Will add a bit more about how the habit of an unwillingness to read instructions is particularly bad for those trying to use computers. As noted in my previous post, large numbers of people over years have developed attitudes of not reading instructions for digital electronic devices whether that be paper user manuals or online display instructions or Help links. Thus the person that has a tv remote control with a couple dozen buttons that from the beginning by trial and error only knows the power on/off, channel selection, volume +-, and possibly mute buttons. Same person uses their VCR or microwave oven, or portable music player likewise. And when they do bother to read instructions say if they become frustrated not being able to perform some operation, they don't do so in an intelligent way and instead skim through the manual without looking at Contents or Index. Worse, when they find the correct page, their general impatience results in just noticing a few key terms and then assuming what the actual text is probably relating, they jump right into some action that is prone to be less than correct.
As a tech, I worked several decades at a list of companies in Silicon Valley hardware electronic engineering. One of the jobs I frequently ended performing was technical writing instructions for others, both other techs, and engineers and manufacturing process docs, as well as end user product documentation, correcting what engineers wrote, and training others. I also early in my career worked 3 years as a general test equipment repair and calibration tech for a large old corporation that had a huge list of equipment from A to Z that required careful reading of complex information. I also occasionally worked in customer service helping others over the phone often with people that that had answers to their questions had they bothered to read manuals.
With computer hardware and software, especially complex software, the habit and attitude of avoiding reading instructions has a much worse consequence versus your tv remote. Once the complexity of a task is beyond what our brains have in working memory, it is difficult to absorb whatever by either someone verbally explaining what to do or watching someone do something, or watching a non-pausing video. With complex programs like Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Excel, and a long list of other common workplace productivity applications, unless a such a person changes and learns to read manuals, they will remain at a hopelessly primitive level. It is a significant factor in what separated those like this person from many others in tech work regardless of what college degrees they might have. In like manner it will also inhibit an average person from being able to rise from simplest levels of use of digital appliances. In most cases, it is not that people cannot read and understand manuals or instructions but rather they have the wrong attitude.
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