I imagine Lemmy skews WAY to the side of PCs/computers. But the average consumer is almost exclusively using their phone for everything except work and taxes. I’m a digital native and I even find browsing Lemmy to be easier via app than browser.
I use mostly my phone for everything not work related. It’s in my pocket at all times. It’s faster than my ancient ThinkPad. It uses less power. It has a higher resolution screen. It has better speakers. Other than keyboard, it’s better in every way.
Unless I need to type more than 3 minutes, or open more than 3 tabs, I just use my phone. Includes sshing into the odd server for a quick check or tweak.
My wife uses her laptop maybe once a month. Most “normies” rarely use a computer, some even don’t own one.
I use computers at work. Outside of work I use my phone, my Steamdeck, and my PS5 for my needs/entertainment. After fixing and working on computers all day, I don’t wanna even see another computer after I leave the office. So I just don’t own one. I borrow my grandma’s laptop if I absolutely need to use a computer outside of work lol.
I don’t think Lemmy is the right sample to ask this question. Definitely a lot of gamers and tech enthusiasts here.
Personally I avoid doing computer tasks on my phone if I can at all help it. Trying to accomplish tasks on a tiny mobile screen is just frustrating and limited. Have both desktop and laptop that I prefer to use.
I may be an outlier (well, maybe not on lemmy…), but I have 4 PCs that I use regularly:
- Daily driver laptop
- Work-ish laptop
- Storage server
- Utility server
These are the ones I am left with after getting rid of some hardware I didn’t need.
I use both. I actually hate web browsing on my phone. Mobile websites are often absolute dogshit and I hate having to read articles on a small screen. I also absolutely fucking HATE shopping on mobile. I do all purchases via my Desktop PC. No idea how people use mobile for all this stuff.
Millennial in the US. These are my main devices: iPhone, gaming pc, steam deck, and an old MacBook Pro.
- iPhone - general phone use, killing time browsing Lemmy when I should be working, playing roms, and Pokémon GO.
- Gaming pc - primary. I prefer doing everything here including shopping because fuck shopping on a phone, I’m a millennial and for big purchases I have to use a big screen and a computer.
- Steam Deck - mobile PC gaming for couch and occasions I’m away from home for a long time.
- MacBook - secondary PC, only when I need a PC and don’t want or can’t be at my desk.
Honestly with how far right big tech has moved, along with the predatory tracking and telemetry, I’m considering giving up smart phones for good. Not sure I even want to bother switching to a Pixel with Graphene OS after my iPhone is done.
I miss simplicity, so I’m actively evaluating if a dumb phone (or even an e-ink dumb phone) is right for me. I’m also evaluating lugging my laptop around when I’m out and about because I can simply buy mobile service and plug in a USB cell modem if I need internet. My old 2012 MacBook Pro running Linux doesn’t track me and treat me like data cattle, so it may be worth carrying that around since I don’t get the same feeling of disgust compared to when I look at my smartphone.
Big tech ruined everything.
Edit: on mobile, fixed some typos
Question: am I on the toilet?
Big purchases require big screen.
Idk man, pretty sure musk bought a major world power with the tiny screen
I use a desktop or laptop computer almost daily in my personal life. Mobile devices are terrible for actual productivity. And security. And usability.
And security
Disagree.
Sure, privacy wise, you can say that they are terrible (freedom wise, they are not great either). But Security? Phones are probably the most secure devices (as long as you keep them updated). Verified Boot, Sanboxing for every app, Strict Permission Control, Default Encryptions, Limiting Password attempts per X amount of time, to make brute force difficult, and can even attempt to wipe itself if too many incorrect password entry. Even if an app is malicious, all you need to do is uninstall it and most of the time they do not persist.
Most desktop installations require admin or sudo permissions, one malicious program/package and you gotta wipe clean and reinstall.
Cameras and microphones that have no physical disconnect. Virtual keyboards. NSA subsidies for cheap phones sold in poor areas. Zero visibility or access to OS components without special steps.
