Buying Dad an MP3 Player
My 74-year old father loves to putter in his workshop and use his computer to exchange jokes with his buddies. Dad prides himself as an early adopter of technology, being the first in his group to switch from tapes to CDs. He even convinced his friends to get TiVo for recording television shows. He gets great enjoyment from being online to stay connected and read about the latest technology trends, but he continues to use a years-old CD player to enjoy his favorite music.
With his birthday fast approaching, I thought about treating him to one of the new MP3 players everyone was buzzing about. Before investing in this new gadget, however, I wanted to make sure he would use it. I knew if I asked him straight out he would insist that he didn't need anything, so I needed to figure out a subtle way to learn if he was interested.
Dad had recently mentioned that he needed printer paper, and I needed a mouse replacement, so I invited him to lunch one Saturday so we could run our errands together. My plan was to get him into our local electronics store where he often stopped in to check on the prices of flat-panel televisions. After selecting my new mouse, we casually walked by the display of MP3 players.
The display was a bit overwhelming, with many brands ranging in price from $99 to over $400. The prices scaled higher with greater storage size and additional features. At the low end, units with 250 MB of storage could hold a few CDs worth of tunes, about three hours worth of music. High-end players could have over 50 GB of storage and were capable of playing as many as 10,000 tunes.
Other features that scaled with price were menus and video capability. Simpler players had buttons, more expensive devices had a multiple-menu window, and high-end players could play videos. And then there were storage considerations - some models used flash memory while others had hard disks. I began to realize that with this many choices it could be hard to figure out what Dad would want without directly asking his opinion about the features.
When Dad asked me how something that little could play music, we started talking. I explained how he could purchase music from the Internet for a small fee then download it onto his computer for transfer into a MP3 player. When he pointed out that he already had lots of music CDs, I assured him that he could copy music from his CDs onto his computer, convert it to MP3, then transfer it into the MP3 player. Dad then began asking about playing CDs on his computer, and, as we ambled over to the flat-panel televisions, I promised to stop by his house after our errands to walk him through using the media player software already installed on his computer to play his music CDs.
So, that was it. With that subtle redirection, it became apparent that Dad wasn't quite ready to tackle this new gadget. Later at his house I showed him how to play his music CDs on his computer and store his favorite selections to the My Music folder. By the time I left Dad's house, he was listening to music coming out of his computer speakers. I could tell from the twinkle in his eye that he couldn't wait to teach his buddies how to play music on their computers.
I've decided to wait and see if Dad stores enough of his favorite tunes to warrant taking another look at MP3 players, or for him to mention that he would like to listen to his music when he works in the yard. That might be the time to talk about MP3 players again. Who knows … we may end up back at the MP3 display before Christmas, and, with a little luck, the prices will have dropped!
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About the Author
Susan Ayers Walker is a leading-edge boomer with over 35 years experience in emerging technologies.
