this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Old People Facebook

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The sublemmy for "Old People Facebook" is a curated space showcasing the charming, confusing, and often hilarious social media endeavors of the older generation. From accidental memes and cryptic status updates to endearing attempts at using modern technology, this sublemmy celebrates the unique ways seniors engage with the digital world.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Makes me wonder if I'm on the spectrum or if ADHD people normally do this too. Or if this is an engineer thing.

The flip side is I normally don't trust other people to ask me precisely what they need and want because all too often they try to solve a problem but don't come up with a great one and would be better off telling me what they're trying to accomplish so I can come up with a more optimal solution. (Also if I am not sure about the best solution, I will try to state what I'm trying to do)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is sometimes called an xy problem.

Like, someone wants to do some calculations in a spreadsheet. They don't know spreadsheets or Excel, but they know JavaScript. So they try to use JavaScript in their spreadsheet. They get part way and ask you "hey how do I get console.log to print to a cell?". Which is weird. Instead they should be asking "how do I add up the numbers in this column?"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

TIL thanks. Strange that I've been in IT all this time and haven't heard the term frequently.

[–] prettybunnys 1 points 11 months ago

This is a imprecise communication thing.

Language is hard, words are hard and we have far too little patience.