Jules
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2000
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Hardcore technophobes are generally NOT stupid people. They are typically just people who don’t like technology, who have therefore probably not kept pace with our modern technologically dependent life, and now find themselves overwhelmed by what’s in front of them.
Back in 1980, everyone had access to just 3 TV stations.
Every TV in the country had a big physical power button on the front, a rotary volume dial, and a few knobs to select the station. That was it! No external inputs, nothing.
All it had on the back was an aerial input.
It was simple, and people’s expectations were low.
Fast forward to 2020, and fixing the problem of accidentally pressing the ‘input’ button on the remote control… is a nightmare for a technophobe. They ‘just want the TV to work’.
One solution might be to obtain a universal remote control, like the Logitech Harmony range…. Which can be programmed (by a techie person obviously) to turn everything on correctly, and if they get stuck they can just press the help button and it puts everything right, right?
Well what do you do when the technophobe in question doesn’t understand the intelligent remote because its ‘different’.
The buttons don’t all have the same labels as the one they’re used to, they’re in a different place, and because it has more buttons than they need, it really confuses them.
All they want is to be able to push a button on the TV and it turns on… can’t be that hard can it?
Well actually, as you know, it really is. Those 1980's TV’s don’t exist anymore… and even if they did, analogue broadcasts don’t exist either so there’d be nothing for them to tune into.
Even explaining this to a real technophobe is a bit like showing a dog a card trick!
I'm sure you've probably encountered the paper and pen routine with real technophobes as you explain how to get the TV to come on and tune to, say, BBC2.
They enthusiastically write everything down, and later find their written instructions don't work.. perhaps the TV announced it needed to 're-scan' and the user didn't know how to get passed the onscreen message. It sounds rediculous, but there are people out there struggling with this stuff, and they're not all old people.
Operating modern technology is akin to speaking a different language… you have to interact with it. There often isn’t a sequence of button presses that will yield the same result every time.
So is it unreasonable to expect someone, who has lived for 50 years without so much as turning on a computer, to be able to speak that language?
And if it is unreasonable, is it even possible to accommodate their needs in 2020?
Back in 1980, everyone had access to just 3 TV stations.
Every TV in the country had a big physical power button on the front, a rotary volume dial, and a few knobs to select the station. That was it! No external inputs, nothing.
All it had on the back was an aerial input.
It was simple, and people’s expectations were low.
Fast forward to 2020, and fixing the problem of accidentally pressing the ‘input’ button on the remote control… is a nightmare for a technophobe. They ‘just want the TV to work’.
One solution might be to obtain a universal remote control, like the Logitech Harmony range…. Which can be programmed (by a techie person obviously) to turn everything on correctly, and if they get stuck they can just press the help button and it puts everything right, right?
Well what do you do when the technophobe in question doesn’t understand the intelligent remote because its ‘different’.
The buttons don’t all have the same labels as the one they’re used to, they’re in a different place, and because it has more buttons than they need, it really confuses them.
All they want is to be able to push a button on the TV and it turns on… can’t be that hard can it?
Well actually, as you know, it really is. Those 1980's TV’s don’t exist anymore… and even if they did, analogue broadcasts don’t exist either so there’d be nothing for them to tune into.
Even explaining this to a real technophobe is a bit like showing a dog a card trick!
I'm sure you've probably encountered the paper and pen routine with real technophobes as you explain how to get the TV to come on and tune to, say, BBC2.
They enthusiastically write everything down, and later find their written instructions don't work.. perhaps the TV announced it needed to 're-scan' and the user didn't know how to get passed the onscreen message. It sounds rediculous, but there are people out there struggling with this stuff, and they're not all old people.
Operating modern technology is akin to speaking a different language… you have to interact with it. There often isn’t a sequence of button presses that will yield the same result every time.
So is it unreasonable to expect someone, who has lived for 50 years without so much as turning on a computer, to be able to speak that language?
And if it is unreasonable, is it even possible to accommodate their needs in 2020?