This makes an interesting contrast to the discussion on rabbit holes (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20791174) which is also on the front page right now, and largely concerns reading man pages (with various degrees of success).
I think it speaks to the overall improvement in interface design (along with increased general familiarity with user interfaces) that people can get away with not reading the instructions and still be able to operate any software at all.
This has lead to an interesting dichotomy, though, where many people don't ever need to learn the research skills which were once necessary to use a computer at all, and are still necessary to learn anything deeper than the UI.
I think it speaks to the overall improvement in interface design (along with increased general familiarity with user interfaces) that people can get away with not reading the instructions and still be able to operate any software at all.
This has lead to an interesting dichotomy, though, where many people don't ever need to learn the research skills which were once necessary to use a computer at all, and are still necessary to learn anything deeper than the UI.