A teenage girl who is looking to track her cycle is likely not educated on data security - as someone who works with teens, Gen Alpha is shockingly tech illiterate. They are going to go into the App Store, type “period tracker” and download the first thing that pops up.
Why would you blame them if they have all those "conveniences" like the default save location, file managers focusing on pics to click and and not directory structure, and so on. Of course they don't know, they don't know they have to know and thus don't think they could choose or something.
These things were not invented for computer-literate people. The way they were being made in year 1999 they were usable for common folk.
Blaming normies as people who can't do things is delusional. Modern UI\UX, which is plain stupid and unprofessional, is the problem. Normies are fine. They can be taught to navigate a paper book, right? Then they can do this.
By the way, I still remember my fury when auto-complete suggestions, AJAX search on webpages, default locations for saving files and other such things started becoming the only considered way to do anything. Because I knew where this all leads. It's not hard to imagine how a person who've never had anything else will form their habits.
And not only these "simplifications" are everywhere, but also they UI\UX has become more cluttered everywhere! It's an unusable mess, and it being that is justified by having some "convenience" magic that makes it even bigger mess.
This is why Windows should have remained a shell for DOS. On Unix-like systems the competition between various desktops slows down this degeneracy. That's what they are trying to solve with Wayland, so that people could only use Gnome, KDE and a couple of half-functional compositors with too long config files to set up with my ADHD.
Yes, actually. Downloading apps, making an account, logging in, and using an app are all things they have done before. Opening up Notepad on their computer (if they have one) and saving a text file then navigating back to it later and opening that file is something they probably have never done before.
Coming from someone who worked tech support for some time:
There are lots of people with no grasp of basic computing concepts working office jobs in which they sit at a computer all day. Some even highly educated and specialized. lawyers, managers, marketing consultants, insurance salespeople... young and old.
They can use Word, and Outlook, and Chrome, and phone apps, but the concept of a file or folder, or utilizing files and folders to organize information, are alien to some. Doesn't help that some (especially mobile) OS's do a lot to obscure that layer from people, and people can often get by with rigid workflows or by calling tech support a lot.
Not judging them. Well at least the ones who were nice to me. I don't know how to change my oil. I mean none of the people I'm thinking of did either. But I don't know how to do whatever lawyer managers do all day(meetings?).
I realize there is some self selection in who calls tech support every day, so having worked tech support might have skewed my perception of the average office worker.
Did a stint in tech support, and had a fucking lawyer call me because his brand new laptop wouldn't turn on. The charging cable was sealed in the original plastic bag.
It seems some people are just completely unable to form reasonable thought-chains when it comes to technology.
A potentially good option if you're on Android is putting it in your secure folder. It's basically just a sub directory for all your files, notes, and pictures, but it an encrypted form.
So if you're technical enough to understand jow to enter a password (most people), then you have an easy to use option. Just don't forget your password, and don't set it to something easy to crack. It's the same rules for any other password.
I'm sure there are similar options for windows/mac/ios
But if you're a more technical user, by all means it is in your interest to encrypt the whole thing.
Write it down on paper or put it in a word document or excel spreadsheet (or FOSS equivalent if you don't have Office 365).
From a medical perspective, a handwritten journal with dates and notes about the amount/consistency of the flow as well as associated symptoms would be the most useful. Having irregular periods that last for 3 days with very heavy bleeding would have a very different diagnostic approach than irregular periods that last 3 to 5 days with normal bleeding and horrible cramps.