Connections: Computer Challenged

The whole social-media dance has gone on for a long time now but, given its growth and its impact on the world in which we live, it seems well past time for me to get with the program. I use a Mac for work and read and write emails all day, every day, but beyond that I really have not participated in the revolution in how people communicate with each other.

When my eldest granddaughter, who at that time already had an iPhone, started using Instagram at the age of about 12 or 13, I wondered what the world was coming to: Wasn’t she too young? When some years later my youngest granddaughter, barely 9 years old this summer, tried to set me up on Instagram, I smiled benignly but ignored the whole thing. By then, my daughter-in-law had started posting stories from The East Hampton Star on Facebook, and although I clicked occasionally to find out which stories were attracting notice, I didn’t pay much attention.

I do have a Facebook account, but I rarely look at it and have no idea how many Facebook “friends” I may have. I do know, however, that my husband has many more. He has always been gregarious, and seems to have “friended” all of my friends online, as well as his own. Without trying to, he has become my social-media social secretary. When I forget someone’s birthday, his Facebook alert, promptly relayed, allows me to remain in good stead. 

I can remember when the activists at Tiananmen Square got news from the outside world via fax. More recently, the Arab Spring, another kind of revolution, was sparked by activism on social media. ISIS uses Facebook and other platforms (hey, at least I know some of the lingo) to spread hatred and recruit young men and women from the West. You can’t pick up a copy of The New York Times without finding articles about hacking and cyber war that often go right over my head and, I assume, many people of my generation. 

And then, of course, we have Donald Trump, with his addled talk of “the cyber.” I have read that, incredibly, he is even more behind the times than I am when it comes to computer literacy. Reportedly, he didn’t own a computer until about 2007, and his real estate business still uses a Windows operating system from 2003. But isn’t it fitting that he has embraced Twitter as his own favorite means of mass-communication, given his accusation that traditional media are part of a giant, secret conspiracy against him? (A news-media conspiracy that, by the way, the Illuminati or the “international bankers” or whoever else it is who is supposed to be running it have completely forgotten to tell me about.)

Not wanting to get left behind by history, I spent some time this morning trying to get up to speed on some relatively more up-to-date forms of social media. I came away with a list of the 12 most popular platforms in this country: In order, according to one source, they are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, Tumblr, Vine, WhatsApp, Reddit, Flicker, and Pinterest. 

That’s too many for me to digest. Maybe one of our schools or libraries will take up the social media challenge by offering adult-ed courses for people like me. I would be the first to sign up.

In the meantime, I noticed an interesting headline on Google News this afternoon, from The Independent: “We Probably Just Heard a Message From Aliens, Scientists Say.” Apparently, extremely odd and inexplicable noises and modulations are emanating from a set of stars in deep space. 

I wonder if anyone will be offering a course in interplanetary communications one day soon? We’ve seen a lot of wonders in our lifetimes. If it all comes to pass, and our civilizations do make contact, I really have my fingers crossed that the first human being the aliens speak with at that intergalactic-introductions ceremony isn’t President Trump.