i like my in-laws.
They're charming, wholesome folk from North West Connecticut. He worked in a factory most of his life. She worked in a pharmacy. They were born, raised, lived and will most likely die in the same small town, surrounded by the same people they have know most of their lives.
So, naturally, i like to perform experiments on them.
Recently, i've heard a fair bit of discussion talking about how the prototypical techno-phobe "Mom" is horribly wrong. Moms are pretty darn tech-savvy. Heck, there are plenty of Grandma's that are equally versed in the digital realms and are the first to tell you. My inlaws, however, are not those people.
They are quite content to passively consume media from the Big Three Networks, because they always have done that. They might watch a few shows on the cable, but the most daring they'd stray is watching Food Network. i've asked them questions about the shows they've just finished watched they couldn't answer like "Where was that restaurant?" or "So, what was the lead characters name again?" i don't really want this to sound derogatory, but they have the intellectual curiousity of a bottle of aspirin. Right now, my wife is explaining to her parents the concept of on-line TV guides. They are far from stupid. It's just that they have little to no interest in technology or advancement.
So, whenever i try to gauge if a given technology is simple and "mainstream" enough, i immediately think of them. It's not simple unless they can understand it. It's not useful until they think it's valuable. When i slam the iPad as being incomplete, they're the ones i have in mind (my answer may change once it's possible to create and print mailing labels from an iPad). Of course, they would still need a keyboard, mouse and a stand so they can keep it on the computer desk.
They have a laptop with a 7 hour battery that they brought with them so i could set it up. When they wanted to check their email, they asked to use my wife's computer.
What's important to realize is that there are a LOT of folks that are exactly like this. It's not an age thing either, since i have younger cousins who are like this. We are a nation of 300,000,000, and a planet of 7,000,000,000. Only one in ten people in the US are Netflix subscribers. Only about one in seventeen people on the planet has a Facebook account. As far under the bleeding edge as we all may be, there's an equal if not greater population of folks that are not. Even 40 years into this, we're still pioneers.
