Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Time will tell


When it comes to computers, it turns out I am a real Luddite. 

This comes as a surprise. Especially to me, as I have always considered myself to be kind of tech savvy. Particularly after I spent a year writing ads for Apple during the Steve Jobs-less clusterfuck era.

 I'm old enough to remember a time before computers, clicking and clacking that old IBM Selectric 2.

And I've literally worked on every generation of computers. Starting with a Leading Edge MS/DOS beauty to my current 27 inch iMac 5K Retina Cinema Screen.

Recently, with my recent vocational migration to a Google eco-system, I've become painfully aware of my digital shortcomings. Oh sure I taught myself how to do screen grabs and cheesy photo manipulation using some rudimentary techniques on Apple Preview, but handcrafting razor sharp witty Trump memes is a little different than pulling up a Google Slide and trying to figure out where the god damn Save button is.

Holy shit, I'm an idiot.

The point was made even clearer when my daughter interrupted me because she needed me to email a certain photo from my home screen. She marveled at all the unnecessary steps I took to hit COMMAND + SHIFT +4 to move a photo. 

She almost choked from laughing so hard. 

The mockery continued when I admitted I did not know how to use Apple's convenient AirDrop.

She showed me how to do it and then insisted on filming me using both techniques. No doubt to put it on SnapChat or InstaSomething, to embarrass the hell out of me. 

Considering how I've spent the last 24 years trying to embarrass (and succeeding) my daughters in public, I suppose the payback was to be expected.

"How the hell do you live in the year 2020 and not know this stuff?" she posed, condescendingly.

The answer, it seems, is as old as time itself.

This generation is focused on how and where a message gets communicated.  My generation, the over 44 gang, is more focused on what gets communicated. 










1 comment:

dave trott said...

My son said to me "How come you don't know how computers work Dad?"
I said "The same reason you don't know how a 4-stroke engine works"