Digital Mum!

In dedication to my kids who I love dearly … still.

The Digital Curse: When Mum Was Google

Ah, to be sixty and digitally challenged. It’s less a phase of life and more an expedition into a swamp where the main hazard is not quicksand, but an "unexpected error" dialogue box—which, naturally, provides no explanation of what was unexpected or why it’s being so rude.

There was a golden age, wasn’t there? A glorious time when my voice was the only search engine. “Mum, how fast can a cheetah run?” “Mum, what’s the difference between weather and climate?” I was the original, pre-internet Google. My answers were definitive, often a little creative, but never questioned.

Now, I dispense a meticulously researched fact about, say, the date of the Battle of Britain, and I immediately hear the dreaded click-clack of a keyboard, followed by the heartbreaking, patronizing sigh: “Hang on, Mum, let me just fact-check that on Google.” The betrayal is palpable. It’s official: I’ve been replaced by an algorithm.

Then came the new vocabulary. I hear about ChatGPT and am told it’s already yesterday’s news. And the Gemini App? Apparently, it’s a brilliant new assistant, but, and I quote my youngest, “It’s definitely not your twin flame, Mum. Stop asking spiritual questions.” My soul is already fractured, thank you very much.

The A.I. Prudishness Paradox

And don't even get me started on AI assistants like Siri or Alexa! Maybe they can explain themselves to you, because they certainly won't talk sense to me. The other day, in a moment of sheer digital frustration (probably involving the scanner), I let slip a nasty curse word—the 'F-bomb,' let’s call it. And what was Siri’s immediate, judgment-free, and robotically polite response? A perfectly calibrated, “I am not sure I understand what you meant. Could you repeat that, or use another word?” Holy Moly! I can think of many alternative replies for that situation, but "I don't understand" certainly wasn't one of them. The cheek! It just proves that AI has all the processing power in the world, but absolutely no street smarts or sense of occasion.

The IT Professional Paradox

But the deepest wound, the source of my inner child’s tears and trauma beyond repair (ask my therapist, or my ex husband, if I could ever figure out how to schedule a reliable video call without turning my microphone into a waffle iron), is The Curse.

All my children work in the IT world. All of them! You’d think this would be my technological salvation. Instead, it’s a cruel, cosmic joke. They have become masters of the infuriating, circular non-answer:

Me (desperate): “My computer is blinking a yellow light and making a noise like a dying seagull. I can scan or print my tax form!”

Them (with a sigh that implies I single-handedly invented all technology issues): “Did you check the driver dependencies? Maybe adjust the IP stack? Just clear your cache and check the port forwarding on the router and maybe disable the third-party extensions.”

* (Ps. I did google these terms to write this paragraph above!) Guilty as charged, blame the kids !)

They can build an enterprise-level cloud infrastructure, but they can’t explain how to attach a PDF without using the word “repository.” It’s a mind-boggling experience that I’m currently trying to self-diagnose by asking Google Doc (because why not mix them all up?) for the latest ailment description and the quickest cure.

The Useless Tutorial

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My kids tell me tutorials are my go-to. Believe me, I have tried. They are written by people who were born with a microchip in their palm. They launch into sentences like, “Simply navigate to the storage directory and upload the file to the document cloud.”

I scream internally, clutching a physical dictionary: Wait, what’s a file? Is it a manila folder? What’s a document? Is it a letter? And storage? Is that where I keep my Christmas decorations? My daughter tried, bless her to give me a analogy of these definitions as comparable to a house , that’s a building , with doors you go in and out of, right?” Mum focus” Alas I had left the building loooong ago! Was I still trying to figure out how a door was a folder or filer?

There is no dictionary. There is no glossary. Just the smug, silent judgment of an animated mouse pointer and the chilling realization that my generation gap isn't a gap—it’s the Grand Canyon, and I’m standing on the analogue side with a rotary phone and a paper map.

Yet, I must admit, amidst the digital tears and tantrums, there is a silver lining—a grudging acceptance of this instantaneous, quick-fix world. I’ve had to embrace it with the patience of a saint trying to debug a 404 error, and yes, it is frustrating. But I can't deny the immediate gratification it offers. For some, anyway. Being able to find the answer to "Why does my cat stare at the wall?" in 0.2 seconds is undeniably a kind of magic, even if I still need 20 minutes to figure out how to close the browser tab afterward.

Google Maps and Google Translate ( people speak mostly French in Mauritius…) Hey I can even point my camera at a grocery item in the store and it translates it to English!! Most of the locals think I am testing products for microchips!

My best friend, “Google Maps” can lead me through sugar canes and dirt roads with no names without any real recalculating!

But hey, at least I know where the emergency wine/tea is stored. That’s analogue storage, and thank goodness my kids haven't tried to optimize its throughput yet. I think it’s alphabetically stored as a PDF or the Adobe space??? Who the hell knows!? That’s for next weeks search engine! 😮‍💨 sigh, the struggle is real being technically challenged! Embrace the change or loose your mind ? I try!