THROWN? GET BACK ON

Old Timers, however dressed, from the Information Age or the Interactive Age, are experienced digital immigrants or, if younger, digital natives. Their brains are different, as recent scans have shown. They are seldom over 30, have little tolerance for us digitally illiterate beginners, and use language that seems to come from some science fiction futurist TV show.  Other than that, they are normal navigators of  21st Century technology. The future is theirs, and at this point in my quest for social networking, I’m thinking they can have it. But that doesn’t get me what I want.

“Hi Doc. Can I help you?”

“Stop screaming at the screen,” I think he means.

“Look, Doc, just put your mind somewhere safe, hold your fingers at the ready over the keyboard, and jump in. I mean, stop thinking and trying to figure out what’s on the site. It’s not like flying a plane, you can ignore the instruments.”

I’m staring at the screen and his words penetrate at least an eighth of an inch into my ken. “You mean ignore all the stuff on the control panel?”

“Well, most of it. You need to learn a few commands to get started, like you did to get to this page.”

That seems to make sense. I did get here even thought I’m not sure I can get here again. “Look over here to the left where it says Dashboard. Familiar term, right? Below that are about 15 words. Don’t let them confuse you. Click on the first one, Posts. Look, see that menu jump out?”

“Hey, that’s neat. Why didn’t they give me this information to start with?”

“Someone thought you didn’t need it. Besides, when you know all this start-up stuff you won’t want to be bothered by lots of information you don’t want to be bothered with.”

“That is a syllogism that is not logical, but okay. Now what do I do?”

“You click, Add A New Post. Pick a title. Start writing like you are writing this. When done, on the right is an oval with Save Draft. Click it when done. When you are satisfied that this post is edited and ready, you can Publish Immediately. Of course that doesn’t publish immediately until you hit Publish.  That’s it. That’s all you have to do … for now.”

I thank him profusely.

“Doc, there’s a lot more you have to do on your site, but I don’t think you’re ready for that information now.”

I assure him that my mind is still trying to form the grooves in my brain that will be pathways for next time, and that if those pathways work, and I can repeat the processes without fear and trepidation, I’ll consider other additions to my WordPress site…

The adventure continues. I got back on.  I haven’t been thrown again, yet.

Ed