Marginalia
A miscellany of musings on the tech that crosses my path
Friday 1 May 2009, 8:26 AM
Don't know your dongle from your cookie?
You are not alone.
A company called the Gadget Helpline has done a survey of more than 5,000 people and found that many of us find tech words confusing.
Of course I don't mean us. Clearly anyone reading this post has every bit of technobabble fully defined, filed away and ready to use at the drop of a hat.
No, I mean them - the great British public.
These are the top ten confusing terms:
dongle
cookie
wap
phone jack
(Nokia) navi key
time shifting
digital TV
Ethernet
PC Suite
desktop
It is an ecclectic mix, and as I have to admit to having gleaned this story from the BBC and can’t find an actual press release at the Gadget Helpline’s Web site I can’t tell you anything about how the research sample was put together.
Could it be a subset of the people paying £2.99 a month for the privilege of phoning the Gadget Helpline for help with their gadgets? I was under the impression that everyone in the world (OK, everyone I know), phoned me for that.
Note to self: must start charging.
A company called the Gadget Helpline has done a survey of more than 5,000 people and found that many of us find tech words confusing.
Of course I don't mean us. Clearly anyone reading this post has every bit of technobabble fully defined, filed away and ready to use at the drop of a hat.
No, I mean them - the great British public.
These are the top ten confusing terms:
dongle
cookie
wap
phone jack
(Nokia) navi key
time shifting
digital TV
Ethernet
PC Suite
desktop
It is an ecclectic mix, and as I have to admit to having gleaned this story from the BBC and can’t find an actual press release at the Gadget Helpline’s Web site I can’t tell you anything about how the research sample was put together.
Could it be a subset of the people paying £2.99 a month for the privilege of phoning the Gadget Helpline for help with their gadgets? I was under the impression that everyone in the world (OK, everyone I know), phoned me for that.
Note to self: must start charging.
PreviousComments on this post
It's worse Sandra: some users of my acquaintance don't know what a browser, or indeed 'an application' is. To them it's just "the Internet" - but that's how AOL sells it I guess - keep 'em stoopid, keep the money rolling in...
Get this one.
Customer: "Help I've lost i tunes"!
Me: "Is it a PC or Mac"?
Customer "Ummm it's a laptop".
Me: "Ok I'll have to look at it".
Must be a PC laptop then!
Oh dear - and some people actually think it's called the "Interweb" now you know...
We're all doomed. Doomed I tell you.
