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

[Ben Graham]

 

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

 

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!'"

 

I can't believe people have been wasting their lives like this either! It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Just like we learn to skim tables of content or look through an index or just skim chapter titles to find what we're looking for, we need to teach people about this CTRL+F thing.

 

Google itself is trying to teach people a little something with their AGoogleADay.com campaign, but the ability to retrieve information via a search engine is actually much bigger than the search engine itself. We're talking about the future of almost all knowledge acquisition and yet schools don't spend nearly as much time on this skill as they do on other equally important areas.

 

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

[ubuy2wron]

 

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

 

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!'"

 

I can't believe people have been wasting their lives like this either! It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Just like we learn to skim tables of content or look through an index or just skim chapter titles to find what we're looking for, we need to teach people about this CTRL+F thing.

 

Google itself is trying to teach people a little something with their AGoogleADay.com campaign, but the ability to retrieve information via a search engine is actually much bigger than the search engine itself. We're talking about the future of almost all knowledge acquisition and yet schools don't spend nearly as much time on this skill as they do on other equally important areas.

 

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

I am basically computer illiterate I do not know how to spell check this post I tried to set up an rss news feed today I do not know how. I am definately part of the 90 % >. My son will be home this weekend to help put of the tree he will set up my rss new feed my wife can not send me a text messgae and she has no excuse as she is only 41.

[Crip1]

OK, if I click Edit > Find on Internet Explorer, or click "Find" in MS Word, does that put me in the 90% or the 10%?

 

-Crrp

[Ben Graham]

 

 

 

 

I am basically computer illiterate I do not know how to spell check this post I tried to set up an rss news feed today I do not know how. I am definately part of the 90 % >. My son will be home this weekend to help put of the tree he will set up my rss new feed my wife can not send me a text messgae and she has no excuse as she is only 41.

OK, if I click Edit > Find on Internet Explorer, or click "Find" in MS Word, does that put me in the 90% or the 10%?

 

-Crrp

 

 

Crrp & ubuy2wron

 

Gentlemen, Maybe this link may help you figure out a solution to your problems:

 

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/index.php?topic=5840" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic" 63766;topicseen#msg63766

 

Since you both seem to have a good sence of humor, 20th-century American social critic and humorist H. L. Mencken will tickle your backbones.

 

Ben (3) Graham