Tyranny of Expertise?

therecklessone

I'm posting this here even though it deals primarily with an issue of technology, because it also deals with the impact that the growing reliance on technology specialists has on one's life.

If any mod wants to move this, whilst calling me a fool, feel free.

I saw an article recently (can't remember where/when) dealing with what was referred to as a "tyranny of expertise". The phrase stuck in my mind, and I've mentioned it a few times to various friends when we've been talking about developments in technology. The basic premise was that with the increasingly complicated nature of technology, users have become reliant on specialists who are the "only" people capable of solving seemingly-unsolveable tech problems.

Personal computing is a case in point. I consider myself to a person of above-average computer knowledge, but I am also aware of where to look for answers to my computing problems. Computer kept freezing last week, got to the point that I couldn't even start up without it going pear shaped. Identified the problem (CD-R/RW was kaputt) and disconnected it from IDE cable. Computer started up perfectly well, no problems since. Now I had noticed a few glitches with the CD-R before, so I had an inkling where to look. My point is that the average user would have called in the repair man at the first sign of trouble, and paid through the nose for the priviledge.

Another time I spent a while trying to tune my brothers video for him. Nothing seemed to work, tried various cables etc., all to no avail. Scoured the manual, and found out that some TV channels can broadcast on the same frequency as the video player, and I would have to choose another frequency (for the video). TV3 was the offending channel by the way, I'm blaming Trevor Welch.

I suppose what I'm trying to get at is this: do people allow themselves to believe that they couldn't possibly fix the problem with their new gadget, and call in the experts out of habit? Or is it that manufacturers haven't grasped the concept of usability and compatability yet, and so create a need for technicians to resolve what should be a relatively straight forward problem?

Borzoi

A huge issue here is the role of the technical writer as a bridge between the tech engineer/developer and the layman. I know I'm terrible for speaking in technobabble, and find it difficult to express problems in plain English, without overdoing it and soundiing patronizing.:D

Another factor is the eng/deloper always wants to add huge amounts of functionality because they can, the sort of thing that just makes life more complex, but presents a challege to an engineer to do properly. For instance mobile phones, what percentage of people use all the feature? I suspect this is the 80/20 rule again where 80% use 20% of the functions.

The third point would be that as technology becomes more complex, more people are tending to specilise in particular areas, and ignoring others. This is the sort of thing that helps to isolate a person from the rest of the worls, and yes they do get to be feted as the 'god' of their specialist knowledge, but at what cost in other areas?

mike65

This is an issue of our times no question - just try diagnosing
any fuel/air problems on a modern car, you require a bloke in a white coat with code reader in hand.

Of course many problems that do occure are quite fixable by the layman if willing to do a little reading but confronted by a black box or digital readout most of us go into techno-shock and pick up the phone.

Nothing new in this, ask any rich plumber or electrician!

I'm no genius but the number of domestic and auto probs I've fixed, when I suspect many would have not bothered, must have saved me or my Mum hundreds if not thousands over the years and ditto my dad doing the same before me (back then of course everything was steam-powered! ).

Mike.

Crunch

exactly Mike, I on the other hand, can't fix cars or do plumbing, so I have to pay for it, whereas if there is a computer problem, I can mostly fix it. (and get to do so for the entire family and friends as well)

Point, I want my car fixed for free as well
(sorry just rambling, wanna get outta work)

skipn_easy

I am glad that everyone can't fix their own computers. Thats when they call me or others in the industry and pay them to fix them.

On the other hand, I hate paying for dentists, mechanics, plumbers etc. because I don't know if I'm being fleeced by them. They're the experts and I have to trust them, but it's annoying when you think you're being taken for a ride or that you could've done it yourself and paid for the part and not 100 euros for labour.

Kell

I think the point is that some people are technically inclined and some just aren't. Worryingly, more people seem to becoming less technically inclined which is odd considering everything from yer basic doodad to your most complicated doodad is getting more technical by the day it seems.

K-

bonkey

Originally posted by therecklessone
I suppose what I'm trying to get at is this: do people allow themselves to believe that they couldn't possibly fix the problem with their new gadget, and call in the experts out of habit? Or is it that manufacturers haven't grasped the concept of usability and compatability yet, and so create a need for technicians to resolve what should be a relatively straight forward problem?

As Kell just said, everything is getting more complicated these days. This is part of it...as is the question as to whether or not it all needs to be so complicated...but how and ever.

Another factor is progress itself. My dad was telling me recently that his car has 210,000 on the clock, and the only things ever replaced in the car were the tires and brake-pads. Everything else has run perfectly. Part of this is undoubtedly due to these little on-board computers doing all the little bits that they do, to help the modern car run more smoothly, more efficiently, and in better shape for longer. Should we trade this for the ability to do away with the need for the man in the white coat with his little laptop who you will otherwise need for your slightest bit of engine-tuning?

Sometimes, thats a tough call.

