[nylug-talk] [OT?] Medieval tech support

[George Bourozikas]

On Friday 16 February 2007 12:02:17 Ron Guerin wrote:
> George Bourozikas wrote:
> > Sorry, I just couldn't resist.
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU
>
> I've been thinking that the problem isn't computers are too hard to
> use (obviously this is not true since small children take to them
> easily), but that people are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. 
> Instead of trying to dumb computers and the rest of us down, it's
> time for people to raise themselves up, or suffer the consequences of
> being obsolete. There is going to be a digital divide in the future,
> but it won't be economic or social.  It's going to be between those
> who use their brains, and those who won't.
>
> - Ron

I think that it's a little more complex than that.

Computers and modern day consumer technology (cells, PDA's, MP3 players, 
automated this and that) are a radical departure from existing 
paradigms.  Some people can make the transition more easily than 
others.  Some are more inclined to "try new things" than others.  The 
reason this video is so funny is that none of us ever had to make the 
shift from scrolls to books; books are so fundamental to our culture 
that we barely think of them let alone are intimidated by their 
function.  Yet there was a time when a book was a new thing.

I know many smart people, accomplished in their traditional disciplines 
(doctors, biological scientists, lawyers, academics in the humanities), 
who are eager to investigate anything except the function of the page 
up button or - horror of horrors - that the scary looking blue "Fn" 
buttons on their notebooks.  Hence the hilarious support stories.

It is not because these people are dumb, nor is it because they do not 
use their brains.  They are very willing to use their brains as long as 
what they use them on is within a continuum with which they are 
familiar.  Give them a Palm Pilot and it throws them completely off.

I think it will take about one generation.  Neither of my daughters (4 
and 9) are scared of technology.  Heck, I am scared of the things they 
can do already!

--george