My mom just called and said that she and my dad want me to start buying both Frontline Plus and Royal Canine Veterinary Diet for their dog from this store for them so they can save money and a little time. Of course, my first question was why they wanted me to do it when they had a perfectly good internet connection themselves. Apparently, they still don’t really know how to make purchases online, plus they don’t want to compromise their credit card info. I found this rather amusing, since of course they’re asking me to put my credit card info online. I reckon they figure because I’ve bought so many things online, entering my numbers one more time won’t compromise them any further. Oh well.
This made me start thinking about technology and aging in general. Why is it that my folks and grandma have so much trouble using the internet, when to me everything is so intuitive? The seems to be that I’ve grown up with computers and the accompanying technology. But the problem is that my mom has been working with computers much longer than I’ve been alive, and passes much more time in front of her computer than I do.
I wonder if it’s anything like learning a language. The connections in the brain that allow people to hear certain sounds are only formed during the first five or so years of life. Thence, if a child doesn’t continually hear a sound, say a particular vowel sound, before a certain age, then she won’t ever be able to hear and make the sound properly. Perhaps our brain simply stops making technical connections as well as we get older. Therefore, no matter how much time my mother spends on the computer, she’ll never quite master its intricacies because she didn’t learn them at a young enough age. For that matter, I won’t ever be able to understand the newest forms of technology as well as my kids do, no matter how much I study or how smart I am. Oh, the prospect of existence marooned in an foreign world that is yet one’s own!
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