I just spent 4 hours with a friend trying to help her understand her computer. I had to teach her the basics….how to turn it off and on, how to find things, etc. She spent 6 months stressed out and without internet access. When I went over there, it was unplugged. Seriously, when we got into her email, there were 548 messages and most of them from her professors regarding her classes. She is one of the few who have not yet embraced the new cyberage. She isn’t well seasoned, either. She is only a few years older than me. She is now being pulled into this cyberworld kicking and screaming because she has chosen to go back to college. I look at all the things we need computers for, and I seriously marvel at how she managed to go so long without some kind of technological education. I respect her choice to not participate in the esoteric pile of tubes we call the internets. I am just amazed that somewhere along the line she wasn’t told she had to use a computer to do her job.
I spend 1 of those 4 hours trying to explain to her what a jump drive was and why I was giving it to her. That is a hard concept to explain to someone. If you think about it, the whole concept of digital storage is esoteric. Technically, it doesn’t exist. Though it does, and if you have the right technology you can retrieve data from that little quarter-sized box. For someone who hasn’t grown up with the concept, that has got to be a hard one to wrap your head around.
Tags: Technology
