Tangled in technology

Computers make life easier--and more complicated

©1994, The Boston Globe

Starting a column on April Fool's Day may be asking for trouble, but it's no joke.

This is an effort to help make sense of the dazzling new machines that confuse, frustrate and intimidate us as they promise to perform wonders we could hardly imagine a decade ago.

Students sit in their dorm rooms browsing the Library of Congress card catalog. Hillary Rodham Clinton telephones her husband from an outdoor ceremony in Norway and reaches him in his car in Arkansas to put US Olympic gold medal winner Tommy Moe an the line. An octogenarian hula dancer has friends fax sheet music to her home in Hawaii.

In some ways, the new technology has made life easier.

We can punch one button instead of seven or 11 to call the kids. We can write readable, correctly spelled letters on a personal computer. Our children can check their multiplication and not worry about sloppy penmanship when doing their homework.

The cost of technology has fallen to the point that anxious parents can use beepers or even cellular telephones to keep track of their teenagers.

On the other hand, the inability of many people to program their VCRs has become a symbol of the vast gap between the buyers of these marvelous new machines and the engineers who made programming them cumbersome and the directions a nightmare.

Amateur mechanics who loved the self-reliance of setting the timing and tuning the carburetor have been shoved out from under the hood by microprocessors that eliminated familiar, adjustable parts. The new chips may have improved reliability and efficiency, but they also have increased our dependence on those trained and equipped to repair our high-tech cars when they break down.

And anyone who has sat alone at the keyboard of a personal computer has felt the urge at least once to smash it for refusing to perform a seemingly simple task. No one should have to learn the hard way that a euphemism like "General Protection Fault" really means, "Sorry, pal. You trusted me, and that just cost you a night's work."

One disadvantage of most computer "mice" is that their tails are too short to fling them across the room and thwack them against the wall.

What the wizards who sell us these wonders are learning as millions more of us shut our eyes and leap out onto the information highway is that ordinary people won't stand for the mind-numbing manuals and enraging computer crashes.

Joining the revolution does have its rewards.

Information is power-for consumers and cab drivers as well as congressmen and kings. Those who have it get ahead in an increasingly cerebral and digital world, where muscle doesn't mean much anymore.

A savvy bargain hunter can compare the price of vacuum cleaners or fishing rods while sitting at a home computer, instead of spending the weekend shuttling between shopping malls. (Not that everyone would want to, mind you. It's hard to feel the fabric, even on the fanciest Super VGA color display.)

A police officer can punch a license plate number into a dashboard computer and learn in seconds whether the fish-tailing car belongs to someone with a record for drunken driving or violent crime.

A third-grade social studies paper can look as if it just came from a slick print shop, complete with illustrations and quotes downloaded from America Online.

Ah, but access is a mixed blessing. Many of us are so awash in data that we can't find that one tidbit we need. Just try locating the best CD-ROM multimedia kit at the best price. I dare you.

Dialing into CompuServe can draw a novice deep into a dark forest, rich in resources but utterly bewildering, with pathways that lead anywhere but to one's destination. And on the vast vapor trails of the Internet, the veins are richer still, yet even more overwhelming.

We need better tools to help navigate this new wilderness, and we need to learn how to jettison the piles of clutter that bury us in gibberish as never before.

The designers and engineers, meanwhile, must make our machines more convenient for us instead of more complicated.

Just when we are getting comfortable with a home computer program that helps manage our money or makes writing old friends a pleasure, a snazzy new upgrade is announced that adds 20 confusing new features we don't need and renders obsolete the cutting-edge computer we bought a couple years ago as a long-term investment.

But it is, despite the frustrations, an exciting, challenging world, where things change-for better or for worse-in a hurry.

-- The Boston Globe, April 1, 1994