While carrying out vital online research in my coffee break today, I was struck by this piece about people who have made a decision not to use the internet. Apparently, many of them are over 50 years old, in other words my age group and upwards.The reasons for this boycott fall into two categories. First, they think internet use will take over their lives, destroy family life, lead to giving up all worthwhile activities and turn them into three-headed monsters. OK, I made the last one up, but for many people who don’t use the internet much or at all, there seems to be a misconception that the magic interweb is actually a drug. Sorry guys, it’s a communications device and avoiding it in the 21st century makes as little sense as your grandparents refusing to have a telephone in the house.
Second is the group who struggle with using computers, or who are terrified by the very idea, and I wonder how much of the first defence is really due to this. Of course acquiring any new skill can be frustrating, but complaining that the programmes aren’t oriented towards a certain age group or that the keyboard isn’t big enough is utterly bonkers. If you can still drive, you’ll have no trouble learning how to send e-mail or booking your flights online.
It’s also very selfish to decide to drop out of the digital revolution, unless you want to be a hermit. People who think Facebook is the work of the devil are still capable of getting upset if I don’t tell them what I’ve been up to once in a while. It’s particularly frustrating when people won’t engage with the possibilities the internet offers for campaigning and fundraising. Why on earth should a cash-strapped charity send out funding appeals by post and take donations by cheque, when e-mail and Paypal cuts costs?
I was feeling very smug and ready to conclude that oldies should get with the programme, when I started to think more widely about my use of technology. The first time I discovered the internet, I had to be dragged off the computer after three hours, but I don’t own an iAnything or a DVD player. I keep my phone turned off for days on end and won’t Tweet. The idea of an electronic book reader makes me shudder.
So perhaps use of technology is more about assessing what you need in order to do what’s important to you. I still find it hard to believe life is better without the internet and e-mail, but if someone decides that’s the case then I’m going to have to shut up and think about my own preferences. The real issue, of course, is the increasing exclusion of people of any age who can’t afford to make these choices.
10 comments:
Jenny,
I'm a bit of a Luddite (admittedly) but I think it behoves us all to be suspicious of these new fangled things, not least because they raise our expectations about what is possible in the world and then dash them when they just don't bloody work. I belong to that generation brought up on Tomorrow's World and the promise that the future would be one of labour saving devices and more leisure time. Evidently this utopia has failed to materialise and instead we work longer hours than our parents and I spend an extraordinary number of hours just answering work related emails (all of which now come marked as urgent).
Don't get me started on emails... emails, bloody emails... I get emails from people in the office next door to me. It's not that they can't be bothered getting up of their arse and walk the 3 or 4 odd yards to my office door. No, they're covering their arse, so that when I fail to act upon the information in the email (probably because I miss it in the avalanche of 'urgents' in my inbox) they can prove that I was at least told and therefore they bare no responsibility for the calamity that befell the department as a consequence.
If the over-50s don't what to sit at a computer all day, then fair play to them, I say. They probably find they have more time to go to the pub and have sex and stuff.
Rab - but I like having my expectations raised, and one of the many nice things about being older is being able to cope with disappointment if (when) they are dashed again. I adored Tomorrow's World, and even though things have turned out differently I still think there's a lot that's better now than 30 or 40 years ago, both social attitudes and technology.
I am going to have to do something in the iDepartment though, I do get told off for not having an iPod at least.
Also yes e-mails can be a paid, but do you remember written memos? I used to just pile them all up and spend days working through them, then write a pile of my own to occupy someone else's time.
And as for oldies spending their time going to the pub and having sex, I couldn't possibly comment.....
Ahh discretion, Jenny, such and old fashioned virtue.
:) - but the serious point that some people don't seem to recognise is that blogs are a public forum
Yours might be Jenny. Nobody reads mine... :-)
It's the quality not quantity of readership (and comments) that matters, Rab!
I have a certain sympathy with those who're not interested in the internet, who're quite happy with their lives as they are. Not everyone finds the internet an exciting new window on life, some just see it as an irrelevant distraction. But it can be annoying trying to contact people who aren't on email and never pick up the phone....
I don't mind that as long as:
(i) They accept that they will lose touch with some of the more absent-minded of us internet users(e.g. me) who will just start forgetting to ring them
(ii) Not using the internet is not seen as some kind of moral superiority, rather like certain types of people enjoy telling you they never watch the TV
As an older person :-(, not that far from 50 I can say that the internet can be a boon for older people. Especially news which is widely available, and overseas news which can be hard to come by in the local newsagent.
But sometimes you do not "surf the web" it can be more like wading through treacle.
Hi anonymous older person! I can't imagine life without the internet now, and wish it had been invented earlier. You're right about overseas news too, I remember how good it was to be able to keep up with news from home when I was in Australia.
But I think the secret to good internet use is knowing how to Google - the secret is in the 'inverted commas'
Post a Comment