Techno-Savvy - Or Not?

In chatting with a friend this week, our conversation shifted to the topic of health care reform. “Have you read my recent T-G column on that?” I asked. No, she hadn’t seen it; she doesn’t take the newspaper. “Well, just check it out on-line,” was my response, to which she replied, “I don’t do computers.” Oh. While I know my 90 year old mother doesn’t use the computer, is it possible, as CNN reported last year, that 1 out of 5 adults in America don’t use the Internet, aren’t turning daily to a computer as a lifeline to the world of information?

I do understand. Even though I’ve used a computer since the late 80’s, I still have personal pockets of resistance. Here’s one example. I finally threw away my adding machine the other day. I didn’t use it often, but I’d pull it out at tax time and check my math (although purist that I am, I have to do the addition and multiplication on paper first). So why discard the adding machine? Because I finally figured out how to use the calculator function on my computer. Maybe next year I’ll even skip the thrill of the last-minute dash to the post office and submit the whole tax return on-line.

It’s only been within the last few months that I’ve paid a few bills on-line, but it still makes me nervous. I watch my son deposit checks by taking photos with his cell-phone, and I shake my head in wonder. So far, I’ve refused to go to total on-line bill payment because I’d be putting one more bill-envelope opener/processor – and mail-carrier - out of work.

I’m not about to discard my grease-splattered Betty Crocker and Good Housekeeping cookbooks for the convenience of recipes on Facebook or Pinetrest, although I did check on-line for a knock-off recipe for Cracker Barrel’s hashbrown casserole the other day. If I did have a smart-phone (which I don’t, as I still carry a dumb phone), given the state of the stuffed cabbage recipe page in my cookbook, I‘d be smart to keep the phone miles away from the kitchen counter.

And I’m still resisting the use of the Kindle I received as a Christmas present, because I love the feel of books in my hand, and the thrill of walking out of the library book sale with a bag full of books. However, I have published most of my books in the e-book format as well as in paperback, a smart business decision but also a sign that I want to keep a foot in both camps of life.

If Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep just ten years ago and woken up this morning, he’d have no idea what I’m talking about. On-line bill payment, Kindle, e-book, Facebook, Pinetrest, smart phones – the world of computers has given us a brand new and ever-evolving vocabulary to match the strides in technology.

It is distressing to note that our increasingly techno-savvy world, while seen by some as a great leveler, can also increase the divide between age groups and economic classes. Access to a computer, the Internet, and even a smart phone is becoming essential for living, especially if telephone land-lines are discontinued. That simply may not be economically possible for many people, requiring a trip to the library to submit a job application or to conduct other business. Others, according to the Pew Research Center, say that the main reason they are not on-line is "because they don't think the Internet is relevant to them -- often saying they don’t want to use the Internet and don’t need to use it to get the information they want or conduct the communication they want."

That may have been valid reasoning even five years ago, but with fewer books printed, and page counts of magazines. Journals, and newspapers rapidly decreasing, the world of information transfer as many of us have known it is dwindling away. If knowledge is power and information is liberating, should we be concerned that at least some of our oldest, wisest and/or poorest citizens are out of the communication and knowledge-sharing loop? Just wondering . . .