Slashdot Mirror
The Impact of Technophobes
fsharp writes "Most of us have experience with average folks requesting technical support. I have friends and family members that would be lost without my support. I opt for a sliding scale payment plan, usually dinner. At any rate, The New York Times has a nice piece on the impact of technophobes on the Internet (vis-a-vis MyDoom and other email-borne viruses) and their technologically adept friends and family."
From the article...
Miriam Tauber, 24, makes no apologies for her lack of computer knowledge. To her, computers are like "moody people" who behave illogically.
Uh oh. Computers, by definition, are cold and logical. They don't have personalities. They don't have moods.
If users think computers do have mood swings just like the typical female human, we've got serious user education problems. They clearly don't know the basics of what a computer does, and that makes it much harder to explain how to properly operate a computer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/technology/05VIR U.html?ex=1076562000&en=4c668483a7875695&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off
By AMY HARMON
hen Scott Granneman, a technology instructor, heard that one of his former students had clicked on a strange e-mail attachment and infected her computer with the MyDoom Internet virus last week, empathy did not figure anywhere in his immediate response.
"You actually got infected by the virus?" he wrote in an e-mail message to the former student, Robin Woltman, a university grant administrator. "You, Robin? For shame!"
As MyDoom, the fastest-spreading virus ever, continues to clog e-mail in-boxes and disrupt business, the computer-savvy are becoming openly hostile toward the not-so-savvy who unwittingly play into the hands of virus writers.
The tension over the MyDoom virus underscores a growing friction between technophiles and what they see as a breed of technophobes who want to enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use it responsibly.
The virus spreads when Internet users ignore a basic rule of Internet life: never click on an unknown e-mail attachment. Once someone does, MyDoom begins to send itself to the names in that person's e-mail address book. If no one opened the attachment, the virus's destructive power would never be unleashed.
"It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless user to become infected," wrote Scott Bowling, president of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, expressing frustration on the group's discussion forum. "How to beat this into these people's heads?"
Many of the million or so people who have so far infected their computers with MyDoom say it is not their fault. The virus often comes in a message that appears to be from someone they know, with an innocuous subject line like "test" or "error." It is human nature, they say, to open the mail and attachments.
But computer sophisticates say it reflects a willful ignorance of basic computer skills that goes well beyond virus etiquette. At a time when more than two-thirds of American adults use the Internet, they say, such carelessness is no longer excusable, particularly when it messes things up for everyone else.
For years, many self-described computer geeks seemed eager to usher outsiders onto their electronic frontier. Everyone, it seemed, had a friend or family member in the geek elite who could be summoned ? often frequently ? in times of computer crisis.
But as those same friends and family members are called upon again and again to save the computer incompetents from themselves, the geeks' patience is growing thin. As it does, a new kind of digital divide is opening up between populations of computer users who must coexist in the same digital world.
"Viruses are just the tip of the iceberg," said Bill Melcher, who runs his own technical support business in San Francisco. "When it comes to computers, a lot of intelligent people and fast learners just decide that they don't know."
Many of the computationally confused say they suffer from genuine intimidation and even panic over how to handle the mysterious machines they have come to rely on for so much of daily life. Virus writers, spammers and scammers, they say, are the ones who should be held accountable for the chaos they cause.
But as the same people equip themselves with fancy computers and take advantage of the Internet for things like shopping and banking, critics say that their perpetual state of confusion has begun to get tiresome. And while the Internet's traditional villains remain elusive, those inadvertently helping them tend to be friends and neighbors.
Some in the technocamp imagine requiring a license to operate a computer, just like the one required to drive a car. Others are calling for a punishment that fits a careless crime. People who click on virus attachments, for instance, could be cut off by their Internet service providers until they proved that their machines had been disinfected.
And some, tired of being treated like free help lines, are
Just because I don't care, it doesn't mean I don't understand. Homer J. Simpson
Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off
For instance, I have several family members with computers: if I ask them if they have a firewall or have current virus definitions they look at me like whats that? and So what?
