this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024

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We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computer problems, says study (techxplore.com)

submitted 4 months ago by BodaciousMunchkin@links.hackliberty.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] asbestos@lemmy.world 149 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Developers: Those are rookie numbers

[–] Bonesince1997@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm going for the high score!

[–] hemmes@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I'm an IT engineer, 100% of my time is spent on computer problems.

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 4 months ago

I’m a home server hobbyist. I like to think of them as computer solutions.

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 110 points 4 months ago (5 children)

How much time do we waste on car problems? Neighbor problems? Political problems? Grocery problems?

[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 55 points 4 months ago

Right and how much time do we save by having computers? Fixing the problems is just the cost of doing business

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, this seems like a pretty dumb conclusion. I expect that as far back as you look, people always took advantage of tools that save them time. But then they always also spent a fair amount of that time (that they could have been working), just maintaining/fixing/making their tools. I think the truth is that computers are very useful tools, but the maintenance and troubleshooting can be quite time consuming.

I will continue using computers though.

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[–] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Also in the context of working, this isn't just computers. It's tools in general, and a computer is a type of tool. Problems with your saw? Problems with your batteries? Problems with access to electricity and your extension cords not being long enough? Problem with losing your 10mm sockets? If you're a trucker or driver the problem could be your vehicle. Etc etc etc.

This article is stupid. Tools break, they always have and always will. The tools we have now are better than they have ever been. They will probably keep getting more and more efficient, but they will still break. Because tools break.

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[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 110 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Do they include "fighting with anti patterns and dark patterns" as broken? It's pretty insane how much misalignment there is between what most people want their computers to do and what the companies want people to do, which seems to largely be "look at ads literally everywhere".

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[–] Toribor@corndog.social 51 points 4 months ago (4 children)

My job is to fix computers so I waste 100% of my time with computer problems.

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[–] ProxyZeus@lemmy.world 41 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not a waste if I'm getting paid to do it full time

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[–] RickAstleyfounddead@lemy.lol 41 points 4 months ago (9 children)

Linux users brings the numbers up

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Once everything is set up properly it just works tbh. Meanwhile in windows updates broke something every other time.

[–] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This is so not true unless you are using some super stable old Debian release and aren't doing complex work.

Most DEs are super buggy, especially the darling child kde, which right off the bat makes things not super stable.

Additionally some of the most loved distros are rolling release and inherently unstable.

Hell, I use multiple distros daily, fedora and slackware, I also use windows for work, windows is by and large more stable in my experience.

Slackware has kernel panics monthly, kde crashes on fedora, Wayland has too many problems to count, meaning I have to switch to x sessions all the time.

Most GUI software I use has tons of visual glitches.

Yes it's tolerable, that's why I still use it, but I wouldn't exactly say it 'just works'

I would estimate I restart my fedora computer about 4-5 times more often than than the windows computer, and usually I have to restart fedora because of serious hard crashes (e.g. kde crashes so hard that I can't even switch to a tty, meaning I need to hard reset)

[–] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I've not had anything like that since... forever. But then I'm not a kde nor fedora user. Naturally raises the question - have you considered switching from kde, fedora or both?

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[–] iopq@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Really? Because I updated and my wine prefix just broke. That was yesterday.

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[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 7 points 4 months ago

Hey, all of those problems are entirely because of my own incompetence.

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[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago (5 children)

This is 100% due to Microsoft, google and Apple. If you dont understand, I'm not defending my position, or explaining further.

[–] maxinstuff@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Tangent: what’s this trend all about where people will make a statement and then firmly state that they will not answer questions or explain themselves afterwards?

I’m seeing it everywhere.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Presumably it's people who are tired of dealing with troll responses.

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[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Working server side much? Pretty sure a lot of us spend a lotta time on fixing shit unrelated to either of those 3… Not that it diminishes the merit of our IT support dude that endure due to those 3 indeed.

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

He uses arch btw

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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago

Jokes on you! My whole life is a waste of time

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Whatever. I waste probably 20 hours a week on “work”.

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[+] JordanZ@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 months ago (5 children)

It's actually simple.

HIG, UX, ergonomics, all that - it doesn't build up. Acceptable complexity of a pretty mechanical normal 80s' UI\UX is the same as of a modern one. Humans don't evolve over decades, they evolve over spans of time which are as good as eternity. They still need the same kind of complexity in tools they use.

A control panel for a loader that a factory worker should be able to use is as complex as a workflow on a computer can be. And that's very explicitly accounting for the fact that loader's or lift's control panel doesn't change every fucking day and the user remembers it, so computer UIs should be simpler than those of lifts and loaders!

You just don't make UI\UX more complex than that. There are things humans can learn to do, and there are things they often can't and they shouldn't.

The issue is that this creates a bottleneck for clueless project managers, UI designers and such. They can't throw together some shit in 30 minutes. They have to choose. They have to test. They don't want that. And no regulation makes them do that, because if a loader has an unclear UI\UX, you might kill someone, while if an email program has that, you'll just get very nervous.

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[–] elrik@lemmy.world 32 points 4 months ago

"Up to 20%" is meaningless for a headline and is pure click bait. It could be any number between 0% and 20%. Or put another way, any number from no time at all to a horrifying more than an entire day per week.

Why not just state the average from what is probably a statistically irrelevant study and move on?

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 29 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

We are wasting up to 20% of our time with bronze problems.
-- Some grumpy dude circa 3300 BC

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Must be the crappy copper from Ea-nāṣir

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[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 27 points 4 months ago

Using the word "we" loosely.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 25 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I certainly don't. If I can't fix it in 5 minutes, I just ignore the problem. And I wish everyone else would too and stop complaining about the smoke coming out of the machine. It's fine.

[–] Zip2@feddit.uk 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sounds more like a lot of people could do with some basic computer skills training.

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[–] CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

How about everyone who has zero skills with these problems, do they count is 0% spent on them as they outsource it or do they count as 100% since the smallest problem incapacitates their computer usage?

[–] Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

At least 10 percent of my time sitting in a classroom in college was waiting for the prof to get the projector to work with their laptop.

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[–] oo1@lemmings.world 10 points 4 months ago

53% of my time is spent looking for CASE statements without an END. This is 99% human error - does that count?

[–] fargeol@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

With focused R&D, we can make it 70%!

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[–] czardestructo@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

That number was more like 30% with a windows laptop and all the security crap Microsoft convinced my company to install. It was so painfully slow and glitchy. So I went rogue and put Linux on my company laptop 8 months ago and I'm not looking back.

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[–] Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Those are rookie numbers. Install Linux and pump those numbers up.

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[–] art@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I know. What of it?

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Computers would be far less interesting if there weren‘t any problems to solve. Fiddling around really is half the fun for me, even when it can get frustrating.

[–] oo1@lemmings.world 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Please don't get a job where you have windows, cloud, sharepoint , dynamics and one drive forced on you (plus a load of oracle). it makes you fucking hate computers.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

I thought the title said “We are wasting up to 20% of our time on computers.”

My immediate thought was “That seems way too low…”

[–] blazera@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Just stop having computer problems

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