In other cases, it is often down to useability. Was it Ford made a big deal about some car where they had - for the first time - speficially asked women for their opinion to make the car more suited to the female driver? Revolutionary idea...and it was in the 90's that it happened! Unfortunately, complexity seems to be moving faster than improvements in useability, making whatever progress has been made mostly obsolete.

Lets not leave out the technophobes. In fact, most people are technophobic to one degree or another. Almost all of us have some type of technology that we just don't get along with.

And finally, there's a comment from an ex-boss of mine which I think sums up the remaining problem completely :

"There are many things I could know, that I choose not to".

I have a finite amount of time. I don't want to spend every evening learning about some other skill I need to be more self-sufficient. I'm not interested in being able to do more than the basics under the hood of my car, and knowing a little bit about the principles of the modern combustion engine. I choose not to know the rest of that stuff because I have other things I choose to spend my time on. I could read a book on car maintenance, or on electrical motor repair, or go figure out how to use all the functions on my phone...but you know what. I choose not to. I choose to sit here and post on boards. I choose to watch movies. I choose not to know.

In an increasingly complex world, we all must increasingly make this choice - deciding what we choose to learn and know, and what we choose not to, in the amount of time we are willing to spend on learning.

As long as you're willing to make that choice, then you shouldn't feel bad about not knowing how to do something that you know you could know. I mean - if your mate can rebuild a corrupted partition-table on a hard-disk by hand....then you should be able to too? Right?

Sometimes its tyranny. Sometimes its choice.

jc

DadaKopf

Aye, it's the neccessary consequences of technolgisation. The division of labour and all that.

It was once possible to know about everything you needed to know but then countries got bigger, people could communicate further, travel further. Knowledge expanded and people were only able to bother learning about what was most relevant to them.

Star Trek always amazes me. They're all flying on a gigantic starship with billions of complex components, there's clearly an extensive, hierarchical division of labour and still Captains and senior officers know something about everything. They're rarely seen getting the advice of lesser mortals.

A vision of the future it isn't!

therecklessone

Originally posted by bonkey


I have a finite amount of time. I don't want to spend every evening learning about some other skill I need to be more self-sufficient. I'm not interested in being able to do more than the basics under the hood of my car, and knowing a little bit about the principles of the modern combustion engine. I choose not to know the rest of that stuff because I have other things I choose to spend my time on. I could read a book on car maintenance, or on electrical motor repair, or go figure out how to use all the functions on my phone...but you know what. I choose not to. I choose to sit here and post on boards. I choose to watch movies. I choose not to know.


jc

Good point Bonkey, one that I really should have made myself. Its not that I'm criticising Joe Soap for his failure to keep up to date with technology, nor do I expect him to be able to solve truly complex problems. We'll always need specialists, thats not in dispute.

But some times I despair when hearing family or friends describe problems they encounter in everyday life. Like the sister-in-law who works in the IT section of a major State body, who needed me to install the driver software for her digital camera. Or the fact that every time my brother redecorates (this happens regularly, don't ask why), I get a call to help him re-tune his TV/Video/Digital set-up.

Sometimes I think its like hiring an electrician to change a light bulb. On the other hand, I'd never think of re-wiring a house myself, thats a job for the specialists among us. I like to think there's a happy medium to be found, somewhere between the two.

sceptre

Increasing complication leads to increasing specialisation. It's Friedman's pencil example in action.

Like therecklessone I think there's something of a happy medium to be found. It's worth having a basic knowledge of a few everyday things, even if it's as relatively simple as installing a driver for a device on a computer, knowing where the oil goes into a car, knowing how to wire a plug and so on. It doesn't necessarily have to stretch to knowing what function the registers serve on the computer, changing a fan-belt or being able to wire a house.

With technical things, some people certainly have an attitude of regarding the most simple things as being beyond them though - look at the amount of people who can't programme a video, don't want to know and rely on someone else to do it. From personal experience, doing tech support in an office, some people are curious and will give something the time if they think it's worth it to them to learn, some people just won't. My girlfriend has long had an attitude of "technical things are beyond me (her)." I'm rather impatient in some ways and not in others so I'll gladly give the time to teach her something regardless of how long it takes if she's willing to learn it. She has no intention of ever learning how to programme the video though (some day I'll get SkyPlus and she'll be happy). Very few people are technically illiterate with no hope of recovery though - it's the attitude that makes all the difference.

Perhaps it comes down to curiosity. Back when I was in college my core group of friends were rather interested in technical things - anything from PCs to fixing toasters and VCRs. We didn't hang out because of that - it just turned out in the end that it's what we happened to be into. Three of us went into IT after we left (programming, technical writing & software testing and sysadminning), one of us became an accountant. I'd be rather disappointed if there was a techy device I had in the house that I knew nothing about but I've no idea of how to lay tiles. Priorities kick in even for the curious.

mike65

...but I've no idea of how to lay tiles. [/B]

Tsk.......:o

Did you ever look at the back of an electric cooker? When new there's a sticker which practically demands you get a qualified
electrician to wire the thing up...it takes about 5 mins and big
screwdriver.....

Mike.

