Booking Through Thursday: Manual Labor Redux

Following up last week’s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’re expanding the question….

Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?
Do you ever read manuals?
How-to books?
Self-help guides?
Anything at all?

As to the first question, the answer is no, probably not. I'm generally a find out as you go kind of girl. Although, I still don't know how to work our dvd player that we've had for a few years now. But, I've got a ten year old son who does, so I've never really had to figure it out. It took me months to figure out how to use my ipod and my cell phone, but I find that working things out myself helps me to better understand it (technological things anyway) than I would if I tried to read the manuals - which are generally so complicated that they confuse me more than I ever was. If I want to figure out how to do something specific, I'll ask my husband or my son, and usually they'll be able to direct me. If all else fails, I may look through the guide for specific answers to specific issues, but I won't sit down and read the whole thing. Usually, by the time I've come across a problem with a gadget, I've lost the manual anyway, and I'll just google the issue.
I have read how-to books and self help guides, and those are different. If it's something I'm interested in, I enjoy learning things from books, but I still don't read those types of books very often.