In what ways do you communicate online?
I reckon you can answer this question in several different ways. Firstly what do you use to go online to communicate? I tend to use my smart phone to type into whichever social media I choose.
I believe, according to statistics, that around half of the UK use a mobile device to go online now. That’s scary. My desktop computer is redundant.
But even the act of going online can be further broken down— tablet or laptop also get a look in with me. My tablet is a 10” screen and gets a fair bit of use for downloading and sharing music scores and simpler Canva graphic design stuff.
The Laptop comes into its own for serious writing stints. It’s easier to type away on a big keyboard and switch between pages and chapters in a novel. It’s also great for more complex Canva projects and website building, things like WordPress and my digital marketing platform work better on a PC.
I’m a very simple user of this stuff, I learn enough to achieve my goal, no more. I don’t have enough brain cells left to retain complex programming processes. Even navigating some less used apps and programs requires relearning every time I log on to them.
Purely communicating falls in the lap of WhatsApp these days. E mails feel too clunky now, you want me? WhatsApp me. For music stuff it’s brilliant as it will share massive files of audio and music scores—entire volumes of tunes in seconds, if necessary. So if you start having more than a brief encounter with me, you’ll end up on WhatsApp.
I’m writing this on a smartphone right now. The screen is a bit small for my old eyes, even though it’s one of the largest and latest models, but it’s so handy.
To a lot of you younger folk this smartphone business is something you’ve been born with. My first courtship was carried out on a telephone in a freezing cold hallway with the lounge door open so my parents could monitor the conversation. That was the way it was. Now, young folk have too much unsupervised contact with each other and look at the mess they’ve getting into with radicalisation and grooming.
Ok, enough banging on, this old gripper is going back to sleep—sweet electric dreams!