Comments on: Digital Britian Report: The digital divide http://www.thedigitalconsultant.com/blog/2009/06/16/digital-britian-report-the-digital-divide/ Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:57:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Nikki http://www.thedigitalconsultant.com/blog/2009/06/16/digital-britian-report-the-digital-divide/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Nikki Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:17:49 +0000 http://www.thedigitalconsultant.co.uk/blog/?p=23#comment-8 Speaking as a 40something and somewhere in between the fields of Luddite (working for a new media company) and expert (in my family, I am the guru!), what has always been lacking for those of us too old to have learned IT as a school subject, can be found in the sentence: "Make something relevant to them and people will take an interest." Most IT courses (I have a 40something friend on one now, who met a PC only weeks ago) still concentrate on function, not purpose. My friend can now compose an email, but has no contacts and sees his friends in the real world. He can now create folders, but has no content for them. He can create a word document, but has nothing he needs to write. The training has successfully moved him from resistant to fearful/frustrated. No further. For those of us who learned to live our lives non-virtually, you need to show us WHY we should Twitter, HOW Facebook complements a visit to the local hostelry... We're not really anti digital; we just have lives that work perfectly well without it! And I do speak as one who has moved into the fold and cannot imagine a life unconnected any more. But I remember the reasons I made the leap. Do you? Speaking as a 40something and somewhere in between the fields of Luddite (working for a new media company) and expert (in my family, I am the guru!), what has always been lacking for those of us too old to have learned IT as a school subject, can be found in the sentence:

“Make something relevant to them and people will take an interest.”

Most IT courses (I have a 40something friend on one now, who met a PC only weeks ago) still concentrate on function, not purpose. My friend can now compose an email, but has no contacts and sees his friends in the real world. He can now create folders, but has no content for them. He can create a word document, but has nothing he needs to write. The training has successfully moved him from resistant to fearful/frustrated. No further.

For those of us who learned to live our lives non-virtually, you need to show us WHY we should Twitter, HOW Facebook complements a visit to the local hostelry… We’re not really anti digital; we just have lives that work perfectly well without it!

And I do speak as one who has moved into the fold and cannot imagine a life unconnected any more. But I remember the reasons I made the leap. Do you?

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