Sunday 13 July 2014

Technophobia

There are a lot of stock photos like this. I wonder why?

I finally gave in and got a smartphone.

You have to leave it switched on because people expect you to be always available.

But you have to charge it every two days!

And nobody expects your phone to be charging when they ring you.

Do they plug theirs in EVERY NIGHT?

Or do they turn them OFF at night to save the battery?

Are you supposed to look at the thing that tells you how much battery there is left?

And are you supposed to take all your chargers with you on holiday????

And it randomly goes TING, sometimes in the middle of the night. Does it ding when someone picks up a text? (Ah, no, it tings when an email lands. It only took me several hours to work that out, and another several hours to work out how to turn it off.)

And I can’t turn off the alarm, only mute it.

How do you get apps OFF the app screen?

And the alert is so quiet that I can’t hear it if my phone’s in my handbag across the room – or in another room. Do they expect you to keep it in a POCKET? But women’s clothes often don’t have pockets!

And when it rings, and I get to it in time, and I find the right button to press to talk to the caller, and hit it instead of the one next to it, the volume is so low I can’t hear them, and I can’t find the volume control or the speaker button, and there’s a button on the left that I keep pressing by mistake that actually LOWERS THE VOLUME... It’s just underneath my finger as I hold the thing. Well, THAT was well designed, WASN’T it! TECHNOLOGY, DONCHA LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

Oh, you PRESS AND DRAG the green call icon! Well, why didn't you say so?????

Why is this option greyed out? Is it because I've turned on power-saving?

And then I get a message saying “Your delivery number is xxxxxxxx, please go to www.xxxxxxx.co.uk to arrange delivery.” I go to the url, but now I can’t see the number. Am I expected to write it down using olde-fashionede pen and paper? Or, God forbid, MEMORISE IT????????? Technology etc etc

And to mute/unmute I press and hold the ON/OFF button? Oh, of course! It's so intuitive! Why didn't I think of that!

Of course the real problem is that a smartphone doesn't have a keyboard.

More here, and links to the rest.

2 comments:

  1. Mine is constantly tinging, but I often have no idea why. I think it might be a friend, who posts Facebook updates about every item of food she eats (at least, that's what it feels like). I don' t feel able to block her as she is very ill, so I'm resigned to hearing pings and feeling vibrations every five minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My phone isn't connected to FB. ;-)

    ReplyDelete