How do people manage tech?

I'm a computer semi-geek - I know what everything does and feel confident playing with hardware and software - though that's only on something running Windows or Linux. I wouldn't know how to approach a Mac. 

The only thing I'd add to Iain's suggestions are to use a password manager.  1password is a Candian firm and one of the most accessible to a novice. It's not expensive, either - only around £2.50 a month. Proton (a Swiss company) offers an excellent free service, but it might be confusing to someone struggling with tech. 

Google offers a free password manager, if you use Chrome. Microsoft offers one if you use Edge. Firefox (another popular browser) also has one.

I've heard of password managers but I'm not sure what they are, how they work or how I'd access one, being my luck I'd do all my passwords on something like that and then forget how to get into it.

I use firefox, I looked at chrome and edge but didn't like them, they felt unfriendly.

How did you all get started with computers? I guess I was fairly late to the party, before the internet I didn't really have much use for one, or as far as I know I didn't, I did try using word processors but I never had any instructions or guidance and questions were never answered, I felt like I was being silo'd by the people who were allowing me to use their computors. Like one ex, who let me type up some college essays, I wanted to print them out, but when I tried I couldn't because he had a whole other computer that was "security" for all his equipment, including the printer that I didn't have the password for. Apart from the inconvience to me being late with my work, he thought it was inconvienient that he had to give me the password for the printer. Another ex would say I could use his computer when he was at work and then not tell me how to switch it on, there seemed to be switches in all sorts of unexpected places, it caused arguments so I just stopped asking. When I was at uni and was given a load of equipment and a teacher for how to use it all, I got fed up as the first thing he did was complain and tell me how disapointed he was that I'd got a lap top instead of a tower. He also wouldn't tell me how to do the things I needed to do for my work, like how to do foot notes and inset pieces, because those things were later on in his teaching programe and would be included in about 6 months time, another friend had exactly the same thing with him, so it wasn't just me. Then when I'd finished uni I moved up here to a place with no mobile signal at all, apparently we were on the edge of several companies ranges, we also had terrible internet connection, so bad that BT offered us a refund because they couldn't run they're own speed test because it was so slow. In many places here you still get a better signal from Ireland than from Britain and there are still blackspots.

I get the issues you experienced with tech - I have seen each of them dozens if not hundreds of time in my career in support.

For the "how do I do this" sort of question - the best approach I always found was to ask nicely about how to do the thing and always remember the thank the person who told me. You often need to be persistent and not take offence if people seem busy or annoyed to tell you how to do something that they are the "gatekeeper" to the info.

A very important thing I found is to learn and store the knowledge when you find out what to do. Try to understand why it is this way if you can, be curious and absorb the knowledge as there is a good chance you can use it later. Keep notes and refer to them a you would have done on your uni course.

The internet has been immensely useful for this since the very early 2000's so learning how to use a search engine well is a key skill to building your knowledge - if you can't get someone to show you then try a load of questions in the search engine on how to use the search engine. Persistence is the key here.

You are intelligent (you trained to be a therapist for example) and can retain complex knowledge (you know a great deal about history for example) so the ability of absorbing tech knowledge is something you are more than capable of. 

Think back to your therapy training - what makes people have a mental block on a particular subject and how do they learn to overcome this? You are probably one of the most capable people here to answer this question.

TheCatWoman said:

Therapy training dosen't help to overcome learning difficulties like this

One area I am not particularly knowledgable about is whether this is actually a learning difficulty or a selective resistance to training so I would be interested to hear your opinion.

You have talked in other posts about how you display Oppositional Defiance Disorder type behaviour when it comes to many things that you feel are being forced upon you. Do you think this could be a major factor here?

You display a potent ability to learn things that are interesting to you which is why this seemed worth considering when I thought about it.

TheCatWoman said:

How do I learn to use a search engine well

This guide should tell you how to make your search terms more specific:

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Properly-Use-a-Search-Engine/

Due to the massive volume of data any vague search will give, it will prioritise things that are paying to be high on the list. By making the terms (AKA the words you type in when searching) more specific for what you want then you will narrow down the number of results and have less junk included.

It is worth thinking that if you are searching for something to buy then you are likely to get a lot of companies trying to prioritise their results in the search list even if they are only vaguely rated, so you probably have to dig through the results to find something interesting.

If you are just searching for information then there is less likelihood of companies paying to be high on the search list so you have more chance to find a good link higher on the list.

Learning how to get better with it takes patience and repeated practice.

TheCatWoman said:

Therapy training dosen't help to overcome learning difficulties like this

One area I am not particularly knowledgable about is whether this is actually a learning difficulty or a selective resistance to training so I would be interested to hear your opinion.

You have talked in other posts about how you display Oppositional Defiance Disorder type behaviour when it comes to many things that you feel are being forced upon you. Do you think this could be a major factor here?

You display a potent ability to learn things that are interesting to you which is why this seemed worth considering when I thought about it.

TheCatWoman said:

How do I learn to use a search engine well

This guide should tell you how to make your search terms more specific:

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Properly-Use-a-Search-Engine/

Due to the massive volume of data any vague search will give, it will prioritise things that are paying to be high on the list. By making the terms (AKA the words you type in when searching) more specific for what you want then you will narrow down the number of results and have less junk included.

It is worth thinking that if you are searching for something to buy then you are likely to get a lot of companies trying to prioritise their results in the search list even if they are only vaguely rated, so you probably have to dig through the results to find something interesting.

If you are just searching for information then there is less likelihood of companies paying to be high on the search list so you have more chance to find a good link higher on the list.

Learning how to get better with it takes patience and repeated practice.