Windows let users install and run any junk binary to their appdata folder by default. That’s why cryptolocker got real popular around 2010. Granted this isn’t supporting my point, but admin is not required in a lot of instances.
I guess I’m saying I disagree with your disagreement. Non-mobile is far more secure. My desktop and laptops do all of the stuff you listed as mobile capabilities.
Again, the government surveillance aspect is more of a privacy issue. Yea, I hate how intrusive the government is, but, from a purely security perspective, if your threat model isn’t targeted surveillance by the government (which for most people, that’s not their threat model), if you think about how much technical knowlege the average person has, a smart phone does a better job protecting them from the every day security threats than a computer.
NSA subsidies for cheap phones sold in poor areas.
Cheap smartphones are subsidized by the “recommended apps” screen that phone manufacturers add, that app developers/publishers paid for so that their app is listed during the phone’s set up process, that’s why they are so cheap.
Drawing a distinction between privacy and security is kind of nonsense in this context. While they are technically different, they’re only different in the way that an apple and a fruit are different. Privacy is an aspect of security.
If your privacy was violated in any other context you would not feel secure.
This. There is no practical reason to separate privacy and security in this way.
If bad actors can access your data without your consent, it doesn’t matter if you call it a breach of privacy or security. It’s still a breach. At best, playing semantics like this allows a corp to claim a system filled with backdoors is “secure”. Utter marketing nonsense.
Smartphone is my least common choice. PC most of the time, smart tv for YouTube, tablet, then phone.
Same here, except I haven’t touched my tablet in years.
It mostly gets used to watch YouTube during my nightly bath and when I’m traveling.
I hope your tablet has IP67 water resistance… 😖
Mine does :) it’s gone for a swim once when it slid out of it’s case. My bath has a shelf in front so it’s generally not over the actual water
I usually play my Switch in the bath :-)
PC is for gaming and doing things I do on my phone but easier and faster
The average non-tech person only has a phone. And maybe a shared family notebook if at any point someone needed a computer for things that you can’t do on the phone (like filing taxes and such).
things that you can’t do on the phone (like filing taxes
I mean you can. All you do is type numbers and maybe the occasional names and addresses. Using a computer onlye makes it slightly easier. I filed my parents taxes on a phone, and its not that hard. (I mean, other than the fact that my parents forced me to because they barely understand English, I fucking hate being the “free tech support” but for translations 😭)
It just goes to show how out of touch I am. It didn’t even cross my mind that there would be an app to file your taxes, even though it makes perfect sense.
I’ve only ever used a high end gaming PC (cost me about $5,300, but it was worth it) to play games, draw, browse the internet, and social media. I’m really not a smartphone kind of person and I think it’s because I’m mostly a PC gamer who has grown accustomed to always having a huge 27-inch 2K screen and having everything respond instantaneously, as opposed to a 3-5 second input lag on everything.
I volunteer at the public library. Almost all the people who come in are phones only, and totally lost on a PC. They come in to fill out gov’t PDFs that won’t open on their phones and to print stuff out. My classmates, in the IT program (!) have a lot of trouble navigating on their laptops, and only a couple of us have desktops at all.
Who goes into IT without knowing how to use a computer?
People hear that it’s a higher paying office job that has a low barrier for entry, not realizing that continuing education and constant learning are mandatory. If you don’t have a passion for it, you struggle.
I work with a number of developers who don’t know how to find and edit a file on their computer.
Literally.
I can smell the Javascript from here.
I ask myself that on a regular basis.
Probably the old assumption “there’s money in computers” is still guiding some people into the wrong field.
I know someone who just started studying game development. No prior programming experience required. I guess that’s not a problem as long as you do your homework properly.
I’d say programming / comp sci are kind of different skill sets. Working in IT basically just requires that you know how to use a computer - I’ve met plenty of devs who are pretty poor with their OS.
