I don't hate people

For anyone who might possibly be reading the notes on my Shared Items Google reader page you might think that I hate people. That's not true. Part of it is that I've been in a less than great mood this week for various personal reasons. Chief among them is that I seem to have caught a cold.

Another big part though is that I am continually annoyed at how technology is marketed. We continue to push forward the myth that "computers make things easier" and continue to foist metaphors of technology with meatspace equivalents. The thing is computers don't make things easier, they make things faster and more widely available. Where things start to break down is when the metaphors we use fail to address the issues of speed and availability. I think when that happens for non-techy people they just give up and figure out a way to muddle though. I think that's where we're at now: the majority of people muddling though a day full of computing by blasting email out on a near continual basis because they know it sorta works for everything they need. That frustrates me because I can see their frustration.

IMHO, the fix is not to simply show a person how to use Word. Instead we need to educate with information and time management skills and work harder to make the tools they use simpler. People shouldn't need training on how to use a pile of software, but people do need training on how to deal with the junk that software creates.