Techno Peasant

Years ago I worked with a woman who was not enthusiastic about the new technology, and was not about to jump into the age of computers willingly. Her term, for herself, was techno peasant.

I bought my first computer when my daughter was in college, but never got into it until years later, and even at that point it was only E-mail and some internet play.

When I began writing I learned how to do research, how to format my work and of course had E-mail, but I avoided any other social media venues. I’ve gotten better, but it’s been by trial and error. I’ve had lessons from my children, lessons they’ve had to repeat, which is totally humiliating.

I had help from a friend who encouraged me to broaden my scope and try a blog. I followed her direction but at home I was confused. The book “Blogging for Dummies’ was a big help in getting me through. And now, here I am with two blogs.

Face book was something I didn’t have much of an interest in. I figured I was communicating with friends and family just fine on E-mail. Then my daughter sent me a ‘friend’ request. I tried it, looked up and old co-worker and reconnected with a friend. I was sold.

I’ve been getting the hang of it, but not doing it just right. I got an E-mail from my brother with a lesson in tagging which I appreciated. Last night my son was here and I got another lesson.

I’d never experimented with what all those options down the left margin. There’s one..Messages. He clicked on it and showed me that I read chat messages but don’t mark them as read. Oops, sorry about that. There was also an option Other that we checked and lo and behold I had two messages. One from a woman I worked with in the eighties, and another woman from the east coast who liked the stuff I pinned on Pinterest and wanted to connect, artist to artist.

I sent a message to the woman on the east coast after checking her web site. She is very talented and shows her work, art quilts, across the country. The other woman and I had a chat and caught up with each other’s lives.

The internet truly makes the world a smaller and friendlier place. I’ll be more tempted to try new stuff, click on those options to see what’s out there. Let’s just hope I don’t royally screw everything up in the process.