Salad with that Smartphone?

Recently a close friend of ours, Dette, decided to enlist my aid in swapping the old cell phone she topped up each month for her texts, to a new smartphone.

The motivation was an advertisement that offered a smartphone for $79. At that price she was prepared to make the quantum leap into the use of modern technology.  The whole exercise became a lesson for both of us (albeit for quite different reasons) on the growing generation gap.

Before we embarked I asked what she was looking for.
“The ability to text, the odd phone call and taking photos,” she said.
“Nothing more?” I asked.
It was then I realised Dette didn’t know what she didn’t know. You may laugh but unless you are constantly exposed to the technology how can you be aware of the myriad of applications available? In my enthusiasm I quickly showed the capability of my Apple iPhone and even managed to briefly touch on the iPad it was ‘joined at the hip’ with.

Understandably Dette’s eyes glazed over in 45 seconds flat!!!

It was then I had an epiphany and used the analogy of making a lettuce salad with moving to a smartphone. Dette’s old phone with its very limited capability and archaic texting features was like a salad of just lettuce. Not that tasty but adequate.

“Would you like some tomatoes and sliced red onion with that?” I asked (a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard).
“That sounds good,” she said, “but I’d like sliced cucumber, snow peas and a little coriander also.” (Bluetooth, MP3 player and a 5 MP camera). “What about the dressing?” she added, “That will give the salad just a bit more zing.” (Access to any number of apps and emails).
“Make it any way you want,” was my reply.

I thought we just about had the concept down pat so we took off for a local shop at the mall that sells all manner of smartphones and peripherals.

Scene three and here are two ‘oldies’ requesting advice on the range of smartphones. We were served by a young lady who obviously had her mind elsewhere judging by her mono-syllabic mumbled responses to basic questions. The language she used was abbreviated and was interspersed with technical jargon Dette was finding impossible to follow. If this is the standard ‘meet and greet’ techniques employed by such stores I am amazed they sell anything to people in the older age group.

“All I want is a reasonably basic smartphone,” Dette said. She ended up buying one for $99 and thanks to an advertisement took advantage of a $19 per month prepay deal.

On the way home with her purchase Dette started asking questions about the options she would now have, next steps, where was the manual etc.

“What happened to the salad Dette?” I asked.

That’s when she finally saw it and said, “Of course, I can decide what I want, just pick what is important for me now and I can add bits later on.”
Right on!

Alex Sharp, Age Hacker