12:00 Flashers

When I was in a training about 2 years ago, a train the trainer session on a software program, the trainer referred to the “non-technical” people as the 12:00 flashers.

I googled "12:00 flashers" and I found this:

"Techies sometimes talk about a group of people they call 12:00 flashers. They call them 12:00 flashers, because their houses are filled with appliances with a flashing 12:00. What they mean by the term '12:00 flasher' is something deeper than just 'someone whose appliance clocks happen not to be set'.

"What they mean by '12:00 flasher' is someone who wants the benefits of technology, but is not willing to try to understand how technology works or how to use it. Their appliances flash 12:00 because they will not in a million years spend five minutes experimenting with the buttons or read the manual to see how to set a clock. This mindset affects every bit of technology they own, and invariably something will break -- quite possibly because it was misused -- and then they will invariably wait until the last minute, when there is an emergency, and ask a techie to "just tell me how to fix it." The 12:00 flasher is involved in a desparate attempt to cut a steak with a screwdriver, and when a techie begins to try to explain why he needs to set down the screwdriver and get a knife, the 12:00 flasher tensely replies, 'I don't have time to put down this screwdriver and go get a knife! I just need you to tell me how to cut this steak!'


So why don’t thiese people program their vcr clocks? Most of us can read the diretions of hit enough buttons to figure it out but why do some people do it and others not? What is it about technology that intimidates or scares some people but intruiges others? All things in life have those that like it and those that don’t but technology seems to be it’s own beast. It seems with any thing, if a person wants to learn it, they can, which makes the common denominator of knowledge to be “desire” or attitude. Technology, however appeals to every person and almost any subject matter. It might be compared to the telephone? Do you think that when phone’s were introduced some people boycotted them like some boycott technology? Sure there must have been early adaptors but did some just say “no” it’s too complicated? What makes technology any different?

Clearly, it is more complicated, but is it relatively the same as phones being introduced in their time? Surely phones seemed confusing and “hi-tech” at the time?