“Young people get this stuff easier.”
For 14 years, I’ve worked as a corporate computer trainer. My biggest success story was a 70 year old lady who learned to keyboard and moved up to designing databases in 6 months. She said, “If I can outlive 2 husbands in marriages of more than 20 years each, I can learn to use a computer.”
The biggest challenge is overcoming the Fear Factor. I tried an experiment that can help.
I did turnabout with high school students. I divided 10 students into 2 teams and brought in typewriters for the challenge. One team had an electric typewriter, and the other had a manual. They had an assignment to type a page of text in an hour. I gave them 0 instructions on how to use a typewriter.
Questions asked:
- Where’s the printer?
- This typewriter needs a new toner. (I showed how to rotate the ribbon wheel.)
- You have to push this bar for EVERY line?
It took each team at least 5 minutes to figure out how to put a sheet of paper into the typewriter. Within an hour, each team had typed a paragraph.
I got out a bottle of liquid paper and told them, “This is spellcheck.”
After the challenge, I noted their frustration. Then I told them I learned to type on a manual typewriter and remember when my school got a single row of electric typewriters.
Then I told the teens that the amount of change I had encountered would be miniscule to what they will see by the time they are my age.
Finally, I added – to be open to the challenges those changes present.
Never quit learning. Broaden your horizons. Try something new.
Yes, when I got my Android it took me a month to use it comfortably. My teens had to show me how to make a phone call and answer it. But I did learn it.
You can learn it too.
Think of it as a tiptoe through the typewriters to the 21st century.
[...] – Mary Biever – I met Mary because of @NibbyP re-tweeting her blog on Tiptoe with the Typewriters. Mary agreed to let me post this as a guest post atInsuranceEcosystem. Her newest guest post at [...]
Mary, this is an awesome post. I work with insurance agencies on their technology, workflows and social media. I love how you have shown that learning a new task is not any easier for the young than the mature when faced with the unknown. I find people of all ages that resist or just aren’t interested in learning. I am heartened to find people of all ages that embrace learning and change.
Thank you for sharing this with all of us.
Pat, thank you for the kind words. We can always learn – whatever our age!
Because my brother and his family have exclusively used cell phones at home for years, with no regular telephone line service, my niece had to be taught what a dial tone was.
Kevin, I’m not surprised.