Learning to Surf!

Learning something new is always exciting, and a bit nerve-racking. Like learning to surf. The world wide web, like the ocean is a pretty big place, and it’s easy to get submerged. Although to some it may seem like yesterday, and to others a million years ago, the World Wide Web was developed in 1990. NCSA Mosaic, one of the earliest web browsers, was distributed free to the public and led directly to the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web. Remember when, “Sorry, due to heavy load on the server, browsing is quite slow.” It was a message that we learned to live with by thumping our fingers on the keyboard or mouse. Today it’s hard to measure how fast people can surf the web. Whether it a person uses dial-up, accelerated dial-up, DSL/Broadband or whatever is most up-to-date ….it all gets pretty blurry. Speed is what seems to count.

For instance, we all know that kids grow up too fast. Turn 16 years-old and you probably want a fast car, vs. a slow junker. Just look at McDonald’s drive up. And isn’t it Dominos Pizza who used to say if they didn’t deliver your pizza in ½ hour, it was free? Obviously for some, speed is important. Fine. But one group who probably has little need to know how fast their connection speed is would be senior citizens. 1.5 Mbps, 12 Mbps, or 20 Mbps… most likely doesn’t matter. They just want to log on, do their business and be reasonably sure their computer won’t crash. And since they now make up the largest group of people embracing or “surfing” the web, becoming quickly submerged can easily happen. Add arthritis or other dexterity issues to the mix and seniors can be particularly anxious.

Thankfully there are classes seniors can enroll in to learn how to email and surf the web at their own pace. There are web sites, www.seniornet.org; aarp.com;advancedseniorsolutions.com, chestercreek.com; blogs, Facebook pages, tweets on Twitter, and the like, all reaching out to senior citizens to help keep their heads above water.