How the ‘Owner’s Guide’ Became a Rare Book
Just the other day, I had to read the manual. I’d borrowed my neighbor’s hammer drill to make some holes in a masonry wall, and I didn’t know how to swap the bits. Fortunately, the drill’s carrying case came with a booklet of instructions, which I followed with great success. Many holes were thus produced. This got me thinking: I used to read the manual fairly often; now I almost never do. I own a smartphone, a handful of laptops, and a barrage of smart-home gadgets; for several days this winter, I also played around with Apple’s brand-new, ultra-high-definition VR headset. Yet not a single one of these devices, each a million times more complicated than the drill, came with any useful printed matter—usually just a “Quick Start” booklet and, if I was lucky, a QR code that linked to further help online.
The instruction manual’s decline has been slow and
