What in the hell is wrong with electronics consumers/Why I can’t hate Google.
Now this is probably not directed at the majority of our readership as our predisposition towards tweaks and tricks for modding out cell phones tends to be for the more gadget minded. However, why does the general public expect to be fully educated about a product they buy when purchasing electronics specifically? I don’t know of any other industry where this is expected. Even when you buy schoolbooks you don’t expect Amazon to teach you the stuff in the book? When you buy a grill from somewhere they don’t teach you to cook. This is a problem. A major one. Anyone that has seen Idiocracy can vouch for me here. I’m not saying everyone needs to be a genius but I feel like the general consumer should be able to both read and comprehend an owner’s manual. Answering phones at Best Buy has left me teaching people the concept of a table of contents. How in the hell did you miss that in primary school? I’m not asking everyone to be a gadget wizard or understand registries or even be able to run a script but some basic literacy skills are expected of any high school graduate. Manufacturers kill hundreds of arguably important trees to produce these manuals for those foliage loving hippies and they don’t bother even attempting to read it.
Which brings me to my general point for venting all of the rage built up in the past few hours at work. Google can fix all your problems. I’m not saying if you need a cell phone then buy a Nexus One, but if you are unsure of what to get why not use Google to do some research? Ladies Google their fellas of interest to see if they are big enough creeps or weirdos to appear on their list and this is exactly what I do with every product I consider for purchase as well. You find reviews and specifics for the product in question, plus you usually pull up major issues with the device as well. You just have to be intelligent enough to form a question. Trust me when I say that I don’t owe Best Buy any credit in my quest for electronics knowledge. Just about everything I know about the world of electronics (and some other sparse categories here and there) has been through my use of the Google search engine. Whether it is to attain general product info or a solution to a specific problem Google is my fall back for all questions without answers. I don’t care who of you out there are Bingers (though I use it occasionally to compare search results) but either way that’s not who got you through the past 12 years. And hotmail can eat my ass.
I’m sorry if I’ve offended any luddites or anyone with family members that have an aversion to technology. I’m not upset they don’t know anything. I’m upset at those who are determined to remain stupid and have the world do their work for them for free!
Update: And thank Reddit for more fuel to the search engine debate fire.
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You want Hotmail to eat your ass? was that a typo? Maybe you meant “I want a hot male to eat my ass” no – I can’t bring myself to use the delete key 🙂
generally though I do agree with you. Between donig a search or jumping onto youtube everything is there and it takes less time than harassing a physical person. The alternative to all of this is to only buy Apple products and accept that it works the way it works and you can’t change it so don’t bother searching for an answer:)
@DavidK – I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at that one.
Good points. I’m constantly amazed at the amount of people who never bother to read an owner’s manual or search for any information. You don’t have to be a super genius to know everything is on youtube or can be found through one of the search engines.
Heck, i’d much rather exhaust my search options before calling into a physical person and have them amazed at the stupidity my question turned out to be. lol
@ Murani – you probably have shame:) Some people are clearly shameless and acknowledging their stupidity openly is no problem at all for them;)
lol oh the shame. Sometimes the brain just doesn’t want to work. : )
I once thought about being a tech support guy then I realized 90% of the time I was going to have to deal with completely computer illiterate people. I get enough of that during computer maintenance and spyware removal for people.
Thank You! Too many expect someone else to do their thinking for them.
Well said. Call me whatever, but before I purchase anything (after reading specs, reviews, etc); a car, an appliance, a computer or software, I download the manual first (99% are available online) and read it cover to cover. If I don’t like what I read, I make another selection. When I finally get to open the box I already know what to expect.
Now Matt, take a deep breath and go open a cold one. And while you are at it, pop a couple in the freezer cause its gonna take more than one for sure.
hotmale can eat my ass… lol… too much… i do feel your pain though matt (not that pain, the consumer idiocracy pain 🙂 my favorite question from the consumer “how do i turn my phone on?” and as much as i want to say “well ive never personally used that particular phone but if it were me i would try reading page one of the damn owners manual” i dont, instead i just put the dumb smile on and show them the button that actually SAYS power right on it… if your not going to use the manual at least use common freaking sense… i saw this and felt the need to vent as well as ive turned on 3 phones for people today and its only 2.
Barely processing some free time on Stumbleupon and I launch your post. Not typically what I like to learn about, but it was unquestionably worthy my time.