Tag Archives: Computer

Computer illiterate people

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As the treasurer of an organization, I’m responsible for ordering membership badges. At our Christmas Party last month, one member walked up and asked me if I could order a badge for his 10-year-old son. After I got home, I sent the member an email asking him to confirm his son’s name, mailing address and so on.

Today, 36 days (!) after my outgoing email, the father responded that I had the right name and address and then he offered the following editorial:

Sorry to take so long to reply. Our computer has been down since summer time and my brother-in-law just got it kind of working. It’s not perfect but it works so I’m trying to catch up on e-mails. We are the most computer illiterate people in the world – each of us has several thousand unread e-mails dating back at least 2 years. We live our lives in the real world and really could not [sic] care less if computers had not ever been invented.

The real world?

It’s not widely known, but the direct dial phone preceded the computer by 28 years. Prior to direct dial, you picked up the party line phone, Mabel answered and connected you … and then probably listened in. When direct dial became popular, you had to look numbers up and interface with that phone thingee – Actually dial the numbers yourself!

From a human interaction standpoint, I don’t see a lot of different between the transition to direct dial phones and the transition to computers/email. So when I apply the 28-year factor to this year, 2012, I come up with the following:

Imagine telling people in 1984 (28 years ago) that you lived in the “real world” and weren’t going to communicate via direct dial phone. Now that Mabel had been removed from the loop, you weren’t going to make the effort to master that confusing dial on the phone. After all, you now lived in the real world.

I feel sorry for the couple, and I really feel sorry for the 10-year-old who will soon want a computer of his own. What will be his parent’s reaction?

Get with the ’90s!

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RotaryPhoneMany of the non-profit organizations I work with still have expensive-to-publish-and-mail newsletters. Once in a while a board member will recommend discontinuing the printed newsletter in favor of an electronic replacement – At that point the howls begin! A small minority of the membership will argue they don’t have “the Internet” and therefore can’t download the electronic version. Then they threaten to quit and end up swaying enough board members to agree to continue the expensive-to-publish-and-mail newsletter.

Consider for a moment that the Personal Computer was introduced in 1981. For the first time, the user was no longer dependent on someone else for letter writing, photograph editing and printing, bank balance checking and on and on. Today, 28 years after the first Personal Computer, they’re omnipresent and a critical part of our communication ecosystem. Yes folks, it’s been 28 years.

Contrast that to Direct Distance Dialing (DDD), which was introduced for telephones in November 1951 in New Jersey*. Now, for the first time, the user could dial without an operator and “reach out” any time of day, to anyone they wanted to. In 1979, 28 years after the introduction of the phone, one could say that telephones had become omnipresent and a critical part of our communication ecosystem. Can you imagine anyone in 1979 walking into a board meeting and arguing that since he/she didn’t have a phone, the organization should not move to phones for member communications?

No, they were instructed to get a phone if they wanted to remain a participating member. End of discussion.

See where I’m going? It’s been 28 years since the introduction of the Personal Computer but we still tolerate, and spend mountains of dollars, satisfying those stubborn, selfish, Personal Computer retrogrades. We didn’t tolerate telephone retrogrades after 28 years. So why do we tolerate Personal Computer retrogrades? C’mon guys, it’s time to get with the 90′s! Get “the Internet” already!

* Note: For what it’s worth, the last manual switchboard in the US (actually in Maine) was retired in 1963.