The Consumer and the Computer
I have been trying to understand how people went from the Television world into the Computer world. I not well-qualified to do this, because I stopped watching TV a long time ago (it was more than I could cope with). When I was working, I worked in the Computer world, and now I am retired, I blog on my computer every day.
I have compensated for my lack of TV-watching experience by reading McLuhan and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman says a lot about the Television Commercial – the great gift of Television to Mankind. On page 128 he amplifies on this:
What an advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product, but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research.
The Television Commercial has oriented business away from making products of value and toward making consumers feel valuable, which means the business of business now becomes pseudo-therapy. The consumer is a patient assured by psycho-dramas.
This sounds right to me – I have never heard it put better.
Now I am asking myself “How does the Computer fit into this?” At the unconscious level, everyone else was asking themselves the same thing. People expected the Computer to carry on the work of the Television. Which it could not, because it was not the same thing at all.
What happened? People still wanted to be entertained (the greatest need in their lives). So the computer user interface was quickly improved to do just that – in one of the greatest design efforts of all time – and one whose social impact has never been properly appreciated.
People got used to the new Graphical User Interface (GUI) which was more interesting than Television – because the communication there was two-way – the Computer could do what the user wanted it to do!
The user became all-powerful (at least in that little corner of his world)! No therapy was required, because this had always been Mankind’s ardent wish – to be a demigod!
And with the new hand-held devices he was just that. He did not have do anything, they would do everything for him! And he could be a perfect moron.
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Now I have written this, I am not sure what to do with it. Its basic insight is astonishing (if I do say so myself). Perhaps others will find it useful.
I find you very interesting. I used to live in Redmond, because my husband worked at the Microsoft Corporate office there. I kept meeting people who were on their way up to retire in Costa Rica. Supposedly it’s really cheap there. I did some online research and it looked like it was way more expensive than Texas. (Where I live now.)
I heard that Costa Rica was becoming more expensive because of all of the Americans retiring there. Is there some magical secret place that’s still cheap? And if so, how cheap is it?
I have a family of 6 with no mortgage and no debt and our monthly expenses including all the tax and insurances comes to about $3,000 a month. Is it possible to live cheaper than that in Costa Rica? And if so, do the cheap places have internet access?
The answer is maybe. People keep asking this all the time, and I keep giving them the same answer – come down and try it out. There is no way to know in advance.
High-speed Internet access is spotty, but like the States, some Wireless networks also provide Internet access. But here again, this situation changes constantly.
Costa Rica is the most expensive country in Latin America – for a reason: it has the best social services, such as medical care. Gringos keep looking for a paradise, however, which this is not.
Try it out, that’s not hard to do. Rent for awhile. Your children will quickly come to their own conclusions.