I don't know how ....

[Flo]

I don't know how the other half lives.

I go to an over 60s chat club once a week for 9.5 months of the year here in the village (we have a summer break while the leaders do the next programme). Half of the group are totally IT illiterate but can wield the TV channel changer a treat and look at me as if I have just come from Mars when I remind them I have no telly. Two of the group live by their mobile phones - calls, internet, shopping orders, look things up instantly .... Now when I mention Facebook most of the room withdraws into a corner saying the place is full of undesirables - even those with no computer. The group leader couldn't find her bus pass if her car was stolen. Or manage to use the local bus service. Yet most of the rest of us are bus timetable literate and can answer questions on the local bus services in less time than it takes to put our coffee cups down.

Go into the post office in town up hill before 10.30 am on a Monday morning and there's a queue of pensioners drawing their complete pension in cash and paying their rent, rates, electric/gas bills, phone bills in real money - it's to support the post office and keep it open you know. The idea of a basic bank account and paying by direct debit for all bills so that they cost less seems to be completely foreign to them.

And explaining to the bloke next door how caller recognition on his landline telephone works - well that was a conversation and a half. I had to take my phone into the garden and show him.

I remember one lady on the local bus who lost her job through layoffs at work and was totally confused because she had to apply for out of work benefits on a computer. Good thing she had some good friends there. And then she found that housing benefit was a different system to getting "her dole". Things that I knew from a long lifetime of temps work.

Is it me or has the world passed some people by? How to be self sufficient in the modern world appears to be for the young.

[Green Aura]

I'm not sure it's just our age bracket, Flo. My daughter is totally IT literate, cooks everything from scratch and, if pushed, could probably grow a few bits - at least sprout some seeds if nothing else. She's a dab hand at buying good quality secondhand clothes online. She can knit, crochet and sew, decorate and do some DIY, and can mend a smart phone or laptop for fun. She does live through her phone but that's mainly because we live so remotely, most of her friends are in another country and, like you, we have no TV. She seems to be the exception.

Most of her friends think everything is disposable. They may use public transport but that's fairly easy when you live in a city. Most of them think they've prepared a meal from scratch if they have to open the packets and put the contents in the oven! They couldn't make, or mend, their own clothes if hell had them. Clothes are bought cheaply to wear a few times then discard. They can tell you everything that's happening on any no. of TV shows but probably don't know who the Prime Minister is. They're not bad people but are definitely in their own little bubble and not affected much by the utside world until reality sets in - they lose their job or whatever.

They all adore my gal. She cooks for them, when she's down the road, better than most of their own parents can. She entertains their kids and makes them things. On the other hand, they all think she's a bit weird, like her Mum, because she not only can do these things but actually enjoys it.

[BernardSmith]

I think what you are observing is that we live with a number of cultures none of which really understand the other and none of which really speak to any other. One culture views everything as disposable and looks to find the ways to live using money to solve most problems. Here, for example, there are huge numbers that never use their kitchen for anything- You want coffee you go to Starbucks; you want a meal, you order it by phone. Then there is the culture that views the internet and web 2.0 as part of an age of surveillance and loss of all privacy. More: companies and organizations that they deal with "monetize" data that such interactions produce. If the data belongs to those people then those making money from the data are thieves and robbers. Then there is a third culture and this culture is more or less completely bamboozled by technology. The thing is in the past technology more or less meant that all they had to do was switch things on or off and at best (worst?) they might have two or three choices to make, where one choice was already made (if you switched your TV on it was already tuned to the last channel you watched and most people most of the time rarely changed channels (ask the advertisers if you doubt that). Today, the possibilities are close to infinite and everything demands a decision. Finally, there is a fourth culture and that culture argues that we live on a spaceship we call Earth and resources may be enormous but they are limited and they (we) need to find ways to be less wasteful, to reuse, recycle and we need to ensure that this spaceship enables us all to survive as we journey through space-time and not crash the craft because we imagine that it is on auto pilot.

[ina]

Sometimes I'm glad I don't really know a lot of people...

The few I do know well enough to call friends are a little like me: we use technology when necessary, but can survive without. And we definitely don't order a take away when we want to eat!

I admit I have no idea how to use a smart phone - I don't see the need for one. I'm sure I could learn how to use it, though, if I really needed to. (It does annoy me that smart phone owners get a lot of things cheaper - bus fares for example.) And now I have to apply for "settled status", and that is only possible on an Android phone. (The only place in Scotland where I could do it in person is Edinburgh.) Luckily, my employer has got hold of an Android that we can use... Now I just need to find somebody to show me how to do it!

