Modern living pushes wrong buttons

In this automated, digital age we humans are supposed to be in control. But which control, where is it, and how does it work? Ben Bentley pauses, rewinds, fast-forwards . . . but the screen stays blank.

It's a common question among the technologically bereft - and particularly among those of us who upon purchasing a flash new TV delay the daunting task of tuning it in by playing around with the bubble wrap.

But eventually we must ask. "What does this button do?" we say before pressing it, with the net result of getting our knickers in a twist and a television that won't show ITV.

Gadgets, eh? In our gadget-addled homes, they are supposed to make life easier. Pressing buttons should save techno-fearing Luddites the effort of doing things manually, such as having to get up off the sofa to turn the telly over - thus leaving us to get on with the more pleasurable business of being a couch potato.

But a new survey shows that for most of us they are making life more complicated. The study by consumer champion Which? found that most people would prefer gadgets to be simpler, with two thirds clueless as to what all of the buttons on them did.

We would like a mobile phone, for example, that was just a mobile phone and not a record player, sandwich maker and Teasmade all rolled into one pocket-sized accessory that will impress our friends and neighbours.

The truth is that a staggering 300 million gadgets lie unused in homes across Britain, having been abandoned by their frustrated owners.

By far the biggest culprit, according to the survey, is the humble television remote control unit, along with its extended family of ever-breeding control sets for associated devices such as satellite units, set-top boxes, DVD players, hard-disc and video recorders.

Ray Harland, who has a total of seven remote control sets at his home in Hadley Park in Telford, likes his gadgets but admits that many of them are so baffling that it's easier not to use them all.

"It's a man thing - men like their gadgets but they are a pain sometimes and they could be simpler and better explained in the manual," he says.

"Everything you buy now has a remote control with it, it's incredible. I don't know what all the buttons are for on remote-control units, the manufacturers make it difficult."

He adds: "Televisions used to be very simple - all you were interested in was the size and you took it home and plugged it in and away you go. Now you need to be an electrical engineer to use it all."

So-called 'universal' remote control units have been hailed as the future, allowing users to do away their collection of 999 TV switchers and programme their functions into a single hand-held device.

In theory, that is.

"You can buy universal remote controls but they are quite complicated to use," Ray adds.

Rally driver Neil Perkins from Newport has embraced the world of domestic gadgetry. His home is a temple of remote controls and going from room to room while totting them all up he arrives at a number that surprises even himself.

"In the living room there are remote controls for the TV, video, DVD and satellite box - four," he says.

"In the kitchen there are remote controls for the TV, satellite channels, music system, two wall heaters for the conservatory with heat controls - five.

"In the second bedroom, there are controls for the TV and sat channels - two. And in the third bedroom, there is a control for the wall heater - one.

"That's 12 in total."

Mind you, Neil is probably unlike the rest of us gadget-dodgers who try to turn the telly over with the remote control for the garage door.

His gripes stem largely from the animals which have taken a fancy to the array of brightly coloured buttons that dominate his devices.

"Worst problems I find are batteries running down, the parrot chewing the rubber on the satellite controls in the living room, the puppy trying to eat the remote for the heater in the conservatory, and leaving a crucial remote under a cushion and losing it. . . then finding that Harry the parrot loves the red buttons and tries to change the channels when he is allowed out of his cage."

Of course the proliferation of remote controls brings with it other problems.

Neil continues: "There is also the daily fight with my wife Angela about who watches what. Last night I wanted the snooker downstairs and she was changing my channel from upstairs for a gardening programme."

That old chestnut. Twelve remote controls and it still boils down to this. It never used to happen in the Dark Ages before technology ran our lives and a microchip was a pathetically insubstantial snack from a fish shop.

Still, most gadgets, once mastered, are useful in making life a tad easier and in saving us a bit of precious time - if they don't give us a heart attack from all the rage they induce in the hapless user.

By the way - what do you do with all the time you have saved thanks to the presence of gadgets? What, for instance, shall we do with the days and weeks that we have saved over the course of a lifetime as a result of not getting up off the sofa, going and turning the telly over and returning to the sofa again?

Probably spend it trying to work out how to manually fix the television after we have pressed the wrong button on the remote control unit.