A friend who was holidaying in Malaysia called. He had some ringit credit remaining on his phone card. He had just travelled on the recently reopened tourist train that travels up into the hills of Penang. 'I'll mail you the brochure', said he, knowing I would be interested. Of course I was, but I was already familiar with the train via the internet. Yes, the internet, that thing that our friend uses often and yet he thinks I need a brochure.
Actually, it was nice to get to brochure. It had a map showing all sorts of things I would have never seen or noticed on the internet website for the train, such as a Hindu temple atop the Penang hills? Ah, butterfly enclosure. Interesting.
It reminds me of times when Mother and my late step father and us used to meet up on a Sunday for a picnic or barbeque. Mother would tell me where the place was and then hand the phone over to Step Father to give me precise directions, in spite of me already telling Mother that I will look it up on a map, usually the street directory. Step Father would give precise directions, turn left, turn right, travel to the end of, when you see the locked gate....
The directions went in my right ear and out my left ear, not pausing at the brain at all. I looked the place up with the street directory and got us there.
On a promote the Victorian town of Walhalla website, I read that you should not trust your sat nav car device to get you there. They only really work well in the city. Right, satellites cover the world but not Walhalla? They are hardly fool proof in the city either.
Young people seem quite adept at surfing the information super highway, the net, very well by just moving their finger around and tapping on a pad. Older people, such as moi, need a mouse and it seems to boil down to a generational divide.
Oh, and apparently, if you are over fifty and use the internet, you are a Silver Surfer. Given that the dudes who invented the internet are now pretty well dead, I am not sure that I am happy to be classed as a silver surfer. Mother at the age of seventy something, has never used the net directly, but she has benefited from it and writes down web site addresses for one of us to look at and print out what might be of interest to her.