Bob W said:
"I am beginning to sense, in the same way that when one reaches a certain
age one begins to sense the certainty of mortality, that there will come a
day, perhaps in the not very distant future?as I don?t believe I have any
likelihood of reaching the not very distant future in this usage?when the
annoyances and hassles of computers, operating systems, telephones and such
will cause me to revert to a minimalist approach, that is, using as little
technology as possible for as few tasks as absolutely necessary. And when I
finally get to The Home, surely there will be a young employee who can
operate the television for me. I hope"
For me, it's the matter of change. That is, once I get the knack of a
particular OS (like XP) and a smartphone (a Razor) and software (like PPT,
Word, Outlook, and Elements), etc., I find it exceptionally difficult to
"upgrade". Sure, modest incremental change is OK, if the framework
and relationships remain reasonably constant. I did do the Windows 7
change, but that was only in the context of necessarily buying a new
laptop.
A while ago, each of the piece-parts weren't completely terrific. Like
Windows 3.1 for example. Or Lotus Notes. But now, everything is pretty
mature and work well together. I can even work the
smartphone fairly well much to my wife's surprise.
I just hope a large population is like me, which perhaps will slow down
the propensity of vendors to push us up the technology curve (and towards
more revenue for them.)
But what I really do not want, and strongly oppose, is the requirement that
I know a lot about the details of how all this works.... that is, the
underlying details of each part and of their combination. The hackneyed
metaphor of the automobile works: I just don't know and don't care about
how the hundreds of cpu's in the modern car work together to get me from
point A to point B. And, honestly, 100-page user manuals just don't cut
it. I get the feeling that, while to the user things are fairly simple
with today's technology, with multiple vendors and technologies that have
to work together (internet, networking, computers, cameras, software, etc.
etc.), there are a *lot* of moving parts. And when individual pieces
"upgrade" ... I get terrified. I was amazed and gratified that the XP to 7
didn't force me to spend days simply to understand the details. In other
words, if it ain't broke, don't fix -- meaning upgrades and other
technology changes to the piece parts -- it.
So .. put me in the proud ranks of the "user" and not the "enthusiast" for
any of the piece parts of technology, or for the whole edifice for that
matter. I happily trail along behind others who blaze the way. The
internet in this context is a terrific blessing: when a problem arises
like an obscure error message, simply researching through Google leads to
others who have solved the problem. I am always gratified when anything
works !
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