Momcommunications

Posted on July 16th, 2011 by Bethany McGrath

As personal choice, I shun blackberries. I would like a smartphone, but I detest iPhone’s limited network (Indonesia’s version of iPhone is restricted to a provider I dislike). I am aiming for a Tab. Buuut.. well, the budget is not there yet. :-/  

Anyway.

My mother has a blackberry, a gift from a friend who wants to stay in touch with her and blah blah blah.. whatever. Considering 90% of my family members (and her friends) have blackberries, anyway, it was useful for her.

Not moreso for me, since I’m perpetually on line on my (more useful) laptop, anyway. But, since my mother is 67 and has never been a tech-geek like her daughter, she needs help with it. Just with the setup, though. She was taught how to use it within like, five minutes. She may not be a tech geek, but she is definitely nowhere near stupid. Not even in the same zipcode as stupid. Before half an hour passed (after teaching her how to use it), she was sending photos like a pro.

* 

Nowadays, however, she found out that BB has the annoying feature of displaying her facebook notices at all time (as in, every two seconds). For somebody who has over 600 friends in her facebook, a notice at every two seconds is hysteria-inducing. Not to mention increasing annoyance for me who has to wait for her everytime we’re on a walk and she’d gotten distracted with her BB. 

Thus she asked a friend – who is younger, more ‘versed’ with BB, and is still employed (mother is basically retired) – on how to turn off that BB/FB notification. She replied.. in such a roundabout way that mother basically could not decipher. She then turned to me, asking me the same thing. Not wanting to think too much, I tried reading the friend’s instruction. No go. I didn’t get a word she said. Thus I resolved to work it out my way: just push them damn buttons until I get what I want. 

Two buttons later, I got it. No damage. And I was able to explain it more clearly to mom. No tech speak, no roundabouts, no headache. Yay. Problem solved. And I’ve probably used that thing about twice this month. 

Moral of the story: When it comes to gadgets, the rule ‘never assume people have brain’ takes a turn to be the positive enforcement. It sounds insulting, yes. And I have used that rule to insult people more than once. But in this case, you simply should NOT think that people know what you know. For the love of God, it’s the language that matters. When you use difficult (read: l33t) speech pattern, people would simply look at you blankly. When you use ‘easy’ lingo in roundabout ways (“just set up your phone to go to setting, and then press the button to find this nifty little thing called option, and then find the setting to turn it off…”), you give people headache. Try this: “Go to [application] shortcut, press the bb button (the button with BB logo on it), click option, un-tick the notification thingy.” Simple, to the point, and understandable, yes?

By the way, after the headache that came from that roundabout explanation, I found out that the friend had missed an instruction, after all. Gee wiz. Whodda thought..?

*Disclaimer: the lovely lady in this photo is not my mom. I don’t even know if she’s over 60 or not.

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