Sondra gotlieb
‘Also, I am told, one has to buy a vaporizer.’
Most of us feel uneasy entering a hospital, even if we are only going to meet a healthy doctor and not a sick patient. I feel the same uneasiness when I open my computer and encounter the Internet.
Words such as website, apps, download, blog and even email make me wish I was still living in the last century, when I last felt at ease in the world. Today, maybe a third of what I read and hear has to do with the Internet and I feel about as comfortable with it as a 14th-century monkish scribe would if he had walked into Gutenberg’s printing shop. I’ve come to realize that those who were born after the Internet came into common use have a radically different way of dealing with life than I do.
I know I’m missing out, and one of the things I’m specifically missing out on is medical marijuana. I have some aches and arthritic pains and a doctor recently recommended medical marijuana to me. I paid someone more than $200 to receive it. Then they said you have to organize everything over the Internet and we’ll send you email about it in three days. I have never tried marijuana and now, because of my technical incompetence, it looks as if I may never get a whiff. Also, I am told, one has to buy a vaporizer and that would be my first Internet purchase. I’m not sure I want to break my record.
To be fair, the information age didn’t exactly sneak up on me. I started using a computer in the mid 1980s when I was writing a column for the Washington Post. Most people of my age were taking to computers and cellphones like rats in tubs of butter, but even then I was choking more than most.
And so I have coping strategies, most of which consist of playing along. I pretend to be knowledgeable about the digital world and even lie about receiving fascinating emails and seeking out websites. But my children know that I don’t usually check my inbox and that I still use the telephone to try to get things done. I have even had lessons just to teach me how to shop on eBay but have yet to succeed in buying my first item. My one great success, one I have crowed about in this space before, is that, with some trepidation, I rely on my Kindle for reading material while travelling.
Lots of old people — even older than I — are extremely adept at the computer and using email. My 90-year-old sister-in-law returned to Jerusalem recently after a few weeks absence and discovered more than 600 new emails waiting for her. “Some,” she said, “were just about new protesting sites.” (My sister-in-law has strong views.)
My husband, on the other hand, has never entered computerland. I know a few people besides Allan who don’t use the Internet or even own a computer. “Just don’t worry about it. You’re not missing anything”, they say. The aches and pains remind me that they’re not right.