[Weedo]

Bernard, perhaps I am a fifth group? I work with a lot of technology (have to, no other way to get things done). At the moment I am in my "work" office doing what I get paid for; laptop, two additional monitors, iPad (some things only work on these) iPhone, Android and landline/fax/scanner hub. I need to access Email, facebook, internal facebook (closed system) and several other on line programmes constantly. I have nine (9) separate password and log in processes. When I leave here this afternoon I will have zero computers, zero screens, zero mobile reception (except for at the SE corner of the veranda) zero landline, zero TV - in short a (blissful) techno desert. Roll on retirement!

[BernardSmith]

Hi Weedo, Interesting point. I never thought about those of us who spend some time in one culture and some time in another. I am with the State University of NY and my working day is very dependent on technology (we have meetings via Skype and I have multiple terminals on my desk but when I return home at the end of the day I prefer to read books printed on paper and print newspapers and magazines. I also prefer to shop locally rather than use Amazon. We don't have TVs or landlines but my wife uses a smart phone although my phone is a basic phone and not a mobile computer) but we do watch movies and TVs series (from across the world ) via Netflix and Amazon. We try to grow some of our food and I make cheese and wine and we bake our own bread and cook from scratch... So to your point, Weedo. I think these cultures are best understood as parts of a matrix and we all fit SOMEWHERE on this matrix : the woman who cannot program her TV can maintain her car; the fellow spends all day on the web returns to a home in the evening that is so remote that he can gaze at the milky way without any light pollution

[Odsox]

Well it appears that I am in yet another different group, or more precisely an amalgamation of all the groups.
I am one of those "pensioners" that Flo refers to, but I never use cash for anything above a couple of Euro/Pounds/Dollars.
I live in a remote place where I can gaze at the Milky Way, and for that reason I use on-line shops as it's cheaper and more responsible to have things delivered than the 120 mile round trip to any big stores.
I have a small cheap smart phone because it's the only phone I can buy, but I would MUCH prefer a clam shell phone as they are better size for my trouser pocket, but they have stopped selling them here.
I am a radio ham and can and do build radios from scratch, I have had a computer since the ZX80 chip came out in 1980, and can still build a computer from scratch and make a working one from 2 or 3 dead ones.
The only newspaper I buy is the weekly local one as all newspapers are 2 to 3 times the price of the same UK editions at about £2.00/€2.20 each or €15.00 a week for news that's free on the Internet.

On the other hand I grow all my own vegetables, totally self sufficient (apart for mushrooms), mainly self sufficient in fruit, and so spend most of my days pottering about doing whatever needs doing on that day, and only then if I feel like it.
I repair things that need it if I can and make things I need if I can and generally live in a way that works with nature, as I have done most of my life. I could fairly easily revert to a way of life of 50 years ago, but would miss modern TV and freezers.
So that makes me a right oddball weirdo, or pick'n'mix of the bits of "civilisation" that I agree with.

[Green Aura]

I could fairly easily revert to a way of life of 50 years ago, but would miss modern TV and freezers.

Aye. I'm not so much bothered about the TV, although we do like watching films, but I do find myself doing things the way I learned from my Dad - 50(cough) years ago. I should qualify that by saying I do it Dad-style with 21C gadgets. e.g. Dad would put a stewpot in the oven with steak and kidney in the oven before going off to work. I do the same thing but in a slow cooker. Some things are an improvement, others not so much.

However, I'm not sure we could live so happily up here, in such an isolated community, without internet shopping. We get an organic veg, cheese and meat box weekly and a separate fish box delivered monthly. We're fairly limited in what we can grow up here, so try to stick to growing more unsusal items, or things like tomatoes that are just never as tasty as homegrown. Pretty much everything else - clothes, tools, music etc is mainly bought online. Even with the Highland surcharge, which still seems to plague us, the cost of delivery is still much lower than fuel for a 200 mile round trip to Inverness and, unfortunately, the choice is much wider too.

I think it's fine having a foot in several camps. I think I always have - no one at home helped their Dad's in the garden, and when I left home I needed separate friends for different interests - politics, theatre, music etc. They were all great folks but none seemed to have interests in more than one or two of my other pursuits.

Nearest I got is the bloke I married

[Thomzo]

I do think society is getting more and more diverse. I use technology at work and tend to spend quite a bit of time on the computer at home, too. I have a 5 yr old smart phone which I’m thinking of upgrading but I don’t use it all the time. I’m a TV fan, mainly crime or historic drama yet I cook from scratch, grow a fair amount of my own fruit and veg, make and mend clothes, and rarely buy new clothes. In my last job I was definitely the odd one out. They thought anyone who wore anything older than the current season’s fashion was plain weird and as for keeping chickens... Mind you, I could always sell the eggs and get rid of any glut of apples, rhubarb etc. I now work at the National Trust and feel quite at home as everyone in the office has chickens and grows their own. Trouble is the place is awash with eggs and spare produce so I’ve no ready outlet for mine. Sometimes it’s useful to know people who aren’t so Ish.