"FRIEND" ME SOMETIME!

I'm on shaky ground here, because I'm no expert.  I just think it's sort of self-defeating, and silly, to simply refuse to understand and use 21st century technology.

Last week, when volunteering at the agency where I used to work, I was charged with downloading some confidential information onto a "thumb drive" to be hand-delivered the next day to the person at the agency headquarters responsible for collecting this information.  My counterpart in one of the other offices simply typed the information and delivered it as a "hard copy" because she was not familiar with a thumb drive or how to get information onto it, making to necessary, then, for someone else to get the information into a useable electronic format.  Something so easy to learn became, for her, a barrier to following workplace procedure.

I also know folks who refuse to use Facebook (and lots of other social media sites) because they don't know how to sign up, post status updates, upload photos, and/or are afraid of privacy issues.  Same is true for using "smart" phones,  texting, MP3 players, tablets, e-readers, GPS devices, DVRs, Skype capabilities.....the very stuff of modern connection and communication.

I held out on Facebook until my niece convinced me to try it.  It felt weird and foreign at first.  Now I am a daily poster and look forward to "seeing" my friends there too.  I have found, and been found, by people from other places and other lifetimes ago and it's been a wonderful and ongoing re-connection. I have my privacy controls tamped down as best I can, and otherwise don't worry too much about it.  (When I was a kid, we still had a phone system with party lines --- nosy neighbors could listen in then too, mining information about our family and reporting it hither and yon if we weren't careful.  So I try to be careful, but not paranoid).

Some lament that these electronic relationships are not "real" and leave us unable or unwilling to have face-to-face relationships.  I disagree.  I have found many places of connection with people on Facebook whom I do not see often or know well in real life, but for whom I have developed a fondness and caring through our virtual sharing together.  I am genuinely happy to see these folks at the grocery store or farmer's market and immediately have something to say to them about what is real in their lives -- something that I wouldn't have known otherwise -- instant deepening of connection.  And if my 24- year-old son is any example, his electronic relationships have in no way hampered his ability to have legions of friends and a full social calendar in the real world.

I notice that there is a definite generation gap in this refusal to understand and use technology.  Youngers have no such hesitation, qualms, or feelings of incompetence.  If they don't utilize some form of technology available to them it's based on some other reasoning, but not on an "I don't know how and I refuse to learn" attitude.

And it's this attitude with which I take exception.  Why elders would choose to opt out is a mystery to me and one that may result in further feelings of isolation as technology becomes even more prevalent.  We may not understand it and may find it frustrating and may wish back the "good old days", but how does that serve us?  It's simply a learning-curve issue.  Yes, it's confusing at first, and then it's easy.  Just like anything else we've learned along the way.

I'm limping along with an old Blackberry until the I-Phone 5 comes out.  I will find it initially frustrating to learn to use.  I will stick with it.  I will end up loving it.  My e-reader/tablet has allowed me to take a virtual suitcase full of reading material on trips.  I type my journal and other writing onto a thumb drive that I can plug into any device handy to keep on working.  My favorite music is in my purse and I can easily connect it to my car stereo to listen to a self-made customized playlist, my TV shows are recorded for me to watch at my convenience, happily zapping through commercials.  My laptop and my email are as much a part of my life as any other appliance or form of communication.

I am among the legions of fans of the British TV series, Downton Abbey.  It takes place in the early 20th Century, just before and after WWI.  The societal changes depicted there seem quaint and amusing to us now -- telephones, automobiles, gramophones -- but to the people of that time they were often judged and dismissed as confusing, unsafe, unreliable, and completely unnecessary.

Just goes to show you, ignoring the sea-change of culture's ongoing march into ever more advanced and ubiquitous technology may leave us as "old-fashioned" as a corseted countess.

At least, that's the view from here....©