"Boomer" technology...one day at a time

I'm continually astonished at how many people still haven't gotten over the fear of using new "stuff" on their computers...until I realize that I'm no different from those "many people."


For instance, I just installed the Google Chrome browser on my computer, and now I'm playing with it, and learning how to use it, and what it can do.  It's not something that I'm entirely comfortable with, this idea of installing something new and teaching myself.  Mostly I find it fun, but I still -- and probably always will -- get a little gut-clench, until I've really gotten the hang of it.  I kinda have to force myself to click that next key, and see what will happen, but it's almost like watching a suspense movie: mentally I'm really watching the screen between my fingers, if you know what I mean.


Mind you, I know -- I mean, I really know -- that I can't launch a flight of cruise missiles over Washington D.C., or blow up my computer, or black out the entire Northeast power grid by hitting the wrong button.  But I wasn't born with computers and all the bells and whistles that go with them, and I won't ever be as comfortable with them as anyone born after 1985 just naturally is.  After all, I didn't emerge from the womb texting... 


So I can understand how so many others -- Baby Boomers like me -- also find the experience somewhat less than comfortable.  But we've got to keep on installing, and learning, and teaching ourselves, because it's crucial not to succumb to the urge to settle into quiet obsolescence.  Technology is moving so fast, and it's not ever going to stand still, much less go backwards to the good old days of rotary phones, electric typewriters and TVs sans remotes...and no computers.  If we don't want to become utterly irrelevant, and increasingly helpless, we've got to keep moving forward.


Besides, learning all this new and fascinating technology has got to be good for the brain...all those new synapses firing, or whatever goes on in there.  So I tell myself that I'll avoid Alzheimers, and simultaneously avoid looking like a great, honking dork, by learning all this phenomenal new stuff.


So for all you Boomers who might read this, please join me in the second decade of the 21st Century, and start embracing this magic.  Explore, make mistakes, delete, try again, go back and explore some more.  Boomers of the world, unite!  You have nothing to lose but your dorkdom!!