Just as the title asks I’ve noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they’re reading.

They’ll read it and despite all the information being there, if it’s even slightly out of line from the most straightforward sentence structure, they act like it’s complete gibberish or indecipherable.

Has anyone else noticed this? Because honestly it’s making me lose my fucking mind.

  • RichardB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “I try to do a thing on my computer and I get an error message.”

    “What does the message say?”

    “I don’t know.”

    The story of me helping people with computers.

    • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, that’s learned helplessness.

      How many times have you said ‘yes yes, just click through that, jeeze’?

      There is so damn much horrible shitty UX out there; 90% of the time users are just trained out of using common sense, and you can’t blame them for it.

      That other 10% though, goddamn. I swear if you moved their doorknob an inch to the left they’d starve to death in their home.

    • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Also one my favourites:

      „Nothing works, and this annoying message keeps popping up. I keep closing it, but it just comes back every time. Can you help me?“

      • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Them: “All the PCs are broken”

        Me: “ok, cam you see any lights on the monitors or on the front of the pcs”

        Them: “i dont know”

        Me: “ok I’ll come have a look”

        walks down

        Me: “Ok show me one of the broken ones”

        Them: “ok well its actually just this one”

        Me: dont get mad, they are just an idiot

        Me: turns on screen

        Them: “how did you do that?”

        Me AAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGG “magic 😀” AAAAAAARRRRRHHHHHGGG

        • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          The amount of people who work on a computer every day and still don’t know the absolute basics is astounding.

          I fully understand that someone who never used a PC doesn’t know their way around one, that’s absolutely fair, of course. But if they’ve used one for years because of their job, and are still not able to work out where that one file is…
          That’s just inexcusable.

          Great job security for IT and tech support though.

        • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I once had six monitors shipped to us from onsite, complaining they were all dead.

          Each one, just twiddle the brightness knob right on the front (yes this was the 90s, CRTs with analogue knobs…) and they were absolutely fine.

    • Zippy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      More like my computer doesn’t work. Error message at least implies the computer booted up.

      The process of trying to get someone to explain their problem is so painful.

    • ratboy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      (Kent Brockman voice) JUST TAKE A SCREENSHOT, PEOPLE!!

      Aside from reading comprehension, it seems as though people absolutely lack the ability to problem solve. Head scratching is as far as many will go. I can’t count how many times I’ve found inefficient, tedious, or straight up broken systems or out of date info in my office and when I ask people if they’ve ever contacted IT about it or tried to figure it out they just say “Eh, nah, I just leave it and it works itself out.” No. My guy, you’re just doing it wrong/taking an extra 15 minutes to do everything you’re doing because of the workarounds.