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90 Percent of People Don't Know How to Use CTRL+F

posted by janrinok on Monday December 23 2019, @04:18PM   
from the perhaps-they-can't-find-it dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-90-percent-of-people-dont-know-how-to-use-ctrl-f/243840/

This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don't know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don't use it at all.

"90 percent of the US Internet population does not know that. This is on a sample size of thousands," Russell said. "I do these field studies and I can't tell you how many hours I've sat in somebody's house as they've read through a long document trying to find the result they're looking for. At the end I'll say to them, 'Let me show one little trick here,' and very often people will say, 'I can't believe I've been wasting my life!'"

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Original Submission

• Generic rule of thumb Generic rule of thumb (Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday December 23 2019, @05:13PM (2 children)

  by canopic jug (3949) on Monday December 23 2019, @05:13PM (#935547) Journal

  I cannot imagine he really means 90%.

  I can. Further, it can be a blanket statement which applies equally well to most other aspects of desktop computing. Pick a function, any function, from any well-known desktop application. Odds are that 90% of the population neither uses it, can use it, or has awareness of what it can do for them. That includes so-called trainers and teachers of said desktop applications.

  --
  Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.

  Parent

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• Re:Generic rule of thumb Re:Generic rule of thumb (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday December 23 2019, @09:32PM (1 child)

  by krishnoid (1156) on Monday December 23 2019, @09:32PM (#935637)

  No way. I mean, consider everyone visiting this site and the green site and the other sites we frequent. I bet 99% of the people on those sites know about using Ctrl-F to search in a web page, and they're a representative sample, right? After all, they:

  • Have a desk job that mostly involves computer-based work
  • Re/search information rather than coordinating via emails a lot
  • Grew up with technology front-and-center
  • Mostly interact with computers via keyboard, rather than via smartphone
  • Use computing devices for creating and finding content, rather than consuming it
  • Spend most time reading curated content rather than watching/viewing/reading peer-generated social media

  I have no idea [imgur.com] what this study could be talking about. I heard from something my friend re-instagrammed me that it's those vaccines that cause scientists to create conspiracy theories and say dumb things, so I bet that's what happened here.

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  • Re:Generic rule of thumb (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 24 2019, @07:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 24 2019, @07:42AM (#935835)

    You don't need vaccines if you consume enough antioxidants (reducing agents) to reduce your diseases. In societies with sufficient diets a virus like Measles is of little concern.

    Parent