Silver surfing - Part 1

This post and the one that follows is inspired by @48Refugee who recounted in 3 Tweets helping her Baba (Dad) use his new Android phone. It made me laugh and reminded of my parents' forays into new technologies.

I'll add a disclaimer here. I don't have a smartphone yet, much less an iPad so the world of Apps and touchscreens is a mystery. I've never even had a Blackberry; communication in my previous world of work as a civil servant was totally encrypted and was personal device-free. (I know what you're thinking at this point; the answers are both no). We had to check our phone and/or MP3 player in at the door each morning and collect it in the evening. But I'm due an phone upgrade so, when I can be bothered to deal with the condescending cretins that work in the handset-flogging industry, I'll take the plunge.

My Dad had a Miami Vice-style car phone back in the 80s. It came with the company car, I seem to remember and was there for emergencies - I don't think it was used much - there was probably never much coverage. Then, in the early 90s, Mum got an enormous analogue 'brick', again in case of emergencies because Dad was abroad for work a great deal of the time and she had an elderly mother, said mother's ailing dog, two teenagers and any number of cats to marshall. When she upgraded it to a digital mobile some years later, it having done perfectly good service, the gelled, shiny suited oiks in Radio Rentals (remember them?) laughed at her.

In the Noughties they both had their bog standard mobile phones, although Dad seldom switched his on, had it with him outside work hours. I can't blame him, but it was rare to get a call from him on it, much less a text. He's always been a bit phone conversation-phobic, as now am I. He finally ditched it altogether recently although, now he's retired and having hurt himself falling off a ladder this time last year, you'd think having that link to the rest of the world would be a useful precaution. I digress. Mum is better. Hers is both switched on and charged and she texts with enthusiasm, although I know she's probably never seen the need to investigate her phone's camera or whether she can get internet access.

They are perfectly computer literate, at least with word processing, e-mailing and uploading digital photos and videos. They're not bad at the internet, although I suspect what they call their 'rubbish rural broadband' issues might be solved with some software upgrades. They'll both sit in the living room, laptops on their knees, being mildly insulted as I (yet again) refer to them as 'silver surfers'. Mum recently organised a 'Come and Sing Handel's Messiah' at a local village church and had live spreadlists...ok, lists, of sopranos, altos, tenors et al singing, their contact details and whether they needed sheet music, and the number of audience. I'm sure that Facebook and Twitter could have cut down the number of phone enquiries to their landline (although I wouldn't have had the delicious anticipation that someone might phone up asking if that was the Messiah - a reference that would have gone clean over both parental heads) but it worked for her.

They're finally coming round to the notion that, if you don't know something, you don't have to not know it for a minute longer. Forgotten the title of a poem? Put in a line or two and the whole thing will pop up - as well as title, poet and publisher, Can't finish the Guardian crossword? The solution's on the website - you don't have to wait until tomorrow's paper hits the doormat. Why is everyone making so much fuss about the moon this week? Well, you no longer have trusty Ceefax to consult, so ask the BBC, Huffington Post or the Australian Morning Herald. It's taken a while, but it's beginning to become second nature.

Social networking? That's a whole other bag of beans...tbc in Part 2.