Tonight was a light bulb moment. I've discovered why I don't understand technology. My son was helping me set up my domain name and a new email address and all that jazz. I was getting so frustrated just watching because he had to go to like 25 different places to get the information he needed and get it all worked out - whatever he was doing. All that hopping from this page to that page to this site and back to the first page and looking for itty bitty bits of information that is hard to find was frustrating me to no end. I'm a "How do you turn it on and off?" kind of girl. I'll be glad for the day I can just tell the computer what to do and it does it.
First of all, God bless my son for his patience with me. I know I ask the most ridiculous questions and get frustrated so easily. He has the patience of Job. He's a smart boy in that he kept giving me word pictures. "Think of the computer as a dictionary, Mom. You want a word that begins with "A" so you turn to the first page and expect it to automatically be there, but it isn't and you have to search through the "A" words to find the one you want." Obviously, he understands that Mama is an artsy fartsy girl and can't deal with black and white computer jargon. I need a picture to understand things.
When we finally got things squared away we discussed why computers comes so easily to him and his generation, but since I didn't even have a VCR until I was in high school I just wasn't indoctrinated into the age of technology. Then he said something that made my little light bulb ignite. He said, "Mom, technology is like a language. You learn that certain symbols and things always mean the same thing." He then proceeded to show me that a circle with a line through it is always the on/off button. He pointed to the computer, several pieces of computer related equipment, the printer, and even the TV remote and, sure enough, all of them had that little circle with a line in it. This was a big revelation for me. Would you believe that I had never noticed that before?
And this explains why I don't "get" technology. As soon as he mentioned "language" my mind went back to French class in high school. I just couldn't get it. Somehow I made it through 3 1/2 years of French and all I learned was how to say, "Hello", "I love you" and "strawberries". Now, that will get you real far in France, don't you think? I had a good friend that went through all those years with me. He sounded just like a French gentleman and he could speak it fluently, read it easily, and boy could he conjugate those verbs with ease. He even thought in French! I, on the other hand, sounded like I was reading from a Dick and Jane primer and thinking in French never even entered my mind.
Thus, my revelation: Technology is like a foreign language and I'm a one language kind of gal. English only, thank you. This is one of the chief reasons, though I'm certain there are others, that I just don't grasp technology. Now, I can rest easy tonight because I understand why I don't understand. |
