Digital divide: Technology geeks shall inherit the earth

We have been manipulated into a position where we have no option but to try and keep up.

I have a love-hate relationship with technology.

I couldn’t function without it. I’m online constantly. I pride myself on having become good at tracking down information via the Internet. My work depends on it.

I watch videos on You Tube. I use Skype to talk to my children and grandchildren overseas. I use Internet banking, I make travel and accommodation bookings online, I occasionally buy books or CDS on Amazon and I have a blog.

I stream overseas radio networks on my smartphone. America’s National Public Radio is my favourite, presenting a civilised, erudite America that’s about as far removed from the coarse, shouty Donald Trump America as it’s possible to imagine.

I’m even on Facebook, although I remain deeply suspicious of it. To me it’s as perplexing as freemasonry, and almost spookily cultish in the grip that it appears to exert over its followers.

I’ve never been on a computer course and have acquired whatever digital skills I possess through trial and error, adding to my repertoire as and when required. I learn whatever I feel I need to learn to make the most of the digital world.

But for all that, digital technology remains a source of hair-tearing frustration. Some would say this is because I’m old and can’t get my head around it. It’s certainly true that the generations which have grown up with technology – ‘‘digital natives’’, as they’re called – have a more intuitive mastery of it.

But in defence against the claim that I’m just doddery and confused, I can advance a couple of counter-arguments. The first, as I’ve already explained, is that I use digital technology every hour of the day, so I’m not exactly helpless.

The second is that I frequently talk to people from generations X and Y, people who have grown up with computers and digital devices, and they get just as exasperated as I do. Only a couple of days ago I was in conversation with a digital artist – a clever man who spends all day sitting in front of a screen – and he confessed to feeling as conflicted about technology as I am.

What the complaints usually come down to is that the people who create digital technology make it far harder than it needs to be. The phrase ‘‘user-friendly’’ appears not to exist in their vocabulary. In fact they go to such perverse lengths to frustrate users that I sometimes wonder if it’s done out of sheer mischief.

In my darkest moments, I start to suspect that the digital world is controlled by aliens. Certainly, they are people whose brains are wired differently, and who have created a language all their own – one almost as indecipherable as Klingon-speak from Star Trek.

Using technology means having to get to grips with an everexpanding range of infantile words and expressions that convey no meaning. It’s not the natural language of human interaction, which tends to confirm my impression that the digital world is run by people who have little interest in direct human contact and need to invent new ways of communicating that reflect their sterile alternative universe.

For a while I kept examples of the incomprehensible technobabble that appeared daily on my computer screen. I soon gave up. There was just too much of it.

The problem is, we’re at the mercy of the shadowy geeks who run the digital world (or ‘‘digital space’’, to use the popular jargon). We have been manipulated into a position where we have no option but to try and keep up.

And I mean that literally: we have no choice. We either manage to navigate the increasingly complex digital realm or risk exiling ourselves to a nether-world where we’ll be doomed to gradually disengage from society.

The so-called digital divide has created a new class of socially disadvantaged people who risk being left further behind.

The digital world has also imposed on us an arrogant, bullying new business model that takes Henry Ford’s famous edict – ‘‘You can have any car, as long as it’s black’’ – to hitherto unimagined extremes.

My own computer was recently infected with a virus called Windows 10. On a quiet Sunday morning when I wasn’t looking, Windows 10 installed itself without my consent. All my previous settings were wiped.

Now I have to familiarise myself with new ways of doing things and a whole new array of infantile terminology. And it isn’t just me. I read recently that thousands of Windows users are fuming impotently over this socalled upgrade. Many have paid support companies large sums to restore their previous computer settings.

Will this deter Microsoft? Of course not. It’s the Darth Vader of the business world. Meanwhile Bill Gates, the man who created this monster and reputedly the world’s wealthiest individual, travels the world doing good works. I can’t help but conclude that the billions he spends on worthy causes is conscience money.