The Return To Innocence

My mother once told me a story of how she was walking down a quiet street, and a man in a business suit was walking toward her, talking loudly, eyes staring straight ahead, arguing with... himself? Mom assumed he was, because he certainly wasn't yelling at her. Then as they passed, she saw the device in his ear. My mother is not technologically savvy at all. She hates computers. She avoids the internet like the plague. She only recently got a prepaid cell phone and a fax machine. My parents don't have cable. Not even an electric can opener. So Mom was understandably flabbergasted by the Bluetooth. "It was like seeing Star Trek come to life," she told me. "But if I hadn't seen the thing in his ear, I would have assumed he was crazy. Maybe we should give Bluetooths and cell phone headsets to the folks who really do wander around yelling at imaginary people; they could at least fit in."
I figuratively patted her head over the phone and told her, "It's a crazy world, Mom, you're just living in it."
She's going to need to adapt sooner or later. Art galleries now want JPEGS, not slides, of artists' works. Adam will be getting her a laptop with the most basic things. Mom doesn't even want an email address. If she wants to look up a website, she says, she'll go to a friend's house. She hates scrolling, it gives her a headache.
Part of me is glad my mother isn't on the internet. In a way she's innocent of all the wank and bullshit out there. Also, she doesn't have to know what I blog about.
However, it was very amusing and cute when she called me up recently and asked, "Have you heard about these people online called trolls? They're horrible! Why would people do that?"
She couldn't understand. Frankly, I don't either, and I've argued with trolls, which makes it even less understandable. Her horror is valid. The world is full of assholes. Most of them are on the internet.

My mother once told me a story of how she was walking down a quiet street, and a man in a business suit was walking toward her, talking loudly, eyes staring straight ahead, arguing with... himself? Mom assumed he was, because he certainly wasn't yelling at her. Then as they passed, she saw the device in his ear. My mother is not technologically savvy at all. She hates computers. She avoids the internet like the plague. She only recently got a prepaid cell phone and a fax machine. My parents don't have cable. Not even an electric can opener. So Mom was understandably flabbergasted by the Bluetooth. "It was like seeing Star Trek come to life," she told me. "But if I hadn't seen the thing in his ear, I would have assumed he was crazy. Maybe we should give Bluetooths and cell phone headsets to the folks who really do wander around yelling at imaginary people; they could at least fit in."
I figuratively patted her head over the phone and told her, "It's a crazy world, Mom, you're just living in it."
She's going to need to adapt sooner or later. Art galleries now want JPEGS, not slides, of artists' works. Adam will be getting her a laptop with the most basic things. Mom doesn't even want an email address. If she wants to look up a website, she says, she'll go to a friend's house. She hates scrolling, it gives her a headache.
Part of me is glad my mother isn't on the internet. In a way she's innocent of all the wank and bullshit out there. Also, she doesn't have to know what I blog about.
However, it was very amusing and cute when she called me up recently and asked, "Have you heard about these people online called trolls? They're horrible! Why would people do that?"
She couldn't understand. Frankly, I don't either, and I've argued with trolls, which makes it even less understandable. Her horror is valid. The world is full of assholes. Most of them are on the internet.