I spent some time this morning troubleshooting my television. It doesn’t matter how much time I actually spent trying to get it to work properly, if it’s one second it’s too much. I now add the television to my list of technologies that are getting worse, not better.
When I was a kid, I pushed the power button on the TV and turned a dial or punched in a number to select a channel and watched. There was nothing more to it, and it worked 99.99999% of the time. The only troubleshooting my parents ever had to do with a TV was, “It’s dead. We need a new one,” and, “Call the cable company because the cable’s out.” Likewise, for the first 2/3+ of my life I could pick up a phone and dial a number, and within a few seconds I was speaking clearly to the person on the other end.
Now I deal with a TV that has a thousand different connectors and options and yet doesn’t perform simple functional things that I, as a new user, discovered should be present in 15 seconds. I deal with a cable box that takes several minutes to boot, and with a remote that has a good 1.5 second delay for every action, where the TV we had 20 years ago was instant. And then I need to set all the settings on the cable box in coordination with all the settings on the TV to make sure I don’t end up with squashed faces and muffled audio.
I have a cell phone signal that’s full strength when I hold the phone one way, and completely gone when I move the phone 1/4 inch to the left. Signal strength depends on moisture in the atmosphere and whether there are leaves on the trees. 3/5 of my calls are eventually dropped, regardless of my location, and 1/3 of incoming calls never ring my phone to begin with but are sent straight to voicemail.
This is not progress. All the advantages brought to us by HDTV and cell phones are more than negated by the technical difficulties and the constant struggle to make them work properly. For all the alleged geniuses with degrees and certifications in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, why has it turned out to be so difficult to replicate the level of reliability these devices had 20 years ago? Maintaining things that work well in that same state should be their first priority.
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January 20th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
The answer was given to us a few years ago by Alan Cooper in “The Inmates Are Running The Asylum”
http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200861088&sr=1-2
January 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
My father-in-law likes to remind folks about the changeover from analog to digital mobile phone service. One day, he had one of each kind of phone with him, outdoors in a public setting. He was having trouble making and receiving calls on the newfangled digital-network device, and so had to call customer service on the analog phone, whose signal was always clearer and more free of compression distortion.
I’ve never liked using modern mobiles. The sound has remained awful, and there’s no feedback to keep my voice in check, as my land line provides. I’m so glad we taxpayers funded the carriers to develop higher-quality networks, without provisions to take the money back if they failed to deliver.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I have the same issues with most if my devices. The TV, which I do like quite a bit has a boot up cycle that from switch on to picture takes 14 seconds. The remote for the amp after switching on won’t respond to the remote volume control for 10 seconds, 4 seconds too late as the relay clicks and I’m blasted from the speakers. I often stand by the amp and manually turn it down since the DVD player or the Xbox360 doesn’t have the same signal level as the cable box. 30 years ago if someone said in 2008 that I’d yearn for the days when devices responded immediately I’d say they were nuts yet that’s where I am. 30 years of progress!