For my work, I'm having to create a quick-start guide for an electronic device. This is a device with literally 3 outputs / buttons. A power button, a USB port and a headphone jack.
Why do consumers need a quick-start guide for this? The answer, of course, is because most Americans are too stupid to figure out what is perfectly obvious to a normal, intelligent person. They need to have their hands held literally every step of the way on everything, or they'll fuck it up, complain to customer service (deferring their stupidity onto someone else) and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars. To create a quick-start guide is, relatively, way cheaper than fielding all those moronic calls.
But it makes me wonder, are we actually perpetuating stupidity by dumbing down everything? Are we creating a world where people expect to have the most basic of functions (turn on device by pressing power) spelled out for them?
I think so.
If we forced people to figure things out more (maybe even from an early age! Imagine that!), maybe we'd have a smarter society.
Or, maybe I'd be the one having to field the annoying customer service calls of "Ah cain't figger owt whah mah thang don' turn awn."*
*(not that I have a problem with country / southern accents. It's just that most of the people I've heard that can't figure out the most basic of functions tend to have them. No offense to any intelligent person out there who happens to be cursed with this regional accent).
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