Hell most of them don't even check for Windows patches, much less wonder why there computer is slow as hell, they just think it's time for an upgrade - not to check for spyware, virii, worms, etc.
Some even tell me 'what the problem is' and refuse any explanation, for example Program X doesn't work correctly it needs more memory. Mind you that the individual doesn't know how, what, which memory to buy (or is compatible) or that it might be due to all of the 500 apps open in his taskbar.
If you actually read the post you'd see that:
- viruses are the not the main reason that the poster only supports Macs
- Windoze PCs are not the only systems he complains about and won't support (he mentioned IRIX for pete's sake!)
The point of the post is that you don't have to dink around for hours to get a Mac to work. Stuff really does just work when you plug it in.Nope. There are zero known viruses for Mac OS X, none, nada, zippity-do-da. There are about 60 viruses for OS 9, as well as a few that macro viruses that infect MS Office (which runs on both Windows and Mac)
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
I don't know where you got that from but it's just plain wrong.
There have been several.
A quick search google came up with an example from 2001 - the MAC/Simpsons@MM virus.
There would have been many others too, had I been bothered to scroll down.
Macs will never get 90% and Apple has no intention of doing so.
Now that right there is not really a smart sentance. you started out ok. but the last half just is non-sense. You are telling me that Apple has no inentions of becoming the number 1 computer company in the world? i would beg to differ as an ex apple employee we had all kinds of webinars (not realy that word but i just learned that in the poll forum so i will use it cause it is fun) talking about and introducing plans to become the number 1 computer company. in fact i rember #1 in 2001 wow that was so catchy. cant imagine why i quit.
What I find extraordinarily ironic is that, in the article there is a picture of some McAfee workers testing anti-virus software - The main guy you see in that picture is pressing 'ctrl-alt-del'
Even the people fixing the problems are brainwashed into that mentality!
Google link, for the tin foil hat impaired
That's ENABLED, you insensitive clod!!!!
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Being free tech support to tons of friends/family, I have learned a few very helpful tips to those of us that take the time to share our knowledge of (I hate to admit this) fairly simple to learn tasks. I know this is pretty Windows specific, but come on so is this class of tech support.
Pass these along to those that ask you to bail them out each time they have to figure out what a right click is.
There you go, now you know enough that I can probably walk you through fixing 99% of your problems over the phone, or preventing them all together!
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society - M. Twain
In other words, to paraphrase "I am no.....Doctrine(tm): Apple.
:-) Actually, no this is not what I am saying. What I am saying is simply that my research commonly consumes about 80hrs/week. Therefore, I have to figure out where to optimize my time and if it comes at the expense of not wanting to support Solaris, IRIX, Windows and Linux, that is my choice. Not yours. The reason I have standardized on OS X is because it is powerful, I can run all my older *nix code with a recomplile and the OS does not get in my way allowing me to be productive.
You obviously did not do very well on reading comprehension exams, did you?
Furthermore, I want to be helpful to family and friends, but if they want to purchase another computer other than a Mac, that is their business. They just cannot expect my support for it.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Don't knock the responsibility of the software industry here, either.
Consider the printer issue. In the Microsoft world, the Printer is controlled by the printer companies. The printer companies, in an effort to get rich in a low margin market segment, generate TERRIBLE software that is different for each manufacturer and uses completely different terminology. We, the geeks, are used to solving the puzzle of "what does this user interface do." Somebody who is scared that they might break a $200 printer and not know how to fix it will probably do much worse.
In the Mac world, Apple doesn't want printer manufacturers to have the ultimate say. Drivers are bit more basic (based, as they are, on UN*X printing functions). The trade off is, if Apple doesn't support your printer, you probably can't use it.
For this reason, I like printing on the mac better. I like the choices that Windows printing clients give me, but come on...when even simple options, like printing in landscape vs. printing in portrait, are hidden in six pages of "user friendly" options, something's wrong. You can't solve the problem of a complicated interface by adding more TEXT.
