Learning Curves and Technology

I hate learning curves. It’s not that I’m intellectually lazy—well, maybe that’s part of it—it’s more that I don’t like starting to learn something without some assurance that the time spent is going to be worth it.

Sometimes this gets me into trouble. Like the time Sid gave me a digital camera for Christmas. It was an expensive present and it deserved warm appreciation. Instead, I inwardly groaned, said how nice of him, and then put it aside. He was crestfallen. He said later that he had expected me to immediately assemble it, read the thick booklet that came with it, and go out that very afternoon and start shooting pictures.

Well, needless to say, I didn’t. Instead, I gingerly opened the booklet over the next few days and read a page or so at a time. I felt like a predator confronted with a school of fish. Too much information. Too many choices. I had to prioritize. I read the pages about focusing first. I then took out the camera and tried out those directions. Then I read about the zoom. Then I read about saving and deleting. Eventually I got through the book, but still needed to refer to it. The problem was that I didn’t use the bells and whistles enough to remember them. I could see why people still used film. Film is familiar. It produces a known product, a print that can go in an album.

Gradually, I came to terms with the camera and downloading it onto my computer. It became more familiar and the convenience of being able to take hundreds of pictures overcame the obvious increased complexity of actually getting something called prints, which now emerge from a machine that no longer reads negatives but insists on CDs and chips. I am still not excited by counting pixels, but I use the camera by choice.

Then we got a new dishwasher. It came with a row of electronic settings that beeped at me. In the old days, someone came with the machine to show you how to use it. Now it’s just you and the manual. I sat on the floor in front of this shining black marvel and read about each of the buttons and choices. My first dishwasher was a portable that connected to the sink. You set it up each time you wanted to use it. It had an on and off button and a circular disk that let you select how many minutes you wanted. Now I had to choose between a smart wash, a normal wash, a hot wash, and a pots and pan cycle. Then a hot rinse, a sani-rinse, and a rinse and hold. By the time I had figured out what everything meant, I had decided on settings that I essentially never changed. Same with my new electronic washing machine. I’m not even sure about the difference between the pre-wash and soak cycles. And this was a “standard” model. The top of the line stuff looked like the cockpit of a 747 and had instructions as incomprehensible as those that come with electronic watches.

I suppose new and improved is inevitable. What this means is that we as a society are constantly in the process of learning. Thirty years ago, Alan Toffler wrote a book called Future Shock. He argued that there are predictable ways in which people react to continuous change. There are those who ignore it until it’s forced on them. I guess they’re the ones still using Kodak brownies and film. Then there are those who embrace change and want to be cutting edge. They’d be the ones with cell phones that play tunes, connect to the internet, and show movies. Then there are people who just give up and go into what he called “information overload.” A lot of folks out there refuse to use a computer. Finally, there are those who selectively change. I guess I’m among the latter. But maybe not. This Christmas Sid gave me a street pilot. When he handed it to me he said that he’d had the store demonstrate it and it didn’t have much of a learning curve.