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Professor: Young People Are "Lost Generation" Who Can No Longer Fix Gadgets
antdude points out this story about one of the problems with our ever increasingly disposable world. "Young people in Britain have become a lost generation who can no longer mend gadgets and appliances because they have grown up in a disposable world, the professor giving this year's Royal Institution Christmas lectures has warned. Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to 'just work' and have no idea what to do when things go wrong. Unlike previous generations who would ‘make do and mend’ now young people will just chuck out their faulty appliances and buy new ones. But Prof George claims that many broken or outdated gadgets could be fixed or repurposed with only a brief knowledge of engineering and electronics. "
Some things can be fixed but would you want to? My previous oven got replaced because it's failure mode was to go into it's cleaning cycle. I could have replaced the faulty control board but I didn't really want to. I didn't want another one of THOSE control boards nor did I want a same brand replacement.
I didn't want to wait for this "fixed" item to eventually burn my house down.
OTOH, many other things are so cheap that they are not worth the parts and labor it would take to fix them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have a Samsung computer monitor that isn't properly detected if I use the DVI cable, although the VGA cable works fine. This prevents Mac OS from detecting the monitor, and confuses Windows. (The technical details: it's not transmitting EDID over the DVI connection.)
The quick fix for Windows worked for a while, but a driver update changed how things work and would be constantly confused by that monitor. The proper fix requires opening the monitor, using a multimeter to find what's wrong with the DVI connector, and fixing or replacing it. This is not something you can do on a weekend, as opposed to fixing a larger appliance.
The problem isn't around knowledge, but that it requires equipment not expected to be in a normal home. A house can have tools available to fix large mechanical objects, but not extremely delicate electronics that require an electron scanning microscope to properly fix. The repair costs for devices usually indicate that the whole device has gone bad as opposed to an easily swapped component, meaning the manufacturers also have trouble getting things to work as well.
So when my laptop fries up I can't repair it with my Snap-On collection of wrenches. So, when something like a laptop fries, I go buy another one. I never buy new - I buy used ones for cheap. I'm not going to fix my laptop or microwave oven or telephone. To imply that I should is stupid.
If that kind of throw-away society is suboptimal for the professor, then the problem is the *throw-away society*, not some deskilling operation.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
These are not cost reduction measures but rather anti-tamper protections.
Yes and no. In some cases you may be correct, but when I worked in consumer electronics, the devices were glued because it was cheaper and screws would have required us to use a thicker care just so there was space for the screws.
And 99.9% of people would just throw it away if it failed, so why worry about it?
wrong, we over 50 were taught to fix shit
I know plenty of people over 50 who cannot "fix shit", and I know plenty of people under 30 who can. I doubt that either you, or the professor in the article, has any actual data to backup your assertion. Since at least the time of Socrates, every generation has thought that their kids were dumber than they were, and civilization was doomed. Whatever.
Went to replace the fog light in my 2014 Ford Fusion; the instructions start with "Remove the front bumper" and the entire process took over an hour due to the bumper being attached in some places with somewhat of a "just wedge it in there and hope you're not breaking something" approach.
I have seen people dispose of perfectly usable smartphones because of an easily fixable software issue and bin laptops that they could have gotten several more years of use out of
Our economy depends on these people.
ROTFL, written like a good little consumer. The koolaid is strong in this one ;)
There is VERY little debate, it is often no more expensive to make something repairable, and thats not even the professors complain (or a good attempt at a strawman..), their complaint is that consumers are not bothering to even try and fix or have things fixed because they dont know how or that it is possible.
ie: they are well trained little consumers also.
Of course it is good for the companies selling items, but it is pretty damn stupid from ANY other point of view.
To a certain extent that is true. I just replaced the tailight on my mustang and to disassemble most of the trunk.
However, in another case I watched two people try to get a PT Cruiser running on my street. They worked on it for two days before I went over. I said "you know, the car is trying to tell you what's wrong!" The check engine light was on.
You can flip the ignition switch ON, OFF three times and it will print the error code on the odometer. A quick Google search and I resolved the problem to be a bad oil pressure sensor. $20 for the sensor, $10 for a socket to fit it ad the car fired right up.
Improved, more comprehensive diagnostics make a lot of things easier on new cars.
There was an amusing scene in Mythbusters about this, where Jamie goes to replace the battery in a Dodge Stratus they purchased and has to take one of the wheels off in order to access it. Needless to say he was unimpressed; I think his quote was "You see, what happened here is some idiot designed this in a computer and didn't think."
Even better was the fact that a friend of ours had recently purchased the same car, something we mocked him incessantly about, and this was just extra fuel for the fire. :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I've seen a BMW "fail" because of a taillight bulb swap, where the LED replacement was a 100% replacement for the original and met all the requirements (other than not drawing enough power). While an illegally bright reverse light was perfectly fine, as far as the car's monitoring system was concerned.
Learn to love Alaska
I did the math at one point and realized it cost me money to change my own oil. The filters, oil and disposal cost me more than paying some one to do it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Who here can fix a motherboard on a washer or dryer? anyone?
The high cost of repairs on those things is exactly why I specifically bought a Speed Queen with a mechanical timer. So some of us still pay a little more for repair-ability :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I made a hobby and career in electronics.
Early VCR's were expensive and repairable. You could buy parts such as pinch rollers, tape guides, video drums, etc. A $30 video head and a couple hours labor for replacement and full alignment would run close to $100 ( back when shop rates were ~35/hr.
VCR's became sub $100 devices and service people gave a few estimates and went out of business.
A common failure with microwave ovens is moisture gets into the keypad or LCD resulting in the conductive paint or ribbon failure. A timer can be had for over the price of a new oven. Even with free labor, it's cheaper to replace. Labor isn't free.
Me, I'm still in electronics, but no longer in consumer throw away junk. I service semiconductor equipment. $1-5 million equipment is still worth repairing. They don't let noobs practice on it though. Need other verifiable training and experience to even get considered.
There are tons of entry level positions that pay fast food rates. Look at ads for those wanting someone to fix smart phones. Assembly people working under microscopes get very little pay as it competes with overseas sweatshops.
Getting past that into a living wage is a little tougher.
Those with a student loan simply can't afford to even consider the field. About the only way in if you are interested is a few years in the military for both training and hands on in something besides entry level.
Straight electronics is easy to understand. not being a coder and having to rig up a JTAG connection to troubleshoot something that is undocumented is the pits. For an example of this pick up any used VOIP adaptor from the used market and try to unlock it. Unless you are really interested in learning to set up a server, wireshark, and possibly JTAG to get past a custom provisioned adapter is a total waste of time. There is no money to be made to offset the time investment in learning it. A New unlocked ATA can be had for under $50.
Paying u fix it fileds are NOT in consumer electronics. They are in HVAC, Plant maintenance, PLC programming, CNG, and other related fields. People will not pay much to repair the broken screen on a used phone. People will be desperate to get the spring replaced on the garrage door or heat pump fixed. Learn the going rates in the fileds. You are not going to pay for Obamacare and build a retirement nest egg fixing cell phones and flatscreen tv's.
The truth shall set you free!
My Mazda 3 manual said the same thing, but a quick search online showed that it was actually a fairly easy and tool-less operation. The manual admonished the owner doing it for some voltage danger nonsense... I think the real reason was that it was a little tricky in the dexterity department. I imagine with a specialized tool it'd be fast, and I imagine it is designed with the initial assembly cost in mind more than the maintenance cost.