Not everybody knows about technology. It may seems obvious, but there it is. And what is "technology," anyway? Computers, TV, mp3, Xbox, PS3, Blackberry, Blog, HDTV,  3G, ADSL, DX10, the list goes on...

And so it comes to pass, that Joe the consumer comes along...

I'll start by saying that, unless you hadn't guessed, I work for a cable company. And it never fails to surprise me just how fast a fully-grown, modern human being can regress into a shrieking peasant when faced by something they don't understand.

I feel their pain.

See, I don't understand, either. Why order something when, according to you, you won't know what it does? But, the thing that hurts me the most, what keeps me awake at night, mumbling in my sleep is - It's not that they can't understand, it's that they won't understand.

A fair example - I took a call a few minutes ago. Everything was going fine, then:

"I do have a question..."
"Yes?"
"I received a CD from you..."
"Uh-huh..."
"On the front it says... u s e r g u i d e."
"Yes"
"What's that for?"

Here I am left with a conundrum...DOES he want me to tell him what a "userguide" is? Seriously? Now, I'm willing to assume that perhaps this person is a busy person, a person so totally caught up in - whatever it is that they do - that they have never bought a stereo, or a DVD player, or a washing machine, or a god-damned electric toothbrush. And, as such, he needs me to explain what a user guide is.

    What has happened here? I can see from this person's account details that he's a fully-grown adult, he lives in his own home and he certainly doesn't sound mentally-disabled...well, I'm not an expert in psychology by any means, but I've been dealing with this for a while. So, I have a theory.

This fellow has ceased to think. It's the only thing I can come up with. It seems difficult to believe, I know, and, I admit, I'm a bit behind on hard facts, but it sure looks that way to me. He's not alone, either.  I take calls every day from dozens of people who need me (and, if you'd met me, you'd know that you probably wouldn't trust me to wash your windshield - such is the magic of the telephone) to tell them where the Scart cable goes in the back of their TV? That's assuming they know that it goes in the back...

As an aside, it amuses me sometimes to think of what I could get away with at this point. I have considered getting the customer to make absolutely sure their cable box is facing west, or turned towards the washing machine. Or telling them the microwave has to be turned on, with the user guide inside, before they can use the Internet. 
  
People get help from everywhere these days. Got money problems? Get a loan. Got health problems? Visit the hospital, psychologist, masseuse, witch-doctor, whatever. Unemployed? Get an agency. Need to get laid? Well, you can take care of that all by yourself, my friend. The list goes on...you assume blindly that someone else will be able to remedy every problem that you have, until you end up asking things you already know.

I have sympathy for these people. As I started in this article, I said, "Not everybody knows about technology." But, unless you fought the Krauts in World War II and as such, have earned a rest, or you have no arms with which to turn the pages of the instruction manual, or perhaps you have recently suffered a head injury (or your second name is Bush). If not, then you are capable of trying.