Digital snobs have a way about them.
Remember all those times you were hanging out with people who shook their heads because they couldn’t believe how many times people would simply type a search into the address bar? And then, when desktop toolbar search got built into your browser, those crazy ordinary non-savvy people would still type search terms into the address bar! Auuuggghh!
Turns out, having two boxes on the screen is redundant. Why have two of them when you could just type your search into the address bar (a la Chrome, and belatedly, the other browsers)? Let alone take the extra step of going to a search engine’s home page.
So…. the ‘dummies’ were right? Yeah, in this case. The snob, learned, orthodoxy was no better than the dummy way.
Time and again, people’s knee-jerk behaviors are dismissed by better-educated elites.
Sometimes it makes sense to listen more closely, though. Because where there is behavioral smoke, maybe there is coherence fire in there somewhere.
Lower-income people often have appalling diets. Rather than lecturing them or pointing fingers or laughing at them, though, why not get closer to the source of the problem? Some people really have no idea how to find and prepare healthier meals. And kids? In many cases, they have no choice.
This is what makes chef Jamie Oliver such a hero. Instead of sticking to his industry’s historically ‘classist’ means of separating discerning people from slobs, he spearheaded change in the school system that would both educate and provide healthier sustenance to kids.
Giving people choices rather than laughing at them or looking down on them. What a concept!