...and now a message from the REST of the human race...

[cbelt3]

WHAT Manual ???
Really.. You have to know how to use it to RTFM.
Seriously.. Ever thought about it?

[John B.]

I read it, thinking it would be a "I want a phone that is a phone" article...which it wasn't. I really don't have much sympathy for a professional writer who doesn't understand brightness controls on a laptop.

I have an employer-provided smartphone, but if I were paying I might select a "dumb" flip phone and a tablet instead. I use about three apps on it, one of which is e-mail. Debate among yourselves whether 24x7 access to work e-mail is a good thing. I do miss the ability to touch-dial (can't do that with a screen-based keypad). I can barely read some of the screen elements of the smartphone while wearing polarized sunglasses. And I'm a big believer in silent phones, and this big huge smartphone has the weakest vibrate motor of any phone or pager I've had in the last 20 years.

[vision63]

People tend to learn what they want to learn. No most of them aren't stupid. My mother feigned computer ignorance for years until she discovered that she could buy some shoes on it. Then it was everything I could do to make her stay away from the computer which was nothing more than a mail-order catalog for her.

The second coming of The Price Club (Costco). "Mama, what's with the gigantic canister of Tang? You don't drink Tang). "It was just $3.99!"

[richorlin]

Not so much a stupidphone as a stupidperson.

[riley5108]

vision63 wrote:
People tend to learn what they want to learn. No most of them aren't stupid.

That sounds exactly like my wife. I bought her a simple PPC iMac years ago, she was afraid of screwing things up on my computers. She now knows how to get and send email, surf the web and check out Facebook, and refuses to learn anything else (good thing me thinks) and yet I'm always on call, "what do I do now"? I sometimes laugh "to myself", but then think back when I started using my first Mac SE, had notes posted everywhere.

[vision63]

riley5108 wrote:
[quote=vision63]
People tend to learn what they want to learn. No most of them aren't stupid.

That sounds exactly like my wife. I bought her a simple PPC iMac years ago, she was afraid of screwing things up on my computers. She now knows how to get and send email, surf the web and check out Facebook, and refuses to learn anything else (good thing me thinks) and yet I'm always on call, "what do I do now"? I sometimes laugh "to myself", but then think back when I started using my first Mac SE, had notes posted everywhere.
It's just a simple tool to them. Why shouldn't it be really? :-)

[Surfrider]

"actually, what do you call someone who:

-didn't read the manual
-didn't play around with the controls to experiment
-didn't ask a geeky friend for help
-who didn't go back to the Apple Store for help
-who didn't go to Apple Support and ask a question or search the FAQ section

I call it symptom of our society, where people are so spoiled that they need to be led by the hand. They never try for themselves...."

Agreed!

[Paul F.]

I've noticed that very often, it's the people with no curiosity about anything who "can't understand how to work things" on a computer, phone, etc.

It would never even occur to them to click/tap/select/pull-down ANYTHING that they don't already know what it does.
And naturally, unless they actually TRY STUFF, or god forbid, read a FRAKKING MANUAL, they will never know what those buttons/menu's/icons "do".

Two examples where I just had to walk away from people at work.... lest I say something that would have gotten me in trouble.

A teacher had about 300 documents on her desktop... overlapping each other, with no room AT ALL... couldn't even find the hard drive icon.
I asked her "why don't you drag some of this stuff to folders? Or open your documents folder here on the dock and put some stuff there?".
"Oh, I didn't know you could make folders.... how do you drag stuff?"
She's been using the computers at work since before I worked there... (10+ years).

Another teacher is trying to get this photo's "on a CD" from a school digital camera. He's trying to use his CD/Stereo system in his classroom at first... but that's not even the story...
I ask; "Why do you want them on a CD?".
"So I can print them out at walgreens".
I pointed out that he could just connect the camera to his COMPUTER and print them.
"Oh, I didn't know I could print them from the computer".
Just before I beg off and walk out, I point out a nice graphic laminated card on the digital camera box I made a couple years ago, with the title "How to Connect Camera and Print Photo's". And hand him the USB cable tagged "to connect to computer".


And keep in mind, these are folks that are SUPPOSED to be teaching a technology curriculum to K-8 students!

[rgG]

I was very proud of my daughter the other day. The maintenance people had come in and changed the filter on the air conditioner in her new apartment. She noticed later that the air was not working. Before calling anyone she checked all the settings on the thermostat and when all the normal ones were correct, but it was still not working, she found one other button. She decided to just press it and see if that would help, it wasn't working anyway, and sure enough something came up that said filter and then it started working. I haven't seen one where you have to reset it after changing the filter, but apparently this unit has that. Just a little curiosity and thought by her saved a lot of time and a trip out by a maintenance guy.