Grim Tech Support Tales

A modern piece of consumer electronics has a quality that its peers from just a couple of decades ago do not: accessibility. The technology of today is far more user-friendly and flexible than anything that has come before, with the trend being to include more little features that help improve the experience. Whereas phones used to be just for calls, there are now models that have spelling and grammar check capabilities to go along with the word processors. Google is pretty much everywhere these days, with a few people humorously pointing out some rather intriguing parallels with common portrayals of God.

But there is a problem that more and more tech personnel are starting to notice. People don’t seem at all “comfortable” with the stuff they use. A printer jams and they have no idea where to open it up to pull the paper out or clear the path. Their computer firewall warns them of an incoming attack and they panic, thinking they’re about to lose all their data. They can’t figure out how to put bullet points into their documents or presentations and have no clue how to find a how-to for that. Tech support teams are finding that they’re using technology, but have no clue how to “work” it. This situation has made people start to wonder whether or not the average consumer should learn more about their tech.

They’re not advocating people learn the science behind the tech, of course. However, they do feel that people should know more than just the painfully obvious functions – sometimes, folks seem to miss even that. To use a car analogy, folks should not only know how to drive their car, they should also know how to fix common issues or how to clean it. They should know how to fill their tank and maybe change their tires if they get a flat. However, people are starting to show no sign of being able to do even that. Driving is no problem, as they seem to get the hang of that quickly enough, but they seem to have no clue how to do anything besides that.

On the opposite side of the argument are the ones that believe there’s no need for such knowledge. If people knew how to troubleshoot basic problems or more, then what’s the need for specialists or dedicated tech support personnel? Even if they found themselves in need of expertise far beyond their ability to “trial and error” their way through, there are countless how-to guides on the Internet. This line of thinking is rather persistent, though many argue it is quite irresponsible.