The average person is becoming MORE technologically illiterate, not less. The era of growing up with a home computer that required fiddling and dial up, etc is over. People grow up with phones and iPads and kids come to school not knowing how to use a mouse.

Something that amazes me that I often see is tech literate people wastly over estimating the tech literacy of an average person. Any amount of tech support would tell you that most people barley know the basics and doesn't care for anything else.

Not me. I am so out of the loop here. But I loved the social aspect of reddit and was on it long enough to know how great it was when it was young. Hoping to find that here.

Linux is second nature to us geeks, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably knows just Ubuntu or Fedora.

And Debian GNU/Linux, of course.

I can’t do any of the stuff you mentioned. I’m here because I hate traditional social media that are not social at all. And I hate ads. And have an interest in community driven stuff and DIY.

And I don’t feel like I am alone here.

Relevant xkcd: Average familiarity

You severly overestimate the average persons tech literacy even when you try to correct for it. Booting from USB is already a really advanced topic.

Though creating a lemmy account is not that complex. Typically all you have to do is fill out a form on the websiten instructions included. The problem there is not the tech literacyn but the willingness of the people to even interact with systems they don't know, like finding a home instance or understanding the concept of the fediverse. Most people could create a lemmy account, though also most people wouldn't.

The average person can't even download the right authenticator app when prompted. The average person can't type their password the same way two times in a password change field. The average person does not know how to plug monitors and peripherals into a docking station.

Whatever you think the average skill level is? It's lower than that. By a lot.

You are completely correct and their comments prove it. The bubble is strong here. But it’s a pretty nice bubble

Don't worry, my fair tech-literate maiden. I, a tech-dyslexic, am here to bring down the collective IQ and make the chamber echo less. You can thank me later, for adding some much needed intellectual diversity to the mix.

*with strong beliefs on random topics

Not my fault. Reddit pushed me here!

My own experience, as someone who is not necessarily tech illiterate, but also not an expert either:

I decided to check out some basic Linux stuff, and found a post directing newcomers to a website that was supposed to be a top-notch beginner's guide. This guide started with a history of Linux, written in the style of an early 2000s GameFAQs guide. It then jumped immediately into selecting a distro, and started describing each option with terms like "lightweight"and "robust" without explaining what those terms meant in that context - or even defining what a distro was in the first place.

As someone who has used Windows for around 3 decades, I could make some inferences to fill in the gaps. But I imagine someone with less experience with PCs would get completely lost.

Now on the flip side, I've also shared in another thread the story of how I lost interest in programming partway through my introductory university course, and mostly received positive feedback. The folks in that thread seemed happy to hear the perspective of an outsider.

makes sense, since Linux users (me) are drawn to foss projects like moths to a light

I am not tech literate but here I am.

imposter

Anonymity and the general public do not mix. Barrier to entry is all we have left.

The average person nowadays could not create and reliably access a Facebook account if they didn't have auto complete/password save.

The worst is twenty-year-olds that have never used a desktop. They just stare at the mouse, keyboard, and monitor like they have no clue what to do.

Why would normal people know how to boot from usb? Shit, if you clean the ads out of a windows start menu, a normie will think you're a wizard for doing the inconceivable.

This is true but I ultimately don't care.

Is there any social media site that isn't an echo chamber? They're designed that way on purpose in most cases.

There are enough forums catering to idiots. I appreciate the better moderation, tech savviness, and lack of tolerance for right wing BS on Lemmy.

I don't think it's an echo chamber, I think you are wrong about that. The proof is that I am disagreeing with you right now. Therefore, not an echo chamber.

"Whats the best tool for..."

"Linux!!!"

"Haven't yet said what I'm trying to build"

"Pls just upvote me and tell me I'm good"

My mom is a tech literate echo chamber lmao

For the past month I've been developing a NixOS platform for local businesses.

I keep overestimating how much people know. It's infuriating trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I don't need to explain why it's amazing, just that it is, and it works. I feel like I'm Mugatu talking to Zoolander at times.

Even if I could perfectly analogise what a declarative operating system is, it wouldn't matter to a client because they don't understand how a non NixOS machine works.

Though, the worst part is trying to explain to someone, who is "happy with Windows" why they should not be.

How the fuck do people in 2025 not fucking loathe Windows? There's fucking ads in the start menu. There's like 4 different places to change settings. The systems bloat and slow to a crawl as the OS ages.

It's fucked.

I just don't understand how it's more "techy" than Reddit. I just want our user count to keep going up.

I think we should focus less on hyping federation/decentralization and more on how there are no ads and the content is really coming from actual users (and maybe a leftist bias).

I got a few friends on here by explaining that choosing a server is no different from choosing an email provider. Everyone understands email, that you can communicate with most other email users no matter what their provider is.

Very much so, when I brought up that I am a software developer who just loves using their Macbook, because it just works, I was told I stupid because I am now locked in and what if I want to compile my own flavor of window manager, like with no sense of fucking irony.