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People just don't "get" computers in general, as much as we like to believe that they do. I have witnessed people of all ages and darn near all walks of life fail at some spectacularly mundane activities on a very common PC operating system. Moving beyond using a web browser to interface with Facebook is for a lot of people utter and complete sci-fi. Sure, we could get into the whole debate wether how "user friendly" any given piece of technology is, but I think there's more to the whole equation than just that.

The lack of knowledge among common people isn't exactly something endemic to the computer world. How many people truly understand their car, TV or even good old land-line phone? Yet they manage to navigate their way around life without bumping into too many hurdles with these other machines and contraptions. How come, one might ask? Why are these other things perfectly understandable, or at least so it would seem, while the computer is a utter and complete mystery?

Part of the answer lies in what these numerous technologies actually do, and can perform. A car really only has the function and purpose of transporting us meatbags from one location to another, and a TV is pretty much a square shape we stare at while our rear ends are firmly planted in a sofa. They don't really have the width and scope of a general purpose device like a computer, tablet computer or smartphone. Look at the computers like this; there are just so many more ways you can mess it up.

It's the cargo cult mentality of education in technology that worries me greatly. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure! Poorly lit room, person "showing" how to do things on a computer with its display shown on a huge screen via a projector, and nearly nobody understanding what's going on. But, sure, press that button and toggle that widget and things happen. Utter lack of knowledge in combination with sophisticated tools. A great recipe for disaster at some point in the near future. More so when you consider that the base of many very important parts of our lives, from financial systems to air traffic control, are run from consumer operating systems, and I think you know which one I'm talking about too.

When simple systems can be misunderstood, it's not exactly wise to shove even more complex systems into the hands of the same people. I would also like to point out the stupidity of basing every single system built for everybody around the standard PC and tossing some semi-custom user interface on top of it. There are just far too many ways people can mess up these systems, and specially get them infected with malware of some kind.

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 or app.net @streakmachine. (But you won't find him on Facebook!)

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Robert Falck

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