Specky

it takes about 5 mins and big

...and you can kill yourself, start a fire or damage the appliance/your house if you do it wrong.

I think we are all talking from a somewhat distorted viewpoint. Everyone on this list is reasonably technically adept. You must be. You have a computer, you've managed to get it switched on and somehow meandered your way to the boards site and managed somehow to enter a message and click on the submit button.

There is a HUGE portion of the population for whom every stage of that process is an enormous barrier.

Probably one of the biggest problems with technology is that designers design things for themselves and people like themselves. I've worked for the past 20 years designing electronic equipment and writing software for a whole range of different sectors. I've also spent most of that time training installer and end users, meeting customers and talking about what they want to be able to do. This is a luxury that the majority of people involved in design have not had.

Equipment has to be designed in such a way as to be useable by the most technically inept end user possible, and most equipment is not.

In a very recent training session I was showing some people how to use a very simple PC based user interface. The opening screen presents the user with 9 options, the user makes the selection by clicking on one of 9 buttons, the WHOLE OF THE SCREEN is divided into a 3 x 3 grid to make up these 9 buttons so on a 14 inch monitor each button is about 3" x 4". Pretty big buttons I think you'll agree. One user could not navigate the pointer into the desired button and click on it despite about TEN MINUTES trying.

This is no word of a lie.

They were not physically or mentally dissabled in any way. They simply had never used a PC or a mouse before and just couldn't manage the co-ordination of hand to eye to pointer to index finger that we all take for granted.

Even rocket science isn't rocket science when you're a rocket scientist.

Technical ability is relative. In the past there were less things to know about. If you could find your way around the internal combustion engine, knew a little about electricity and the rudiments of fluid mechanics you could do almost anything (exageration patrol where are you now??).

Now there are too many variants on the engine to be able to quickly find your way around, highly variable electronic and software controls exist in most things which are just too varied for any one person to quickly understand precisely what they are doing and even in plumbing there are too many variations and special ways of doing things to be able to quickly get to grips with what's going on.

I think I have two points (from all that rambling),

1. products are exceptionally badly designed. Software is a product, btw, and a lot of applications are really bad
2. nothing is really all that hard but we just don't have the time or the inclination to learn all the specifics you need to know to be able to work on absolutelt any piece of equipment. Sure, lots of us know enough of the basics to be able to "work it out" because we know what we're trying to achieve and can recognise the similarities in things, but don't think you're some sort of genius just because you can and don't berate others just because they can't

Paddy20

Tyranny of Expertise?.

Sorry, but I regard even the title of this Thread as hogwash.
No such tyranny exists.

We are lucky here in Ireland, where an overwhelming amount of
FREE advice is available to those who are prepared to listen and
avail of these free state and voluntary and manufacturers
services?..

Anyone attempting DIY repairs on equipment that they may no
little about, without at least getting some expert opinions or
un- biased free advice is either crazy or a numbskull.

Just ask any GP or Citizens Information Centre or Hospital casualty dept and you may well get some very sobering facts.

Manufacturers of most products advise in information stickers etc, on their equipment what to do in any given circumstances.
Unfortunately, some people choose to ignore this advice against the most basic common sense guidelines, and end up paying the ultimate price?..Death!.

Any posts that encourage people to try fixing it themselves without warning is totally irresponsible, and not to be encouraged. Think about IT!,FIRST?..

P.

therecklessone

I never attempted to encourage people to attempt half-ar*ed DIY which could put them in danger. And the topic is far from hogwash. Look at what Specky had to say:

There is a HUGE portion of the population for whom every stage of that process is an enormous barrier.

Fact is, most people either do not know how to perform anything above the most basic tasks, or have convinced themselves that they don't know.

I'm gonna give you an example I encountered during the week, to show you how even those with the knowledge and motivation can find themselves banging their heads against a brick wall.

I bought a Sony digital camera a couple of weeks ago. Installed all the relevant software, but never tried connecting the camera to the computer until Wednesday. Connected the USB cable, and the computer went about installing the new device UNTIL it told me I was missing three files, USBNTMAP.SYS, USBTOR.SYS, and usbmphlp.pdr. Easy I thought, they should be on my Windows CD...only I don't have one. Packard Bell didn't ship one, think Windows (ME) is on the Recovery CD, I'll have to look.

Anyway, first port of call was the Windows support site, no joy. Luckily I found a link to a Winguides support site for Windows, which helped me track down two of the three. Google did the other for me. During my search I came across a number of forums where person after person reported that neither Microsoft nor Sony were able to solve this problem for them, having gone through their support centres. Free manufacturers services were of what use to them?

I was lucky in that I knew where to search for the solutions. My sister-in-law (the one who couldn't install the driver software) wouldn't have had a clue.

One point you raised:

We are lucky here in Ireland, where an overwhelming amount of
FREE advice is available to those who are prepared to listen and
avail of these free state and voluntary and manufacturers
services?..

Does this not go some way to proving my point, i.e. that people have to ask for help (free or not, it further compounds the division of designer and user)