Developing Computer Self-Reliance
I&#x27;ve noticed a sort-of orthogonal trend: To ditch the computer entirely and use mobile devices exclusively. I&#x27;ve seen a combo of an iPhone and a low-end iPad do everything many not-so-technical people ever do on their computers, while being a lot more secure, relatively inexpensive, and very easy to use, or rather, it tends to be very hard to actually break things inadvertently on those systems, and being able to transfer muscle memory from one&#x27;s phone helps.<p>iPads can still feed video to a TV, you can use a cheap bluetooth keyboard for writing letters (and, recently on iPadOS, even mice), lots of USB devices with an adapter, and they&#x27;re highly mobile, have great accessibility features (increasingly popular with age), the higher-end iPad displays are actually kinda nice for reading, even. New-ish printers seemingly tend to just work over wifi (at least with iOS – so I&#x27;m told; I still have a hard time believing it.)<p>I think that&#x27;s actually another way of attaining more self-reliance. It&#x27;s a way to avoid having to learn most of the things mentioned in TFA and still be able to not depend on others so much, without things getting crazy expensive or insecure. Software failure modes tend to be a lot easier to fix, and for hardware – same as with phones, even most knowledgeable people can&#x27;t fix those themselves, but there are straightforward options to have it done (e.g. take it to an Apple Store), and even as a non-technical person, you can set up a new device without help with very basic skills.<p>Maybe that kind of self-reliance isn&#x27;t the most helpful kind in a pandemic or SHTF scenario, or the very cheapest way to solve one&#x27;s computing needs, but it&#x27;s viable and way easier than what TFA outlines.