on using techmology

In an age that has witnessed the rapid spread of sophisticated hand-held computers, I find it hard to fathom how certain people still don't know how to use digital devices. “There's no instruction booklet,” they often say, or, “I don't know how to get back to the place where I can check my email.” If you are one such person, here are a few tips.

Tip #1: No matter how many buttons you push, you won't break the device. Every button has a name or icon on it to indicate what it does, so push each button in turn, wait to see what it does, and then memorize the steps needed to get to a certain area or to activate a favorite application. The hesitation to push a device to its limit is likely a holdover from analog times, when flimsy devices would break as soon as the user pulled what he should have pushed and twisted what he should have left alone. Computers may crash, but they tend to start back up again, good as new, so forget bygone concerns and have at it.

Tip #2: There are no instruction booklets because these devices are designed so that even brain-dead, snot-nosed teenagers can use them. Teenagers aren't smarter or better at using technology than the average adult – they are simply less afraid of making mistakes and just mash buttons until they get their device to do what they want it to do, whereupon they follow the same steps over and over again. (Besides, the instruction booklets of yore confused and frustrated more often than they helped, and only maybe one in ten users actually read them, so if you use that lame and tired excuse, please stop.)

Tip #3: If you find yourself in an area of your device that you don't recognize, find a button that looks like an arrow or that has the picture of an arrow on it and keep hitting that button until you can go no further and you find yourself back at square one. Then, start hitting buttons until you get where you want to go, and stay there. Only a handful of kids today do outrageous things with their hand-held computers; the rest use but a few applications – email, instant messaging, a social networking site, a music player, and maybe a video service – without ever delving into the inner workings of their devices or pushing their little toys to the limit.

Tip #4: When in doubt, ask a brain-dead, snot-nosed teenager for help. Seriously, nothing strokes their egos more than being asked to show Granny how to get back to her email inbox so she can see all those pictures of cherubic children her daughter-in-law keeps claiming to have sent. Get your device back promptly, though, unless you want to lose it forever to the fleet fingers of a trolling teen.

In the end, your stoic refusal to back down from a challenge will win the day and afford you all the advantages of the hand-held digital device. So step once more into the breech and mash those buttons until your tablet says, “Meep.” And, of course, mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