I live in a community with a large number of elderly people.
Many of these people are still very functional. They are able to look after
themselves and are highly lucid. Even so, they're no longer able to tend to
their once pleasant gardens, and dirt accumulates in their apartments much more
quickly than they're able to deal with it. They're in need of help to keep their
homes in order, and, as is to be expected, an entire industry has arisen to
deal with those needs. This aging population isn't particularly different from
that in any other community, other than perhaps the fact that they are more
visibly still a part of the community. Many of these people have taken at least
the first steps toward being computer users. Often,
their computers are hand me downs from their children, though lately their children
seem to have realized that a state of the art machine
is best for their parents. Many of these old-new users (no need to link
to something on that, but I couldn't resist using the phrase) have haltingly
learned to use these machines, sometimes only for games and passing the time,
but quite frequently also for email contact with family, for typing their life
stories into a word processor, and for pursuing interests and hobbies via the
internet. I've had the opportunity to take a look
at the workings of a number of these computers, either when I'm called in to
solve a problem, or to give some longer range instruction. I've discovered that
just as these people need help tending their gardens or cleaning their apartments,
they could also benefit from a weekly clean-up visit to their hard drives.
On the face of things, I'm hardly the right person to be
offering a cleaning service. My own hard drives are perennially in need of spring
cleaning. They're filled with older versions
of articles that were finished long ago and can now be thrown out, with numerous
programs that never get opened but are still installed, with duplicates of items
that I perhaps wanted to glance at in order to make sure they're truly duplicates rather than different versions of something before
discarding, and lots more - primarily mp3 files and digital photos. And that's
not to mention the vast quantities of very old mail that any normal person would
feel quite comfortable parting with. But it's not the need for this sort of
cleaning up that I've encountered when I've met with the older people I've worked
with. Their cleaning-up problems are simpler - they don't accumulate files with
anything close to the frequency that I do. On the other hand, their cleaning-up
needs are perhaps also a bit more confusing. Many of the hard drives I've viewed
suffer from what seems to be a classic problem of the elderly: shaky fingers.
This may seem strange to people who feel at home with a mouse in their hands,
but for some people, and many of the elderly are certainly included in this
group, executing a double-click on an icon without
the mouse moving at the same time isn't the simplest of maneuvers. Numerous times the
results of the attempted double-click, rather than being the opening of the
desired document or program, is moving it, or making an
additional copy of it, or changing it in some other unexpected way.
Numerous tools are, of course, available for cleaning
up a hard drive. I think the going name for this sort of thing is "system
optimization", though a wide variety of functions can fall under that category.
Perhaps the easiest way to return to a sense of order on an older person's computer
would be to install one of these tools, set it to run an automatic weekly cleaning
session (in the same way that we've learned to run a
weekly virus check) and let the software do its work. My guess, however,
is that a software package that cleans up somebody's hard drive makes certain
assumptions about the mess that it's going to encounter, and in the cases that
I'm familiar with, there's rarely method to the madness. What's more, I've come
to realize that "the rest of us" aren't, and almost by definition
can't be, the projected audience for these tools. Because there are millions
upon millions of computer users, there are also a vast number who run numerous
programs on their computers, and/or have thousands upon thousands of files that
sooner or later demand to get put into some semblance of order. Within these
groups there's also the target audience of those who are also willing to take
the time to clean up their computers and make them run faster. The people
whose computers I've "cleaned" wouldn't know how to run software of
this sort. On the whole, they don't need it.
Judging by the number and variety of mishaps that I've
had to put back in order, it's a good guess that there are very many elderly
people (and not a few not-elderly) who could use a personalized digital cleaning
service - someone who makes a weekly visit in order to move icons back to where
they're expected to be, someone who deletes a duplicate of a folder that's causing
confusion because it's inside its original folder, who checks the list of Word
documents that weren't closed properly that shows
up on a substantial part of the screen, blocking part of the desired document
when Word gets opened. Virtual clutter may be less distressing than the tangible
clutter of papers and dirt and whatever that accumulates in someone's apartment.
The main difference between virtual clutter and regular old mess is that nobody
really sees the former and thus nobody gets nagged for not cleaning it up. I'm
convinced that there's a large and growing population of aging computer users
who, though they're aware that something is amiss - they've misplaced documents,
or a program isn't opening correctly, and the like - aren't calling for aid
because it's easier simply to leave well enough alone. They may have an almost
primal fear of technology that may not affect them on a daily basis, but comes
to the fore when they have to turn for help. It's easier for them to simply
adjust to the reality of not knowing where a particular file is, or no longer
playing a game that doesn't open properly, or do things in a roundabout manner
that avoids a problem but also makes the user experience much less enjoyable.
Underlying this willingness to adjust rests an assumption that may be common
to almost all computers users, but especially so among the elderly - that computers
are too complicated for us anyway, so if something isn't working, well, that's
to be expected.
Anti-virus and system optimization software promise a service that sounds rather
high-class. The names of these programs often suggest a certain professionalism. We expect to
find words like doctor or diagnostic in them. Perhaps a software
package of this sort would be a laboratory. The same can't exactly be
said for a janitorial service. What sort of name might we give to a software
package that promised little more than performing an occasional sweeping up,
or washing the dishes left in the sink? Whatever name we might give it (I doubt
that Jack the Handyman would sell many copies, and it would be far too
easy to think of titles with undesirable racial overtones) wouldn't be a name
that would encourage people to spend money on it. On the one hard, perhaps that's
a pity - this is a real need, and it seems as though it's not being attended
to. On the other, I'm convinced that this is more of a hands-on task, a task
that a flesh-and-blood person would perform much better than a piece of software.
Perhaps he or she could even do a bit of explaining and teaching at the same
time. But even if he or she were able to explain what to do in order to make
an additional call unnecessary, it's my guess that a weekly sweep wouldn't hurt.
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