THE BRITISH TECH NETWORK

Have It, Don’t Use It

27 Dec 12

How many people out there really know what the possibilities are in the pieces of technology they own? As computer processors have become more and more powerful, we have been abel to do increasingly more and more complex things with our computational devices. Things that were unthinkable some 10 years ago, and reserved for supercomputers roughly 20 years ago. And that's just the stuff we have in our pockets today.

But, there is always the interesting question of how many actually take advantage of even a small percent of what our devices are capable of.

Remember the good old VCR, with it's near magical ability to let you watch what you wanted, when you wanted it? Under the assumption that you had it on tape, of course. Remember also how many of these devices were always blinking "12:00" in their displays? Granted, they were far from user-friendly as we define it with modern computer user interfaces and touch screens, but still. For some people, the devices was perpetually stuck in "just unboxed mode" and never got any further.

The equivalent today, I believe, is the smartphone. Marvels of connectivity and user-friendliness, sporting both modern user interfaces and touch screens. Yet despite that, so many people are completely oblivious to even the basic functions of them, and let's not talk about the more complex ones! Given that they are much more like proper computers than they are the feature phones of yore, they also require a slightly different mindset by its user. While malware isn't a reality on all platforms yet, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have it in mind. Given that Android is the most common operating system for smartphones, and that platform does have a fairly serious malware problem, specially if you don't know that the problem exists.

Then there is just the pure waste of having incredible technology in the hands of people who don't even consider it more than a glorified text messenger and mobile telephone. They don't use it to take notes in text or voice format, sync their contact information or back up to a cloud service for extra security and safety, should something happen to their device. It goes way beyond not reading the manual, I believe, and is more about willingly ignoring or not wanting to partake in what is useful about technological progress.

A large number of people have amazingly capable smartphones, but I honestly believe some don't need one and a few really shouldn't have one. Those who don't need one would have their needs much better served by a feature phone, which are still unbeatable when it comes to battery life and reliability. Those who shouldn't have one are the people who appear to be resistant to learning about how to use any form of modern technology, and just don't realize the inherit risks of their ignorance.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech writer from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on the British Tech Network, listen to him yap away on the British Tech iOS Show and read even more of his stuff on his site streakmachine.com or you can even follow him on twitter @streakmachine. (But you won't find him on Facebook!)

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Have It, Don’t Use It

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