The Gadget Gene - The LGP Group

"The Gadget Gene "
Amanda Gore

I have decided that men have a gadget gene. I know this because I have watched James Bond movies and I have conducted double blind crossover studies on zillions of men and asked trillions of women.

The proof is in the number of remote controls men have, play with and love; and the way they can operate video recorders and program them. In fact the best people to program video machines or unjam a computer or do anything else that requires electrical sophistication is a 7 - 15 year old boy!

Men don't just like to have one remote control; they like one for the TV, one for the video, the stereo, the microwave, (no. Of course you can't have a remote for the microwave but I wanted to see if the shops would be inundated with men looking for one after they read it here - it's part of my research!) the garage and possibly the washing machine. (more research data).

And what about mobile phones? A woman with a mobile phone knows how to use it. She can dial the number and press send and end. And she knows there is a function key. She can see FNC and knows it does something, she's just not sure exactly what it does; and she's too busy to find out.

Men on the other hand, love to spend hours fiddling with the things and reading the manual (afterwards) and working out every permutation and combination that is possible with this amazing function key. They store 500 numbers and can make it ring with the strangest sounds. They can also lock the machine very easily and when they ask a woman 'what's your lock code?' We have no idea what they are talking about. The man then takes four extra hours trying to unlock it - never actually admitting defeat.

What about watches? Men's watches are often secret computers with hundreds of little buttons that make it an alarm clock, secret detonator, depth sounder, distance marker and compass- to name just a small number of the possible functions!

A friend of mine (female) was discussing her mate, who is so into gadgets that when a recipe says 'carve the turkey with an electric knife' he goes out and buys one! Or another one who says her man spends hours loitering in the supermarket in the 'boring' electrical aisles where there are batteries and electrical 'toys'. She keeps saying 'we don't need these - why are we here?'

And think about computers. If there is anything worse than a man with a TV, it's a man with a computer. Men go completely deaf and dumb in front of that screen. One woman I know finally screamed 'why don't you paint the thing white and marry it!’ Men (and small boys) will spend hours, days, years - lifetimes - playing with the stupid games (it starts with Gameboys which are toys designed to eradicate any social skills for young boys); or working out how to do things that they will never need or use again.

And they get so excited about it! And want to show us everything- they don't notice that after thirty minutes our eyes glaze over and we start snoring! Even if they notice, it doesn't stop them - computers are like drugs. There are few female computer programmers because we become bored with such an intense focus on one thing for so long. Not that we couldn't do it of course! If we wanted to.

The gadget gene is very useful in some cases when things are broken. Like faxes, printers, toasters, doorbells, taps - some men just seem to have an innate ability to fix things - any sort of thing - as long as it goes 'ping'.

Sometimes they don't actually fix it. In fact, they don't even come close to fixing it, but they have a really good time! This starts in the early years with dismantling watches and other expensive items which, once they are put together, never work again. It seems the gadget gene is linked to the 'love of finding out how things work' gene.

OK. If you're still not convinced, think about PDA’s or palm pilots. Most women use theirs as an address book – I find mine very useful for that – but I don’t know how to make them do all those other things! Like Sync-ing with my computer.

Men spend hours initially finding out how it does all the things it does (like the phone). And use the infrared thingy to connect with other men’s palm contents. Later, it becomes a very expensive address book and an incredibly time wasting device that takes 20 minutes to find out what he is doing next week! And then some disaster happens to the batteries and all those dates/ addresses and times are lost. Forever.

There has been some comment from males who have read this piece so far that not all of them have a gadget gene! Maybe that's true. Could it be peer pressure or gender expectation that makes men feel they have to look knowledgeable and competent when it comes to mechanical or electrical activities?

Is that why many of them stand around for ages contemplating the task before actually starting it? For those fellows who feel they missed out on the gadget gene department - stop worrying now! I bet you've got that gene that makes you say ' it's all right, I know exactly what I'm doing' - so we all think you've got one anyway!

And perhaps some women have found themselves with this gene. I'm not bad at working out mechanical and electrical complexities, but I am such an amateur when compared with small boys. And it's very difficult for me to reset the time on the video or microwave following a power interruption, whereas the males in my life look at me with pity and scorn when I ask for help to do such a simple thing! (Secretly, they love to feel superior!)

And I hate those 'do it yourself', 'any idiot can put this together in 5 seconds' kits you buy. I see what I want and I go to buy it, only to be given a cardboard box big enough to fit my car in. Then I drag it home and once I've spent three days finding the screws, bolts, toggles, sprockets and things that hold my furniture together, I have to work out which bit fits into the other bits. It's all very confusing and frustrating. Women have a 'unable to nail a screw in straight' gene! Well, I do anyway.

Although little girls and boys love to play with lego (let's be honest, fight over lego), not many little girls grow up to desperately desire mechano sets! We fiddle for a little while and make simple, easy to assemble things but we balk at building a nuclear power station roughly the size of a football field; whereas little boys will spend years doing this until their brother destroys the entire set. On purpose. Then they start on a submarine.

The final evidence that convinces me most men are blessed with a gadget gene is the existence of hardware shops and mail order catalogues. Go into any hardware shop and you will find a male heaven - millions of little bits and pieces and gadgets and things to fix broken things or plug holes or tools. And mail order catalogues pages are filled with precious items like the little machine that removes nose and ear hair!

Perhaps the most telling factor is what men give their life partners for birthdays and Mother's days. Black & Decker workbenches are not a woman's idea of heaven Guys! I know you are trying to be thoughtful and caring and it is what you would really love, but we don't have a gadget gene. We have an expensive jewelry gene!

It may help to remember that – especially since Mother’s Day is around the corner (but I’m sure you remembered that )!