It's hard to remember how to use all the electronics.

We live in a technological world. A while ago, I had to change the time on my new alarm clock. I had to get the instruction booklet out, because you have to press this button twice and then this other one. This morning, my car emailed me-it's battery was low. I had to google how to use the key fob to remotely start it. Yeah, seniors have "moments", but it's hard to remember how to use all the electronics.
 

Not only hard, it is IMPOSSIBLE to remember many technical functions on devices one does not use frequently enough. Thus the first bit of wisdom is one ought not rely on just their mental memory to use products as all too many do, but rather have access to more detailed well presented information. We are no longer in the era of 1960s era TV's, toasters, and VCR's when that might have been possible. In this era we are swamped in complex appliances, equipment, software, and apps. For younger generations it is sink or swim. So a bit of a general rant to the public...

"It's hard to remember how to use all the electronics". Indeed true. And especially so if one hates reading any user documentation.

And that also means people in this science telecom era, one ought have common places they store user information for both hardware and software products as well as computer folders on their smartphones, desktops, laptops etc devices where they can access such information. Whenever one buys some new gadget or appliance, get in a habit of storing paper documents and computer user information in a common known location and have such organized.

This person made a 4+ decade hardware electronics career out being able to read and understand complex technical information. Had also put on a customer service hat at times and more often than not, I annoyed callers after calmly addressing whatever issues by directing them to user guides, both printed and after the Internet rose, online, and now on Youtube, where they could have solved their issues. That also discouraged them from calling back wasting resources. A reason so many business customer service lines today use those annoying automated business phone labyrinths instead of warm bodies. As in RTFM first.

That noted, yes there are times when such product information is poorly presented, vague, or totally missing. However most of the time callers have not made the most basic effort to look at available information and rather being lazy and impatient, prefer to just phone a company. Worse, many have not prepared themselves to actually discuss issues on the phone, even being in front of their computer device, so the CS person has to lead them through a list of rather wasteful processes and time plus dumb questions.

It is also true, numbers of people have difficulty reading and correctly understanding most anything or for who English is a second language they struggle with. So there will always need to be a way to help those folks too and that is a facet of why Youtube has become valuable.
 
Last edited:
I try to not keep many gadgety things around. If I need technical assistance just to use it I normally don't buy it.
 
For stuff I wouldn't necessarily remember, I keep Word documents detailing how to do stuff, including links where I got the data. I don't want to have to remember everything for years on end, nor do I want to look for User Manuals if a simple thing is all I need. Keeping these Word documents makes it all really easy.
 
I've always been a bit of a techi dunce... so it was fabulous to have an other half who was exactly the opposite.. almost nothing excited him more except a bit of wire, and some electronics to get his juices flowing....so it was easy to leave everything to him. He made no fuss about it.. it was like breathing air for him, easy , and there was nothing he couldn't do...

..now I'm on my own.. I've had to learn so much...thanks God for Youtube...
 
I somehow turned on the alarm on my Bose clock radio. The volume is down so it doesn't bother me but I have no idea how to turn it off. Too lazy to google it. I guess I had better look into it. It does go off after a short period of time though.
 

Back
Top