Sometimes I wonder if the world has lost some human interaction since the invention of the Personal Computer and the marvels of the Internet?  However, the fact that I am a woman who appreciates there has been much lost, I am fascinated what I have been able to do with the computer. I am not technologically savvy in any way but have learned how to do many tasks on the computer which are important to me.

                        The very first time I actually believed there could be a use for e-mail, was when my son had cardiac arrest and respiratory failure at the age of fourteen, due to complications from dehydration. I left the hospital briefly to use my mother’s computer to compose one e-mail that could be forwarded to all of our relatives. I did not have the energy to compose several e-mails and I was in no shape to make phone calls. My mother showed me how to compose an e-mail. That was one week after 9/11. Imagine never feeling that e-mail would be something I would use? Now most people use some form of instant messaging where they can ‘talk’ on line. This has pretty much replaced e-mail for the younger folks. There will always be a place for e-mail in the business world.

                        This reminds me of my own job, dispatching technicians to repair phone lines. Throughout the day, I speak with the repair department and speak with technicians and many others. Some people call me from other States. Rather than being stuck in some phone queue, I often ask callers for their last names so I can find them on the company list. This way I can keep them up to date regarding status of a job using instant messaging by typing onto a small box on my computer screen. This also enables the job to get dispatched faster and to get important messages to the techs regarding their jobs. It also is a way for each group in my office working as a team to keep connected to each other. I might leave a message in the group chat, “If tech g25 calls, he needs to call his customer at last job.”  Whoever thought that all these types of communication would be so useful?

                        Now I just received a cell phone for Christmas, but it was over a week before I tried to activate it. My son had to help me and out of frustration, I finally asked him to record his own voice using my name. I have not figured out how to access the voice mail yet. I will get through it. Quite often I feel so out of touch, like I am from some distant planet. I am still not convinced that I am not.

                        My main purpose for writing this piece was an interesting story that happened as a result of the Wonders of the Web. Recently, a relative of mine was in touch with a childhood friend from our neighborhood of Redbank in South Portland via Facebook. I told my relative to let her former childhood friend know that her mother could be seen on some of my parent’s old home movies from Youtube all dating in the mid 1960’s. Imagine the friend’s surprise to see her mother ,who had been deceased for some time, on film on the website Youtube. I was quite touched by this and so was the young woman. Technology is amazing.