• by Amanda , July 3, 2008

I have heard of early adopters to technology and late adopters to technology. I propose another class of people like me: tech procrastinators. We buy the gadgets, read the instructions, but then can’t be bothered to actually figure out and use these gadgets properly. I would argue that generally, it takes someone else to push us into actually using these devices properly, if ever.

Case and point: I received a hand-me-down iPod from my brother about two years ago (I wrote my first blog for NftDF about it, actually). To this day I have never learned to use iTunes. Seriously. I have no idea how it works, though I hear it’s easy, and wonderful, etc… The good thing about this situation is that I really like the music that he downloaded onto the iPod already, so I don’t feel the need to change it. It’s much more likely that I will just buy myself a new iPod and make my brother fill that one with more current music, and so on, and so on…

Similarly, I have had my new phone (I know, I will stop talking about it sometime) for three-ish months and never synced the email which, I promise you, was the reason why I bought the phone in the first place. Instead, I spent 102 days going to my webmail online at least 4-5 times every day. It was annoying, but I just wasn’t motivated enough to figure out how to sync it properly. Finally, a colleague synced it for me (I'm pretty sure she was sick of hearing me complain about how long it took).

I’m currently house-sitting and seriously enjoying the fully-loaded DVR. I realized the other night, whilst watching reruns of “Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares", that there is absolutely no chance that I will actually learn how to use the DVR outside of watching already-recorded shows. So it is really not much different than having DVDs of those shows… I guess that’s the life of a tech procrastinator.

I will be moving soon which will present a host of new media issues; namely, the likelihood of having cable is minimal. My boyfriend suggested hooking my laptop up to my TV and watching online video there. It sounds like a really good idea. Probability of actually doing it: minimal, if any at all. Unless he sets it up.

I’m not sure if anyone else falls into this same category, but I find that when it comes to media, I want all of the benefits without much work.