RE: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

Subject: RE: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?
From: <Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:16:03 -0700

I just ran across this article about John Haynes, the publisher of the
Haynes car repair manuals. The article had this to say about why people
don't fix stuff anymore:

"...Haynes does not produce manuals for all the menagerie of modern
gadgets that now surround us.

Neither have device manufacturers chosen to fill the void and produce a
range of simple "how-to"s for taking apart everyday gadgets.

The reasons for this are perhaps two-fold.

The first is that society has become less curious in how machines work -
they are no longer a novelty.

We are surrounded by complicated machines and if we had to understand
how each worked and how each could be repaired it would take up much of
our leisure time.

Secondly, the economic reward for looking after things is growing
smaller.

Increasingly the manufacturers of machines do not design them to be
repaired, and so it is often cheaper and easier to throw the mobile
phone, fridge or toaster away rather than repair it."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8210144.stm

--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat


Follow-Ups:

References:
Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?: From: Ned Bedinger

Previous by Author: Re: Are tech writers inherently snobby?
Next by Author: RE: Windows Vista and FrameMaker?
Previous by Thread: Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?
Next by Thread: Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads