Tech Support in the Early 2020s

Not exactly thebest of times but the 2020s did have more than just periods of staying stuck in one place for a long time. For a lot of us, that meant staring at a screen of some sort. If you were younger, it was gaming consoles like the Playstations and Switches or desktop games.

People my age were trying to either figure out how to work remotely with a computer at home already or sometimes worse, trying to setup a work computer that we had to bring home.

Getting Help from Afar

One of the best things in the early 2020s was how easy it became to get help without leaving your house. These remote elpers could connect to your computer through the internet. Many used special tools like TeamViewer or AnyDesk. This was really helpful for older adults or anyone who didn’t know much about computers because it let them do it for you without needing much button pushing on this end.

Talk to a Human… If You Could Find One

Here’s the problem — it wasn’t always easy to get a real person to help you. Many websites used chatbots which are thesecomputer programs that try to talk like a person but really it’s just a program with pre-entered responses. Most of the time, they didn’t understand what you were trying to say and felt like talking to a brick wall! Well I guess it’s better than those automated voice prompts where it NEVER catches what you say properly.

To speak to a human, people had to click a lot of buttons, wait on hold, or type “agent” over and over in the chat box. It was super frustrating, especially when you needed help fast.

Lots of Helpers, But Not Always the Right Ones

There were also many new services like JustAnswer, Geek Squad, and HelloTech. These companies offered help over the phone or even in person. Some were really good, and others… not so much. Sometimes the helpers were trained well, and other times they just followed a script without really listening – adding to the frsutration.

Online forums like Reddit or Apple Support were full of people sharing tips. If you were lucky, you’d find someone who had the same problem and fixed it. But if you weren’t used to reading tech stuff, it could get confusing fast…and expensive!

Watching Out for Scammers

One scary thing in the early 2020s were those tech support scams. Some people saw fake messages on their screen saying things like “Your computer is infected! Call now!” These scammers would try to trick people — especially older folks — into paying money or giving away private info.

There were even stories of people pretending to be loved ones in order to swindle money out of innocent folk. Hopefully none of our readers were caught up in that.

Got Gadgets? Get Confusion!

Another tricky part was that people used many different devices — laptops, phones, smart TVs, and even fridges connected to the internet! Each gadget had its own kind of tech support. So if you had a problem that involved more than one device, getting help felt like solving a big puzzle.

In the End…

Tech support in the early 2020s was a mix of good and bad. It was supposed to be an era where people could get help more easily than ever before, but they also had to deal with chatbots, long wait times, and low down no good scams. It taught us one thing: when it comes to helping people with technology, the best support still comes from someone who listens, cares, and explains things in a way anyone can understand.