Is the fediverse assessible to the boomers/computer illiterate? What's the most boomer friendly service? Have you onboarded any boomers in your life? - eviltoast

Boomer in like Facebook/tiktok is their final technology frontier.

My friends/circle (ages 19 - 72): 95% don’t know how to set up Adblock on desktop. 20% only use computers once a week. 5% use shortcuts like copy and paste. 30% of them buy iphones bc they find android too hard too bother with (I agree with this). 1% struggle with basic concepts like knowing if they are posting a status or DMing someone. Tho 10% trade stocks by themselves, so with sufficient motivation they could learn.

I have onboard 1 person irl and I had to walk them through it.

I rate the fediverse as 0/10 for assessibility to boomers but have not tried the whole fediverse

  • graphito@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    I like to think of “open source software vs closed software” as “stairs vs elevator”: stairs are healthy, autonomous, require little to no maintenance but given the option to elevator I don’t have any illusion what most people would prefer

    Yes, stairs are very inaccessible – stairs might exclude a bunch of people by its own design

    In the eyes of stairs-builder you shouldn’t build (residential) buildings that require an elevator. Moreover, in narrow cases you might wanna consider to build an elevator, consider an escalator first

    Answering the question “How can we get people to use stairs everyday?”, stairs-builders make stairs well lit, wide, friendly and well placed.

    A user of stairs might prepare their friends and family to use existing stairs they got: by explaining the techniques to approach the stairs, by recommending appropriate shoes, by timing the stairs climbing at an appropriate moment of the day etc

    Less advanced user might simply point to the stairway and say “why don’t we take stairs this time?”. And here we (advanced users) wanna ask them not to do that with their sore/acky nana – she wouldn’t like the stairs either way

    Don’t waste your energy. Focus on the achievable