A quick aside, remember when printers had BUTTONS? Or a form feed wheel for when they got clogged up? Our laser printer has no buttons at all, and when it runs out of paper, there's no way to tell it to keep going short of restarting it...and you lose a half page, ugh.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I couldn't agree with this article more. I think computer science should be a mandatory high school credit after this experience. I was a technical manager for a major media conference and I had to work with someone who was, by her own admission, completely technophobic (scary part: she was the conference's media contact!) She was completely unreasonable with her demands on the conference web site. She asked me to teach her how to build and maintain a site, but that went nowhere. After awhile, I had to prevent her from logging into the conference's web server out of fear of her making radical (and dangerous) overhauls to the site. Finally, she managed to screw up sending a document via courier on a CD that was corrupt and unreadable. My solution? I contacted the tech guy at the company the document was originally to be sent to, logged onto FTP, sent it via the web - it was done in five minutes. I also had to make an advertisement via layout and graphics programs - she had no idea how the programs worked, what these programs are even capable of doing, and what looks good (and not so good) from a design point of view. I went through a series of battles with her, trying to make her realize that what she wanted was impossible. The kicker came when we had to get web access at the conference. I set up the internet in a hotel room for all the organizers to use, as it had been designated the "war room" and my director wanted it there. So I set it up for them. She calls me on our two-way cell and goes crazy on me for not setting up the web in *her* room. This, after I had spent the first day of the event getting everyone their cells, organizing laptops, getting a PowerPoint presentation finished, and setting up a major A/V system at a huge federal government building and battling with hotel staff in figuring out how to get past their firewall to log into a high speed web connection (this hotel wasn't the most cooperative in giving me instructions). Finally, my director had enough and told her to quit harping on me about it. She was pouty for the rest of the event, giving me the cold shoulder and assuming it was my fault that I didn't set up her precious web access in her room. And here's the last bit on info: this girl was only 23. So not all twentysomethings know computers. Only the incompetant ones.
As a quickie CV, I worked from helpdesk frontline to personal support over about 4 years. In between I became a helpdesk supervisor, network specialist, sometime sysadmin, etc. All this for my university IT office, while studying for a CS degree. Now I'm a software engineer.
Dealing with strangers:
This is the easiest, because most of the time, if they asked you for help, they already expect you to know more then they do. They'll usually listen to you and follow your steps.
- Evaluate the audience - try to figure out if they are the "professor without power" user, or the weekend sysadmin who hosed his user disk
- Once you know the level, speak to that leve.
- Drop the attitude - no one calling cares what you know. No one cares how smart and important you are. And if you don't know the answer, don't spew forth ridiculous answers you know will confuse them so they stop bothering you. Whether you get paid, or not, you've agreed to help. so do it.
- Look at the guys in Gamestop. If you find yourself acting like one of those guys, stop trying to help and go home and half-finish your xbox mod
Dealing with friends:This can be tough, because your friends are voyeurs. They want to watch.
also, they don't want to waste your time, so they will try to lear what they can. Often you're shanghai-ed from fixing the cdrom (which, of course, was just a scratched cd) to showing them the location of all the best porn.
- Fix the problem as fast as you can, and don't let him sidetrack you.
- "I'll fix this, then we can address Janet Jackson's boom-boom bitties" will work wonders. Often, any of the myriad questions that would have waylaid you for minutes to hours will become a distant memory by the magic of the now WORKING cd-rom (which you had a backup of, luckily) and Ms. Jackson's Nasty nip
- Be prepared to help him in many ways. Spend the night. Then date his sister. As they say, it is a dish best served... cold.
- Look at the guys in Gamestop. If you find your friend acting like one of those guys, stop trying to help and go home and let him half-finish his xbox mod himself
Dealing with a spouse/signifigant other:Absolutely the most difficult task in IT.