An Open Letter to Cory Doctorow in Defence of My Mom
Hi Cory, I saw your post on Boing Boing about why you aren't getting an iPad and how this is a moral choice that the rest of us would do well to follow. I'm writing because while I have no problem with your decision that the device isn't for you, it seems utterly strange to me that you think that your circumstances and reasoning should apply to everyone else. In particular, I wanted to spend a little time defending the honour of my mother.
Here's what you said:
...there was this mainstream consensus that the web and PCs were too durned geeky and difficult and unpredictable for "my mom" (it's amazing how many tech people have an incredibly low opinion of their mothers).Frankly, Cory, I'm a little offended that you think that just because I know that my mother has better things to do with her life than puzzle out the difference between sleep, hibernate, and shutdown that I have a low opinion of her.
Your writing about the iPad has this eerie Maker's Myopia to it. You seem to think, "I want machines that are easy to take apart and hard to use, so everyone must." While I get that there are benefits to giving kids and other people a chance to mess around in the guts of things and find out what puts them together, I don't think this is the best of all possible states of human affairs at all possible times.
Let me share with you a recent email exchange with my mother. Mom doesn't own a computer these days, so she uses public library machines several times a week to stay in touch, research things, and generally surf the net.
From: My Mom
To: Me, My Brother
Subject: ??
Message:
Computer advice.
I am using the computer at the library and I am not sure how you are meant to do
"control-alt-delete"
I am using the computer at the library and I am not sure how you are meant to do
"control-alt-delete"
Do you push all at once or one after the other? I do get it to work but sometimes have to do a bunch of fiddling!
Thanks for your advice!
love Mom
From: Me
To: My Mom
Subject: Re: ??
Message:
Hold down CTRL and ALT. While they are held down, hit DELETE. Note also that DELETE is not the same as BACKSPACE :)
My mother is not a stupid person, Cory. She was vice president of a national charity before she retired and has done tremendous work improving the lives of women and children all around the world. And yet, over a decade into her having an email address, she still runs afoul if the vaious ways that the current generation of computers are confusing, badly documented, and generally user unfriendly. Note that we are talking here about the procedure to initiate a login. This is a struggle to work out how to even START. But at least she can tinker, right?Make no mistake, the option to tinker with a device does not come free. Devices that get tinkered with require extra care and feeding. They break down in all kinds of interesting ways which can be a great learning experience, if you want to learn about the device. Or devices in general. But if you are at a point where you have something to do that the device is enabling, say reading textbooks to study for an exam, maybe now's not the time to tinker.
Here's the thing about people: we have different interests, we specialize. To trot out the old car analogy: I'm totally thrilled that there are specialist shops that allow enthusiasts to customize their cars down to the spark-plug timing, but that doesn't mean I want to have to know how to fix a car in order to be able to drive it. This goes in all kinds of directions. The breadth and depth of human knowledge is vast an unfathomable. For the areas where we want to learn, we should demand machines that let us tinker and dig around. But for the areas where we don't, there's no harm in a well-made, maintenance-free, easy-to-use solution. In fact, there's a massive benefit.
I have no idea how to take apart the stove in my kitchen though I am very glad that there are people who do. I know enough to cook on it and greatly enjoy tinkering at the recipe level but I'm not above buying pre-made pasta, and I have no interest in learning to make wine. A friend of mine is getting into brewing so he has an elaborate system of tubs and tubes that he'll wrangle into ales. I look forward to trying the results of his work, but also enjoy being able to pop down to the Beer Store on a hot afternoon.
When people talk about making a computer that their mom can use it's because for a long time NO ONE HAS. My mom doesn't want to tinker with her computer (neither does my dad), she wants to use that time to send emails and photos and maintain the complex network of relationships that is the focus of her time online. She wants to tinker with family while I want to tinker with web pages. For her, the iPad might be perfect.
