I guess it was better than living not knowing that there is such a thing as MS Word.
On the other hand, they paid the opportunity cost of not spending their time learning something that could be actually used to improve their living situation (electrical/mechanical engineering comes to mind).
Indeed. Society needs the basics of carpentry, plumbing and sanitation, medicine, personal finance, cookery before any basic office automation.
Our grand-grandparents lived just fine without a software word processor but relied on safe water and healthy living conditions.