Averting Tech Disasters

 

Averting Tech Disasters

 America’s love affair with tech seems to just keep getting more and more passionate. If you look at the aggregate numbers of tech purchases and ownership, they are impressive. However, when you start to look at tech consumption numbers by age cohorts, the numbers are truly amazing. The enthusiasm of Millennials for tech seems to know no bounds. In fact, their aggregate consumption patterns are shifting. Older age cohorts spend a significantly lower percentage of their disposable income on tech. In fact, while older generations of Americans may have viewed having an automobile as a “coming of age” goal, among Millennials owning the latest and greatest tech is the ultimate in prestige.

 

As much money as consumers are spending on tech – and especially young consumers, issues with breakage and damage of very expensive and somewhat delicate devices become more and more frequently discussed in the media. In this article, we review a few common sense tips on preserving your treasured tech wonders.

 

Habits Make the Difference!

When it comes to protecting your tech devices from dropping, breakage, water damage and staining, habits make all the difference. Most of the time, “accidents” that occur and cause loss or damage to your device are not truly accidental – they are a predictable outcome of a system of use that is unwise. If you make a habit of setting your laptop on the edge of the desk, if you eat while you type on your keyboard, if you set your cup of coffee on your server – these are risky behaviors that will eventually lead to trouble.

 

While one can very easily fall into these sorts of bad habits, it is possible to develop a “virtuous cycle” of good habits as well. One of the smartest things you can do to protect your devices is to avoid eating and drinking while you use your tech. That little bit of discipline could eliminate the greatest single element that devalues your tech device.

 

Have a Program and Follow It

Young teenagers dropping their iPhones or spilling Coke on their laptop are not the only device-damaging culprits. Harried older people – business people rushing through airports – also suffer losses of tech. Just imagine how many people leave their smartphones at TSA security checkpoints every day. The number is staggering. The solution to these sorts of events is to develop a consistent program that you always follow without deviation. What the specific program is does not matter much as long as it works for you. Putting your smartphone in the hip pocket of your sport coat every single time you put it through the X-ray machine for example is a way to make sure you don’t inadvertently leave it on the counter.

 

The other part of your plan should include the acknowledgement that despite your best efforts, things happen. Make sure that even in the event of damage to or loss of a device, the basic operations of your business and life can go on uninterrupted. Back up your data! Make sure that strangers cannot access sensitive information on your smartphone.

 

Protecting your tech devices from damage and loss is mostly basic common sense. Thinking up the program is not really the tough part – cultivating the discipline to follow the program is. However, as Robert Burns notes, the best laid schemes of mice and men (and of tech users) often go astray.

 

If despite your best efforts, you should break or damage a tech device, we are the go-to specialists in computer repair in the Wake Forest and Raleigh areas. If you have a broken device, please come see us.