A laugh for all of you who HATE the new electronics technology (55, weather)
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I see the incompetence in the creators of the so-called tech, not the users.
There's a gulf between the users and the designers. It has existed ever since home computing became a thing.
In my late forties-early fifties I did user interface testing for a bunch of tech companies, including four sessions for eBay. They had a sophisticated setup that tracked your eye movements and created heat maps. Inevitably I was paired with a twenty-something developer who regarded me as a fossil. In theory, they *wanted* my input but did they use it? Not so much.
It's vanity. Nobody likes to be told their cherished idea sucks in the real world. Still, they paid well. $150-$200 for an hour of my time.
As an engineer over my career I went from using punch cards and paper tape readers with PDP 11/34s, to Cray computers, VAX servers, and SGI and Sun Unix workstations. Crazily enough, in recent years had a workstation sitting on my desk that exceeded the computing capacity of a Cray "supercomputer" from the 1980's!
Moore's Law. Imagine what you'll have in another ten years.
I think the hardest part is having to learn new ways of doing things all the time. Much easier to go with what you already know.
We've gone from VHS, to DVDS, to streaming, then cut the cable and switched to streaming YouTube TV, and Netflix. Needed an Apple Fire Stick and a son to get it all set up for us. Figuring out how to watch as well as save programs to watch later was a challenge.
We both switched to MacBook as we tired of all the virus problems with PCs. MacBooks seem to be working out better.
We have two types of phones now. One is easy to use. It is connected to the internet and as long as it's working we have a phone. However, we rarely answer it as it is always about our last chance to update our car warranty before they close the file, lower interest rate credit cards, hotel deals, contributing to some police charity, ... Our iPhone had a bit of a learning curve, but we can text with our children and that's their preferred mode of communication.
But each switch has involved a learning curve and I wonder at what point we will just be unable to catch on.
For me, it is not so much the learning curve as it is the frustration at having to buy the same thing over and over again each time the media changes. So I said enough and stuck with one, DVDs.
Besides, not being infrastructure designed for the newest media is a great barrier for keeping out those who might want to invade.
Even though I started with punch cards and FORTRAN, I find that my new Bill Gates' triplex (I got a booster shot) microprocessor system and 5G make it easy to control the space lasers.
This is another of those stereotypes that I absolutely detest and find degrading for older people.
I completely agree! and strongly. Definitely a destructive degrading stereotype.
Especially since many of us started using computers in 1987 or 1989 to do complex paid database searching for research at work, and had a computer at home from 1996 onward. (some earlier)
I see the incompetence in the creators of the so-called tech, not the users.
I agree with you, 100% To me, the "techies" that develop this stuff, think it's "easy to use", but that's only because they've been immersed in the world of computers since the very early days. They then built on top of that.
For those of us that didn't have the foundational basics, and didn't begin getting into using computers, I-phones, etc, until we were in our 40s, 25-30 years ago, it's like trying to learn high school level mathematics without the learning of grade 1-8 math, first....
I think for people the age of the woman in the video, it is more about ease of use than lack of understanding.
Why not make a much larger phone with easy to see options and an obvious and intuitive interface? There shouldn't have to be a big learning curve with any new device. It should be simple to use. Why not a larger phone that's totally voice activated? Make it like Alexa- call Rosemary, go on the internet, get me my e-mail, call the police, show me my bank account, etc.
And don't just use weird symbols assuming that everyone knows that parallel lines mean a menu, use written language.
Limit functions to what's most often used and make it affordable.
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