> That one quarter of the population can’t use a computer at all is the most serious element of the digital divide.
Frightening... but why?
> To a great extent, this problem is caused by computers still being much too complicated for many people.
Ok, but this doesn't answer my other question - is it possible to educate these people to use the current computers, or do computers really need to be streamlined that much?
I asked myself the same question when I saw a documentary about analphabets. They quoted a number of about 8 million total and functional analphabets for Germany (among 80 million population), which is absolutely staggering.
To witness, people who cannot use a computer are often called "digital analphabets" or similar.
> is it possible to educate these people to use the current computers[?]
Some can be taught, but not all of them.
There is a significant fraction of the population that simply can't "get" certain concepts in a usable form. These are the same folks that are only capable of solving an algebra problem by rote, don't see the difference between making a word bold & italic and doing it indirectly by applying a custom style, etc.
It is important to note that this doesn't have anything to do with a lack of intelligence. Many smart developers struggle in an analogous way with pointers and pointer arithmetic, for example. Some people's brains just don't easily bend very far in certain directions.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/