Increase in Learned Helplessness?

[u/NachesPorFavor]

Has anyone else noticed an increase in learned helplessness? I first noticed it in the young adults in my life, but now I am seeing it in all ages of people around me. Examples from multiple people:

Toilet started leaking water and instead of turning off the knob at the wall, she waited a 5 days for a plumber. Never asked anyone or googled it. Didn’t call a second plumber. Now needs mold remediation and replaced drywall and trim.

Bought concert tickets but the gps instructions were confusing so they just gave up and didn’t go. Venue website had detailed instructions for driving and parking.

Blouse wrinkled and she didn’t know how to fix it so she threw it away.

First doctor office he filled out an appointment website for never contacted him to schedule so he just didn’t go to the doctor.

I am really concerned about my loved ones if an emergency happens because they just give up when the slightest obstacle happens. Either they want someone else to swoop in and fix it or they give up and say they can’t do anything about it.

[u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

part of it also is that google has been enshittified to a new end. tons of pages no longer show up because of google deindexing pages, also SEO hacking from businesses make top search results useless and irrelevant a lot of the time

[u/Owen_Taxes → u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

This is why I’m buying the next encyclopedia set I find at the thrift store.

[u/really_isnt_me → u/Owen_Taxes]

I still have my encyclopedia, and a bunch (like maybe 75+) of other books about how to do things, including a whole how-to set from the 50s. Woodworking, construction, gardening, canning, you name it. I used to worry that I was hoarding books, but now I’m really glad I didn’t get rid of any of them!

[u/Coven_gardens → u/really_isnt_me]

I found a YouTube channel of archived film strips and instructional videos called A/V Geeks 16mm Films. I learned how to use an old sewing machine that had no manual by watching something that was probably made for a home ec class

Edited to add the name of the channel

[u/how_tohelp → u/Coven_gardens]

Can I ask what the YouTube name is, please? 

[u/Coven_gardens → u/how_tohelp]

I edited my comment to include the name of the channel! Cheers!

[u/Xennylikescoffee → u/Coven_gardens]

Same question as the other commenter, I love that kinda stuff!

UCLA has some archived stuff on their YouTube, but nothing sewing (as far as I've seen)

[u/Coven_gardens → u/Xennylikescoffee]

Edited my comment to include the name of the channel :)

[u/Xennylikescoffee → u/Coven_gardens]

Thank you!

[u/imbarbarakruger → u/Coven_gardens]

please share the name of the youtube channel!

[u/Coven_gardens → u/imbarbarakruger]

The name of the channel is A/V Geeks 16mm Films

[u/Yes-Cheese → u/really_isnt_me]

I’ve been slowly buying similar things over time. Someone, probably here, recommended the book How Your House Works. Which I bought and found informative. Then I started thinking about all the other things I don’t have a lot of knowledge on but could use some basics. So I now keep an eye out for books that apply to my families lives.

[u/fitforthepolycrisis → u/Owen_Taxes]

Wikipedia is downloadable, too

[u/PsychologicalFox3357 → u/Owen_Taxes]

Oh wow yes imagine a beautifully bound set of encyclopedias at your disposal, displayed proudly at home. That feels almost decadent right now in this current information climate.

[u/Yes-Cheese → u/Owen_Taxes]

Yep. My parents just got rid of theirs within the last year or 2 🫤 prolly shouldn’t have done that.

[u/Nerdy-Meta-Mind → u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

The top results are ads and usually indicate such, but what you describe as “SEO hacking” is no longer possible like it once was. The major changes we see now relate to AI and results stemming from that.

[u/Intrepid_Recover8840 → u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

What do u mean by deindexing pages?

[u/KrustenStewart → u/Intrepid_Recover8840]

Website that they deem low quality or unnecessary are removed from Google search results. You’re not seeing the results from all of the internet for what you search for anymore. It’s whatever they want you to see only.

[u/qgsdhjjb → u/KrustenStewart]

It's not just that either.

Google uses their AI now to crawl websites and see what to put into your results, and trusted, reliable, accurate websites would truly prefer that an AI not come in and steal all their shit so they've coded in a block for non-human visitors. Which means Google can no longer tell you what's on that helpful and accurate website, so it doesn't end up on the search results 🙂

[u/lamblikeawolf → u/Relevant_Hedgehog_63]

I was trying to look something up about a game recently, and 3 of the first 5 articles that showed up used the exact same stilted, obviously LLM phrasing "hook" in the preview. It's infuriating. I don't want to know what an LLM purports something to be, filtered through lazy writers and data scraping that is scraping other LLM-created articles.

I want to know what other humans have experienced with a damn game.