Technology: Enthusiast or User

Shane · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 4:26 am

Which are you? (Please read entire passage before answering)

Enthusiast:
- You want to know how things work, you want to know why they function as they do.
- You enjoy messing around with technology, though you may not always be successful you gain from this pursuit.
- The potential to be annoying while pursuing your interest of technology.
- You see magic and not just a plain box.
- You want more.

User:
- You don't really care how things work, as long as it works you're fine.
- You'd rather be updating your Facebook status or doing something else that doesn't revolve around technology.
- You find it extremely odd that people enjoy tinkering with things that should be a given.
- You often ask others for help with problems.
- You are content with the current amount of technology.

I want to know which group your class yourself in and why. After enough people have posted I will incorporate the results from this topic into what I discovered today. Oh and if I have not updated this with my post in a week or so please pm me

Adbot · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 4:26 am

Lisaz · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 4:34 am

I think I would be in the Enthusiast group. I like to know, for example, how my car is working. Why it is not working. What I can do to make it work properly. I like to search for solutions if my Laptop crashes and so on. By the way, I always search information about new inventions

1 Stone Pwn · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 4:37 am

I'm in the middle, but more towards Enthusiast. I love tinkering with things and I usually have mixed results. One of my favorite things to do is just take things apart and put them back together. Then again, I always ask people for help if I can't figure it out myself

trekkie · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 9:31 am

slight enthusiast. i always have people asking me for help with computers and cell phones. i always have shane and mike when i may have a computer problem and have shane be my technology adviser.

Warren · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 10:13 am

User, but some of the points make it seem like someone 100% clueless. XD I am only 99% clueless.

- You don't really care how things work, as long as it works you're fine. yes
If I find out how it works at some point, that's interesting... but I'm not going to go researching and learning all about something before I can use it and I won't be wondering how it works every time I'm using it XD

- You'd rather be updating your Facebook status or doing something else that doesn't revolve around technology. I guess
Ugh sure but I don't update my status often loool

- You find it extremely odd that people enjoy tinkering with things that should be a given. no
Why would I find it odd lol? People have their interests and it's just not something I enjoy, or haven't really done so I don't know how much I enjoy it but feel no pull to do it. Shouldn't really be finding different lifestyles than your own odd, especially hobbies o_O

- You often ask others for help with problems. yes
Although if it is simple (relative) I guess I'll try to look it up first.

- You are content with the current amount of technology. ~
Depends what this means lol.. am I happy in my personal life with what I have or could have if I had money vs do i crave more and more and more tech? Well in my personal life sure yeah I'm content with what I personally have or could have. But improvements to technology would probs improve efficiency and environmental efficiency especially is pretty needed right now. And better technology could possibly bring about solutions to other issues so why not.

But either way I don't satisfy the enthusiast points although the "You don't see just a plain box, you see magic", I don't see either cuz obvs things go together to do **** that is very real not magic!! L O L !!

Evelyn · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 10:14 am

I'm definitely an enthusiast, being a plain user doesn't make the cut, especially when I heavily game and have to pay attention to my specs. Another bonus about learning more about what I use is that I don't have to shell out money for some shady tech support place to dig for my bank info if I can just fix it myself.

Adbot · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 10:14 am

King Kulla · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 2:31 pm

Lol, you can tell that Shane wrote the bullet points from an enthusiast point of view. I'd consider myself a user, but not in the way that he defined it. I'm probably a slight enthusiast by what he means. He just seemed to group people that either work with computers for a living, or a comp science student, and the people who buy tech to use it without knowing how it truly works or wanting to find out more about it at all (like most parents). I don't think I fit into either category. XD

Shane · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 2:34 pm

Warren wrote:

User, but some of the points make it seem like someone 100% clueless. XD I am only 99% clueless.

Those are extremes. I put them in so it would be easier to class yourself on one extreme or in the middle.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Mostly a user myself, but at times I'm enthusiastic about technology. I think there are pros and cons to using it or relying on it too much, but I think we haven't reached a critical point yet.

Bryan · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 6:45 pm

I'm mostly in between the two when it comes to technology in general, but when it comes to phones (ew, get me away from those iDevices), I'm an enthusiast! I used to be a mini-enthusiast with Windows, but I gave that up long ago, now I'm just mainly a hidden user, don't ask me for help anymore schoolfriends and REID. DAMNIT REID. I go all Androidsy on my newest parcels (word derived from Reidsy Brown), and even have dedicated Twitter lists for @engadgetmobile (Engadget Mobile), @mobilesyrup (Canadian phone digest-ish blog), etc. etc.

