It is a universal truth that most people who confront some kind of device or machine with which they must come to terms do not even consider the helpful instruction manual. Why is this? Practitioners will say that these things just make dealing with the inner workings and operation more confusing. But isn’t the truth more instructive? We are an adventuresome species and we love discovery. Don’t take the fun out of figuring something out on our own away from us?
When pressed, there is a denial on the part of these types that they are lazy or impetuous. No, they have native ability and want to demonstrate it to the world. They came into this world wrapped in swaddling clothes and programmed to fix toasters, TVs and teleprompters (President Obama). The whole direction of the world of computer design and manufacture is to make them “user-friendly.” They need to be “intuitive.” In that sense, aren’t these machines reading OUR minds?
As someone who has assisted a variety of people over my professional career in using software or in getting a picture back on their television, I can tell you of my deep frustration at people who will not even consider reading instructions. Really how unintelligent can one be?
But halt. My new laser printer was not printing some forms I needed. Did I reach for the manual? Hell, I don’t even know wh
Developers know this and it is a sneaky win I say. Printer working again. Manual gathering dust. I swear if I could not figure it out, I would either call my computer tech or buy another one. Yes, I confess my own lack of intelligence in these matters. Two advanced academic degrees and I will not read a manual to save myself and any amount of money. There is a place reserved in Hell for types like me or is it an appointment reserved in this life for those who would gladly benefit from your inability to deal with a manual.
blackwatertown
June 21, 2012
What do you mean read the instructions? I’m far too busy fixing this machine to sit back and indulge in any literary perusal.
samhenry
June 22, 2012
Exactly.
The Morb
June 21, 2012
My 80 odd year old ( Englishman ) father has always said the following on many occasions when we all talk about problems with kitchen gadgets and such …
‘ READ THE BLEEDIN’ INSTRUCTIONS !!! ‘ …
That’s the first thing I thought about halfway thru this read
…
James Crawford
June 22, 2012
I go way back to the era of punch cards and even programing in binary machine code. Back then, 8KBytes of RAM and a 125 KByte floppy drive on a PC was impressive. Now RAM is measured in MEGs and solid state pseudo hard discs are measured in GigaBytes. Operating systems and applications have grown exponentially to exploit the available memory and processing power of the new computers. They are now so complex that if they were not so intuitive, one would need a manual comparable to an old twenty-some volume encyclopedia to use them.
My IPAD didn’t even have a manual in the box!
The scary part is that few computer programers and IT specialist really understand how the computers function at the fundamental level. They have gotten so lazy that their computer codes are bloated, inefficient and vulnerable to hacking or unexpected consequences.