Years ago, I received my first iPod as a birthday gift. My daughter, who was 12 at the time, had gotten one a few months earlier and kindly offered to set mine up for me. I graciously accepted her help, thinking this would be a step towards understanding technology better.
You know the saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”? Well, my daughter handed me that first fish, and I’m still floundering in a sea of technological confusion.
From the outside, I appear to be a modern-day tech user. I operate an iMac, communicate via an iPhone, and read on an iPad. But the reality is, I often find myself utterly lost. Whenever my devices misbehave, I find myself calling on my children for assistance.
Almost weekly, my computer starts to slow down, prompting me to summon one of the kids. “Mom!” my daughter exclaims, “How many tabs did you open? You need to close them!” I usually think I’ve done that, but apparently not. Then there are times when my toolbar mysteriously disappears. I sit there, perplexed, until my son strolls in for a snack and I subtly ask for his expertise. A few taps later, and voilà, it’s fixed.
Even when it comes to texting, my children get a kick out of my one-finger typing technique. “You’re supposed to use both thumbs!” they chorus. But how? My thumbs don’t seem to cooperate, and I find it impossible to type a single letter without fumbling.
Let’s not forget about the elusive apps. Somehow, I manage to swipe my phone screen in such a way that my Safari icon vanishes into thin air, only to be quickly recovered by one of my kids.
When I shared my struggles with technology with the tech teacher at my children’s school, she explained that today’s kids have grown up with technology, making it second nature for them. In contrast, people of my generation didn’t have the same exposure, making it harder for us to adapt.
Ironically, I was pretty tech-savvy during my teenage years. Back in the 1970s, my family had just acquired a VCR, and I was the go-to person for setting it up. My parents would ask me to help whenever they wanted to record a show, and I would often return home from college to find their VCR blinking “12:00.” I couldn’t fathom why they struggled, but now I completely understand.
A few years ago, my editor asked me to hyperlink something in an article. I had no idea what she meant, so I turned to my daughter once again. This time, I decided not to let her do it for me; I asked her to teach me instead. It was time to learn how to fish, especially since my best tech support would soon be heading off to college.
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In summary, while I may present myself as a tech user in today’s digital landscape, the reality is I still rely heavily on my children for assistance. Learning to navigate this technological world is a work in progress, but I’m determined to improve.