Gizmos feed high-tech befuddlement
By May Wong
Associated Press
Barry Jaruzelski would have never imagined he'd need to consult a 146-page owner's manual just to learn how to turn on his new cell phone.
The New York tech industry consultant had asked for the simplest handset available to replace a lost phone. But where was the power button? Turned out Jaruzelski had to push the red "end" button twice to power up the handset. Honestly.
Not only are the latest gadgets packed with more features than ever, they're also harder than ever to figure out.
Culprits span the gizmo gamut from DVD players to digital cameras and wireless devices. Even televisions are increasingly acting more like computers, those notoriously confounding beasts.
Jaruzelski's shiny new communicator, incidentally, turned out to be loaded with features he said he'd never use: games, text messaging, Web-surfing and customized ring tones.
Larry Sherby, 50, of Palo Alto, Calif., also eschews frilly gadgets.
Sherby got a digital camera from his wife a year ago but uses only its most basic features to point and shoot.
Forcing the flash? Timer? Long exposure? No way.
"It's a computer, that's what it is. It's got menus and menus. I have to consult a manual anytime I try other features, and then I forget how to do it," Sherby said. "If it takes that much effort to learn what to do, forget it."
Even tech-savvy users manage to get frustrated by gadgets with automatic features or one-button steps.
"The more a product could do, the more that could go wrong," observed usability expert Jakob Nielsen, a principal of the Nielsen Norman Group consulting firm.
Nielsen has a postdoctorate degree in computer science yet struggles with the 35 buttons on his DVD player's remote control. "The button I use the most — pause — is the smallest and in the middle of five other buttons," he griped.
The fact that some people still have blinking displays on their VCRs because they couldn't figure out how to program the machines is a long-standing joke. But techno-hurdles really aren't a laughing matter.
Time is wasted on poorly written, Bible-sized manuals. Patience is lost on customer service calls. Extra trips are made to the store. Consumers pay for bells and whistles they never use.
Neil Carty, an independent filmmaker and admitted gearhead in New York, hates the snags that come with trying to get his gadgets to run properly.
"You want to play with it as soon as you get it, and you don't want to find out that you have to go and get something else like an adapter," he said.
Often, consumers make do. Some rely on geeky relatives or friends to install or troubleshoot.
Sherby, a laser equipment salesman, has three computers, a wireless router and high-speed Internet access at home, but all are working fine thanks only to the help of his son's friend.
Companies in the past few years have focused more on adding performance and features than on making products that are easy to use and play well with other machines.
A typical home's entertainment center has become an electronic Tower of Babel, given all the competing and sometimes incompatible formats and standards.
Harold Garland, 55, of San Jose, Calif., nearly plunked down $500 for a state-of-the-art digital recorder at an electronics store — until he saw the fine print warning that the gadget's software would not be compatible with his Macintosh computer.
Garland walked out with an old-fashioned $50 cassette recorder instead.
"I probably would have wasted hours and hours trying to figure out the digital recorder and how to master it anyway," Garland said with a bittersweet sigh.n as the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, found that among adults asked what invention they hate most but can't live without, 30 percent said the cell phone.
Alarm clocks were a close second, with 25 percent, followed by the television with 23 percent and razors with 14 percent. Microwave ovens, computers and answering machines also earned spots as detested technology.
The survey has been conducted for the past eight years to gauge public opinion toward inventions, inventors and technology.
"The interconnectedness you get from the cell phone is a very positive thing, and I think that's one of the most important things, the bringing together of people. The downside of that is that you sometimes want to be alone," said Lemelson Center Director Merton C. Flemings.
The random telephone survey of 1,023 adults and 500 teenagers was conducted Nov. 12 to 19 by Princeton, N.J.-based Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch and was released Wednesday
Ninety-five percent of the adults surveyed said that inventions had improved the quality of their lives.
A handy invention — a two-way radio — allowed Bob Dillon, 51, and his companion Deborah Bleau, 44, to keep tabs on Bleau's 12-year-old daughter, Kate, and Kate's two friends, as all five strolled through downtown Boston on a recent visit.
Bleau said it was hard to find fault with the technology keeping her in constant touch with her daughter, and Dillon did not find much to criticize about cell phones, other than their pesky habit of going off in public places.
But Dillon said he had a love-hate relationship with television. He ditched his television years ago. Now, he, Bleau, and Bleau's daughter have a television in their Latham, N.Y., home, but it is used only for watching movies.
"It's not hooked into any kind of broadcast or anything like that, primarily because it's so invasive, and can take over your life," he said. "But it's a double-edged sword. I miss the History Channel."
Jaime Wasserman, 26, of Boston, walked through Quincy Market with her cell phone pressed to her ear.
"I love technology. There's really nothing that irritates me. I love it all. Computers, television," she said. "An alarm clock? You need an alarm clock. People who hate it are probably lazy people who just don't feel like getting up in the morning."
