The World In Bits

Only very recently did I take my first tentative steps into the world of social media. It’s a mine field. It’s like the girl with the curl. When it’s good it’s very very good and when it’s bad it’s horrid.

I know plenty of people with no sight who navigate the digital world with aplomb. I am not one of them.  I considered going on a course in order to develop my skills to a level of #Twitter and #Facebook self sufficiency. Classes, it turns out, are not readily accessible if you can’t see much. So, I did the thing that anyone would do. I turned to #Google. #YouTube. Video tutorials are the perfect format for anyone who can’t see much. Clever old me!

I had to check what I click on to access #Google.  It’s a browser.  I’ve just changed mine. I used my browser to see if I could find an on line tutorial on how to invite my friends to join me on #Facebook. The choices were almost limitless.  #YouTube came up trumps.  I plumped for one. I had to sit through five minutes of an oriental dance troop but then the tutorial began.

There is always a video on #YouTube for just about anything from how to hammer a nail into a wall to how to strip down and rebuild an engine. If I could get my meringue to rise thanks to #YouTube, surely I could learn how to invite my friend Charlie to be my friend on #Facebook.

Screen magnification is a wonderful thing but if you are using it, you can only ever see a part of the screen at any one time. You have to be nimble to move from one part to another and keep a mental map of where you are on the screen at any time. I was looking at the lower left quarter of the screen.  “At the top of your screen,” said the expert. I moved my mouse like fury and overshot. I’m now on the the blue space of screensaver. “Click on it,” She continued.

 “Click on what?”

“Then simply move your cursor to here, and click on that.”

I’ve lost the plot. Where is “here” and what is “that”? In an effort to re-run I enjoy five more glorious minutes of oriental dancing, which, the narrator explains, was once nearly lost to the world. If only.

The expert tutor goes through a long and complicated explanation of what to do. After some frantic note taking and a few re-runs I go to #Facebook and give it a go. It doesn’t work. I go back to the tutorial. After more oriental dancing, the expert explains that there is an easier way to do this, with just a couple of clicks of the mouse. I do it and discover that all this learning has been for nothing because my friend Charlie is already a #Facebook friend.

I now know how to delete a post. Whether I remember how to do this is a different matter altogether. I know what a browser is but where “here” is, I don’t know. What “that” was, is forever a mystery. Ah well, few of us have the luxury of making our choices on absolutely all the available information.