Asklemmy

Don't worry, everyone is still new to Lemmy! It's a community in its infancy, still growing and learning how to interact. You're getting in at what is essentially the beginning, and over time people will develop the unspoken rules and etiquette that other sites have developed over years. It's an exciting time!

Don't feel the need to "fit in with the crowd". Individuality is more fun anyways.

people with thick glasses

you are not totally wrong

and think they are geniuses

FTFY :-P

That said, play and don't be afraid to break things. Try stuff. Use an old laptop or PC and install some distro. Then another. There's a plethora of options on multiple levels and it's hard to find what suits best for you.

Read How to ask questions the smart way completely. (Not only useful for tech but for any kind of expertise).

Finding a community is easy in the opensource world. It's mentioned in the documentation most of the time. And there's tons of websites, forums, mailinglists, meatspace usergroups etc.

Google for error messages. Chances are pretty good, someone solved your problem before you encountered it.

Be patient. Be polite. Be persistive. There's always a solution and most of the times, you can do it.

Don't like something or miss something? Ask... People will tell you why things are the way they are or might even add/change it for you.

Learn to program: Great, now you can modify software to fit your needs for yourself. And if you merge your work, others will profit, too.

Most importantly: Have a lot of fun!

I think the best starting point is asking "what do I want yo do with technology."

It is a vast subject and no one knows all of it.

If all you want to do is read the news and comment on cat pictures, that's fine.

If you want to learn how to make your own music, or write your own website, or edit photos of your cats - then that is where you should start.

What do you think would be a good, small starter project for you?

Take on a new project. With that comes more learning than you’ll ever get from reading a few articles. Set up a NAS, build a router, run Ethernet cables through your house, dual boot Linux, or something. It’s fun, you’ll learn a lot, and you will become more useful as a person. Just remember, though, when your aunt says her printer is broken, tell her you know nothing about computers!

You can probably just google or ask and eventually you'll remember (if you want to go a step ahead turn it all into flashcards on something like anki i guess)

Perhaps you can read about Mastodon and how it works. It's also federated, but much more popular, so it might be easier to find information about it.

It's more on the grounds of now revolving myself around this whole fediverse. A word by the way I never knew existed :D

Learning and discovering all these outsourced alternatives is something I'll be focusing on for now. I've only been have more familiar with windows, youtube, reddit, etc. Over time I see myself learning the lingo at the very least. How many sites out there I haven't come across yet. It's always refreshing to learn new things. Will definitely visit Mastodon. Though..

Still feel like Lemmy is full of more mature, educated folks then in reddit.

You def don’t need to be super tech savvy here. Just learn as things come! That’s how I learned and now I’m a big computer boi with Linuxes under each armpit.