Deliberate luddite behaviour .... or "just not getting computers" as they say to me.....

........................ Oh, alright then, since you asked me.
Fixing computers for friends and colleagues. Or friends of colleagues. Or children of colleagues. Fun.

But the most annoying, or perhaps irritating thing about it is that more often than not it's fixing stuff that shouldn't have happened in the first place. Invariably it's broken this or broken that, laptops or computers with huge virus problems.

And no matter how many times I've sent around emails or talked to folks about doing little things like regularly backing up everything or making sure they have the best free anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewalls in place - they rarely have. At which point they bring the computers to me. And I fix them with a smile and a gentle reminder that they should really think about doing regular back-ups and getting all that security software I've been telling them about. And halfway through I can see them forgetting to do it already.

It's at the stage now where I'm beginning to believe that it's actually some form of luddite-ism. Worse, there's almost a deliberate refusal to even think about these sorts of little things that would make their lives so much better and easier. You tell them what they need to do, these smart, educated people, and they look at you with glazed over eyes and always come out with something like "but I don't understand computers"

The thing is, we both know they don't mean don't. They mean wont.