I read the manual for every appliance I have. I do man and help even before using the command. I look for multiple articlse explaining the how and why before doing something new with my computer and yet when I look for help many tech people are condescendingly telling me to read the doc. Well, I did. But I don't understand, because I coudn't grasp the concept, because english isn't my mother tongue, because many doc are written by great technician with poor writing skills that are bad pedagogues, and I would like someone to answer my question.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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English is my mother tongue and I still have issues with reading some manuals because they're written by bad pedagogues using jargon phrases that mean nothing, or worse, mean something completely different from a basic English reading of those words in that order.
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Half of US adults can't read at a 6th grade level. This is haunting.
Some strikingly high percentage can't complete complicated tasks on a computer (eg: find 3 user email addresses and add them to a spreadsheet).
Reading the manual is good advice but I think some people are just left behind
I feel like a big problem is that a lot of people never learned how to learn.
Adding onto your examples, I've also heard about a study once where they were given similar basic Excel tasks. However, you didn't even have to solve the tasks. Instead, just trying to get help from the help function or searching online got you into the highest skill bracket. That bracket ended up being the smallest group.
It must be nice to be able to read and recall.
copypasta levels
Never forget what they took from us.
Sorry, I have a chronic medical condition that makes reading manuals physically painful, which prevents me from reading the manual until I encounter a problem that requires me to read it, at which point I will have likely discarded it. And if I haven't, I will only read through the part that contains the information I need to know to solve the problem and then immediately forget it after.
Started a new job as a tool tech in a rental center; maintaining, repairing, and simply showing people how to operate, a ton of different tools, some of which I've never even seen before.
First thing I did is setup a file share on my server that I've populated with 70+ manuals and growing by the day...
Read through them all myself to understand the nuances of each machine and be able to explain the details to customers; plus I can print them a fresh copy on demand just for good measure.
Honestly, who has the time? I could read the manual or I could enjoy my life instead.
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RTFDS is the equivalent for electric engineering enthusiasts. Itβs supposed to be tedious af, but I honestly enjoy reading data sheets for some god forsaken reason.