Just about everyone who regularly uses a computer will know how much time they waste because of it – waiting for downloads, waiting for applications to start, waiting for the thing to power up in the first place. And especially (except for those who love to flirt with disaster) the time wasted keeping software up-to-date. So on balance, do computers save time or waste time?
“Waste time!” is likely to be the emphatic reply from most people. The trouble is, as human beings we tend to take for granted what works and give undue attention to what does not. It is the stuff that irritates us that stands out most in our minds. Computers, of course, excel at irritating us and for a great many have won a reputation as monstrous time-wasters.
Much of the time that is wasted is directly due to lack of awareness. With every passing month, software of all flavours is improving – it works better, works faster, is more intuitive, and can do more on its own. Software is getting smarter, trying to second-guess you (try the Writer software from OpenOffice, which fills in the rest of the word as you type). Money is being poured into the psychology of using IT so that how human beings work and play in reality matches more closely what software does. Even older software is likely to have time-saving facilities that do not advertise their presence. Invest an hour of your time poking around a new or existing application, you may be surprised by what you find. Be inquisitive.
You may fret at the loss of 30 seconds waiting for that email software to open up, and fret again when it takes 10 seconds just to send the email. But consider the alternative – type out and send a fax, or even worse, write a letter and post it. Which uses less of your time? And then consider how much faster the whole process takes ie. communicating from yourself to someone else. Such annoying delays should be viewed as simply the price to pay for overall speed and convenience.
The ultimate in wasted time is that spent on updating and backing up. In the same way that insurance is a waste of money every year you make no claim, this is more a matter of how you look at things. Five years of saved insurance premiums are very unlikely to cover the cost of replacing a burnt-down house. Similarly, half an hour a week spent backing up personal data avoids many more hours spent trying to work out and recreate lost addresses, documents, databases, financial records etc. etc. You may never need a backup, but there again, you may!
Updating software is a bit of a special case. It is always a difficult choice unless the update is purely for security reasons. Do you really need or want the additional facilities being promised? Will it really be better software as promised? Will the upgrade process itself screw up your system?? The flip side is using out-dated and increasingly unsupported software. The choice is basically lots of little changes versus a few very big changes, because sooner or later you will be forced to upgrade. And making big changes is usually much more painful. Such updates almost always take longer than they should – again, it is best to view this as an investment of your time and brainpower to win a smooth-running and up-to-date computer.
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