really works to the point they can fix it themselves rather than paying someone else to fix it for them.

The difference is, with the amount of knowledge you need to learn to be a really good computer maintainer, you can be a well-paid devops maintaining a few dozen servers. If you have any aptitude for working with computers, it's likely you'll be at that level at around the time you hit 20 and just doing user maintenance will be severely below your skill and pay level. Plus, a lot of these people are asking for help for the equivalent of filling up their tank when it runs out of gas. Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas. I get the sentiment, but there are enough specific factors at play that make the situation work out differently.

> If you have any aptitude for working with computers

It's difficult for people to estimate their aptitude for something before dumping a lot of time and energy into it, unless they have to do it or derive enjoyment from it.

> Imagine being a car mechanic who can fully assemble an engine from parts and knows the purpose of every single part; but you're being paid minimum wage to run around town filling people's cars with gas.

It's not his customers' fault that he's in that situation, it's his own fault for either investing in a skill that has no local demand, or failing to market his skills effectively.

I could learn to be the best widget-maker in the whole world, but it nobody wants widgets and I can't convince anyone that they should pay me to make widgets, it seems stupid to blame the world for this.

I watched some videos and read through the documentation that came with my Jeep. I did a few oil and filter changes. Before long, I realized I could do all the basic maintenance myself! But when I calculated how much money I had saved, I found that the loss of billable time (that I could have spent coding) was much greater than the money saved. So now I go to a local mechanic and bring my laptop with me.

This pretty much goes for everything from cleaning my apartment to repairing my family member's computers and laptops. I can do it myself, but it's cheaper for me to pay someone else to do it.

Most computer users run to a script: click this then this then this... Kids learn the latest app from their friends but the biggest difference is that they aren't as afraid of breaking things as adults. This is why adults are impressed by kids. Also, most of us learned by experimenting further. 'Digital natives' is a myth because only a few pursue what they are soaking in.

So 'maintain' is close. But I would argue that learning to maintain is not the goal or the measure. More important than using computers is understanding computers. Not a bunch of scripts or facts but concepts and a problem solving approach. This helps a little with maintenance but digital literacy is more about being informed of what is a pervasive aspect of our society (security, privacy, trust issues etc). This is also why a car analogy is not apt: technology is more pervasive. We don't use cars to make things in the way we use computers.