Quote:

You want to know how things work, you want to know why they function as they do.

Spoiler for Typical Conversation:

Engadget's followed, I've got some blogs in my Google Reader queue (man, I used to be totally a Windows Live boy, still am quite a bit, but ****, Google's coming up pretty strong), and I belong to the world-famous XDA-Developers. I don't like not knowing something so that's why if you ever visit my computer, you'll see it cluttered with tweet notifications, RSS alerts, all the like. I want to know things first, not necessarily Android, and I want to know it well.

Quote:

You enjoy messing around with technology, though you may not always be successful you gain from this pursuit.

Spoiler for Another conversation with friends:

I'm not an adventurer, I'm a follower. Mainly because I'm asian. I'm only a kid too, I can't afford to brick phones! :S So that's why I use rooting guides to unlock the phone's potential, then afterwards, I go crazy as if I'm going to microwave it someday. I vigorously flash some beta mods and apps of people wanting to impress the XDA community and provide some feedback. Not bad, then I sell the phone

As for other things, I also use guides. Unless there's no guide at all, I sometimes break the hidden road open to try and solve the problem myself. That rarely happens, but when it does, I use the most basic rudiments in my head to accomplish it (fun advice: never, EVER, open a .exe in Internet Explorer).
The only things technologically I ever remember breaking and screwing up with is:
*A few mice (I apparently middle-click too hard)
*Some poor families' computers (I was little, they forgave me, I feel so bad to this day)
*Router I was trying to flash DD-WRT on (I thought it was like Android!

)

Quote:

The potential to be annoying while pursuing your interest of technology.

Spoiler for Typical Conversation:

Yeah, I'm very annoying with this. Deal with it.
Even on Windows, I explain stuff and no one has a Goddamn clue what I'm talking about. That's why I stopped offering help and tried to become computer-stupid when I entered high school. (You really can't hide it fully in a school full of asians, or else you get beat for being computer-stupid, super ironic.) Now I'm just a guy who carries quite a few bits of tech around the building, new gadgets every few weeks, but if you question me for advice, I may need to catch my tongue, and again, think twice. HEY THAT RHYMES HURR

Quote:

You see magic and not just a plain box.
You want more.

One word: ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDD!

That's about it for me, it's getting too long for a forum post and I feel bad

Maybe I'll link to this in my sig if people don't notice this post. And if the thread title was, "Transit (or Halo, or Windows Live): Enthusiast or User", ****, I'd pwn you all.
Oh, and you should see me rant about Canadian v. American carriers, as well as the sad, desperate, reclimb of RIM.

trekkie · **Posted:** January 14th, 2011, 9:43 pm

lets just say shane... if i had 10 grand to spend on the very very sweet computer desk that i saw at macworld a few years ago... i would. unfortunately, my bank role will not allow for that kind of setup.

Jamie · **Posted:** January 15th, 2011, 4:33 pm

Definitely an enthusiast for me. I like the last bullet (you see magic and not just a plain box) because when I was in third grade, my Pokemon Crystal cartridge really did seem like magic and I was desperate to figure out how it worked. And now I'm in college with a major in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science

I like the messing around part too since that describes about 90% of my coding...

Pennstate315 · Runite Member 5-25-10

I think i'm in the middle. Some things I just want to work, other things I like to tinker around with

Iron Maiden · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 10:52 pm

Well I guess I'm mostly a User. Because the most part of time, I only use my devices for the heck of it. For exemple, I use my computer only for 3-4 Websites, iTunes and Watching Videos.
However I am interested into how technology works. Mainly because when my computer/whatever breaks, I can fix it by myself and also because I'm somewhat curious. I don't think technology is «Magical», but sometimes when I see something incredible I often say «This is wonderful/Magical!»
And I seriously believe there is NO technology at all for the decades we're in. Seriously, when I was a kid, I was hoping to see Robots, Flying Cars and Teleportors in like 2030. And in 2011, these technologies still seems to be pure science-fiction. So YES I do want more technology. We never have enough.

In the end, I can say I'm somewhere in the middle.

Fatalysm · **Posted:** January 18th, 2011, 5:15 am

I'm stuck in the middle a little bit here. I have my iPhone for example, I love it and I don't really mess with it too much because of the money. But I like creating apps for it. I like seeing how that works. I occasionally become an enthusiast but more often than not nothing comes from me using technology.