Being senior offgers advantages, and like everything else, a few drawbacks. Amazingly technology has shown us great tools, but by the time we can really afford them, some of us are so old we can't remember how to use them, if we haven't for more than 10 minutes, or where we put the manual. I've hunted for an instruction book for hours only to eventually remember that what-ever-it-is didn't come with one. You are supposed to get your help needs online. Finding a printed manual takes less time than trying to find online instructions. After I go through their time saving short cuts of irrelevant-to-me FAQs it occurs to me that I still might remember what it was I was not understanding. It is always depressing to me that I never seem to be in step with the majority; when not even the FAQ list has my question in it.
The CPU running my brain has slowed down. I carry the simplest cell phone someone else's money can buy (a loving Xmas gift to me for a year). I have two digital cameras (one a point and shoot, sort of) so I don't need a camera phone. It is rare for me to make or receive calls on my cell, actually. Thus, I can't retain the instructions on how to retrieve voice mail from one phone to the other as they get upgraded just as I'm beginning to master the one I have. That might be remedied if I gave people my number and turned it on, might it not?
Having forgotten my phone on for a day or more, when I picked it up it indicated I had missed a call. My last phone had a password to retrieve voice mail and I vaguely remember not ever having completely mastered it before I found myself with a new phone. About every 10 or 20 years I go through the folder (s) of instruction manuals I throw into a drawer when I get something knew. Though the admonition to "RFM, Mom" rings in my ears, I regret to say that even if I read it, I retain none of the instructions until I have repeated the steps often enough to have them embedded into my cerebral cortex.
Years ago we spoke of computers as 'intuitive'. If someone said that today, people would ask what they meant. My American mind does not work in tune with the Taiwanese, Japanese, Chinese, etc. mind that built the latest torture device. Power ON buttons are unmarked and hidden; LED light are on when the unit is off and vice versa; all buttons work in the reverse of the last version you owned which took years to master. Tonight my struggle is my inability to find the speaker phone on my cell. When I have wanted a private conversation, the poltergeists who inhabit the phone have turned it off. Since there are no instructions I could locate on turning it off, it stayed on until the poltergeists decided they had embarrassed me long enough. Now that it is off and I want it on, it can't be done....at least by me.
I'm looking for an instruction book that is written the way my head understands things. Is that too much to ask? Lastly, I want some standardization of appliances. It would be nice if I could go to someone's house as a guest and not have to grovel (in order to heat up water for tea)for instructions to their microwave.
Showing posts with label cell phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cell phones. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES FIGURITIVELY REACHING THE SPEED OF LIGHT
Technology is moving too fast for the average person, even for me whom I consider well above average. In the world of mobile phones that deliver email to your hand-held device, a huge photo album, an entire music collection, access to the Internet, the resources of Google and other search engines which give you the world at your finger tips, twitter...I could go on and on. I have reached that which a few years ago I could never conceive. I have stopped buying new stuff and finally realize there will be stuff friends have that I can't possibly justify paying for or taking the time to slog through the learning curve involved.
It is frightening to think of how much is stored on the Internet when countries are playing around with nuclear bomb plans. It reminds me of the spoof The Onion has on YouTube.
Never before have I experienced such a disparity of skills among well-educated people with high intelligence. I cringe as I realize there are many who are still resisting learning to use a computer (and I'm not talking about the Amish, or others whose religious beliefs prevent them from coming into the 21st C.) It surprises me that, for the first time, I own so many electronic devices about which I struggle to make more than basic use. It seems like having the whole world at my disposal and choosing to live only on one small island. As more and more computer chips are in more and more appliances which are not made to last, it makes me wonder why designers can't make some things universally compatible. I have finally stopped buying cell phone chargers for my car because the phone won't last long enough to make the purchase cost effective. Why don't things last like the Sony TV I have had for nearly 25 years? It was in color, had an excellent picture, but just wasn't cable ready. I worked around that by hooking it up to a VHS recorder...in fact it outlasted three of them until finally all VHS format was put in the tech graveyard as I retired the poor things, still clinging to life, and moved another TV into the space.
Finally I have resorted to attaching a name tag to every cord and cable that enters the house. I label each AC converter to tie it in with the appliance that it services. Most of you might imagine the boxes of those things I had before I started to label them and what finally drove me to that bit of obsessiveness.
It baffles me that I could have bought an Amana Radarange at least 20 years ago that still works great though I have never used it to roast a turkey (which is why this one is as big as it is). While it does many things, my limited use of it is to cook vegetables and heat liquids. Wrong, I also cook regular oatmeal in it. I used to cook bacon in it but got tired of needing half a roll of Bounty to drain the fat into. Now I just bake bacon and it tastes better to me and I don't have to watch it constantly.
I own two DVD recorders on which I used to record TV shows I wanted to see but couldn't sit in front of the TV at the time to do. Then Verizon got proprietary and made them both obsolete for that purpose. I hate that companies can be so heartless as to wipe out functions in your life with no conscience about the pain they cause.
If the economic downturn has any positive effect, it may stop the plethora of new and better models of everything that make all of what I own no longer work.
It is frightening to think of how much is stored on the Internet when countries are playing around with nuclear bomb plans. It reminds me of the spoof The Onion has on YouTube.
Never before have I experienced such a disparity of skills among well-educated people with high intelligence. I cringe as I realize there are many who are still resisting learning to use a computer (and I'm not talking about the Amish, or others whose religious beliefs prevent them from coming into the 21st C.) It surprises me that, for the first time, I own so many electronic devices about which I struggle to make more than basic use. It seems like having the whole world at my disposal and choosing to live only on one small island. As more and more computer chips are in more and more appliances which are not made to last, it makes me wonder why designers can't make some things universally compatible. I have finally stopped buying cell phone chargers for my car because the phone won't last long enough to make the purchase cost effective. Why don't things last like the Sony TV I have had for nearly 25 years? It was in color, had an excellent picture, but just wasn't cable ready. I worked around that by hooking it up to a VHS recorder...in fact it outlasted three of them until finally all VHS format was put in the tech graveyard as I retired the poor things, still clinging to life, and moved another TV into the space.
Finally I have resorted to attaching a name tag to every cord and cable that enters the house. I label each AC converter to tie it in with the appliance that it services. Most of you might imagine the boxes of those things I had before I started to label them and what finally drove me to that bit of obsessiveness.
It baffles me that I could have bought an Amana Radarange at least 20 years ago that still works great though I have never used it to roast a turkey (which is why this one is as big as it is). While it does many things, my limited use of it is to cook vegetables and heat liquids. Wrong, I also cook regular oatmeal in it. I used to cook bacon in it but got tired of needing half a roll of Bounty to drain the fat into. Now I just bake bacon and it tastes better to me and I don't have to watch it constantly.
I own two DVD recorders on which I used to record TV shows I wanted to see but couldn't sit in front of the TV at the time to do. Then Verizon got proprietary and made them both obsolete for that purpose. I hate that companies can be so heartless as to wipe out functions in your life with no conscience about the pain they cause.
If the economic downturn has any positive effect, it may stop the plethora of new and better models of everything that make all of what I own no longer work.
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