Most computer users aren’t
Hypothesis: most people who think they are computer users are not.
So that I can purchase cars and other shiny things, I am paid to write software. Since I want to continue to be paid to write software, I spend some of my time making sure that people who are not me can actually use it for something. The important distintion (in this context, anyway) between me and people who are not me is that I am a computer user and they are not.
“Um,” you ask, “how do they use your software without a computer?”
They don’t, obviously. The distinction is that they are users of my software, mostly, rather than of the computer on which it runs. Some of them may be Windows users; even fewer actual computer users. I root this distinction in scope of knowledge. A user of a particular program knows how to start Photoshop and get things done. A user of a particular operating system knows more generally how to care for and feed Mac OS X; certainly she knows how to install Photoshop, maybe even the OS itself. A computer user is definitely at least a programmer, knows how to put the machine together and could, if necessary, figure out where to start to do work with the machine, even lacking an OS.
Most who think they are computer users, then, are actually Microsoft Internet Explorer users. They are probably also Microsoft Word users, and maybe Google Mail users. I don’t mean this as an insult. They (you, even, o hapless reader?) are not computer users in the same way that I am not a user of the Prairie Island nuclear power station; I know vaguely what it does, but I couldn’t build one. I’m a user of light bulbs and garage door openers.
I make this distinction because I think it would be beneficial for individuals to realize where they sit on the scale. Internet Explorer and Word users should know that they are not Windows users; they should not expect to be able to install new programs (or they should at least expect to fail sometimes when they try). Mac OS X users should not be exasperated that ninety percent of the people to whom they talk don’t know that duh, you just drag the application to your hard disk to install it. And those few of us who are computer users should probably recognize, I guess, that while Linux is teh r0x0rz, some people would rather knit socks or go bowling than learn about the /proc filesystem.
At least I’m getting paid. I do like my shiny things.
October 26th, 2005 at 6:56 am
What is the driving passion of your thought? Is it the hypothesis that most computer users aren’t? Or is it the summation that you are getting paid?
One might discuss economics at another time. My mind was tickled with the first. Your main thought seems to be that people use the software because, well, that is what they are using, that is the level of their knowledge about the system.
My first mental response to the tickle was the pen. Most people are not using a pen. It is the ink. The pen is the delivery system, the hardware. The ink is soft. (Compare to the computer which delivers the software that people use.) I know this analogy has holes, but it was my first thought.
My third response was an automobile. Most uses don’t know how things work under the hood, more or less similar to people not understanding the functioning of the computer. Most people learn to operate the controls. In this case the controls are hardware, but then I suppose one could argue the keyboard and the mouse are hardware. The goal is to get where the person is going. In this example there is a computer running the who automobile and there is that sofware running in the computer. In this example, from your initial hypothesis, the operator is neither a computer operator nor a software operator. Most drivers, me for example, have no concept of the nature of the computer or the software operating the car. Most drivers could not access or alter computer or software. But the car gets them where they are going.
My second analogy was the one that pleased me the most. Just as I am using computer and software to write this and then to send it on this worldwide web making it theoretically possible for billions of people to read this, I am using the components of this third system. Words and language are the software of the analogy.
People use words and language all the time. They push these verbal images around the screen of conversation. (I hesitate to call it dialogue because that has specialized meaning.) The hardware is philosophy. My corallary to your hypothesis is: “Most pholosophy users aren’t.” They push words and language around without understanding the philosophy, the hardware that drives them.
I know enough about computers to understand wht you are talking about. Implied is the wish that others understood the computers better, a frustration with those who don’t seem to care about that. I have that concern about people who buy philosophy of life (for example, consumerism) without understanding how it runs them.
enough. 7:00 am. time for work.
Thanks for the tickle. I had fun thinking about this.
From you pastor.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
Being paid is tertiary to the hypothesis. It is part of what led me to think about it, and it is also significant that it ties together people at both ends of my proposed scale.
Practically speaking, I included the reference to money for rhetorical value. It encapsulates the idea both in that it is appropriate at the beginning and end, and also in that it provides a grounding to make an essentially technical subject easier to get into and out of for an audience not necessarily made up of technophiles.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:59 am
This morning I will read in “Reading and Understanding Research” which points out that writers of research necessarily use specialized and technical language. It is their job to get great amounts of information into a manageable size. We novices are not the target audience and it is our job to learn their language to unpack the content.
It is good.
Halloween is time for the 9th grade students to view the hated Luther video. I am getting getter at leading them into it. It is like a research paper in that it does assume strong church background and the ability to follow as the first seven minutes shows scenes from three different epochs in Luther’s life.
Joel
October 28th, 2005 at 1:48 am
Wait…so what does that make me? I used to program, I’ve also taken my computer apart and installed my own components; so I’m kind of a computer user?
October 30th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
Dave, I’m not sure it came out in the post, but it’s not really my point to make distinct groups. If anything, I mean more a continuous scale of how penetrating is any given individual’s understanding. Rather than saying that you are ‘kind of’ a computer user, I would say that you use the computer itself more than someone who knows nothing of programming or what’s inside the box under the desk.