Lift Up Your Hearts!

And newspapers wonder why subscription rates are down!  The news is bad enough without adding insult to injury.

The Orlando Sentinel had the nerve to run Grandpa, Meet Facebook, an article by Tribune author Jenniffer Weigel.  (The link is not to the Sentinel because they've adopted the annoying habit of charging for online story access.)

The author begins by telling us that it's "scary" that her mother wants to learn to use Facebook.  Then she quotes Mary Madden, from the Pew Internet Center.

"This is a pretty unique moment in time where grandkids and grandparents can be interacting at the same time, and more seniors are getting a taste of this and seeing the benefits," Madden said.

Whatever this generation may be good at, it's not history.  For most of human time grandkids and grandparents have been interacting just fine; it's recent times that have separated them.

Here's another insult:

But the learning curve for the older crowd to master a site like Facebook can be steep, according to Abby Stokes, author of the book "Is This Thing On? A Computer Handbook for Late Bloomers, Technophobes and the Kicking & Screaming" (Workman).

"I refer to anybody over the age of 40 as a digital immigrant," Stokes said. "You can learn anything but you learn it at a slower pace."

Excuse me?  We were busy inventing the Digital Age before you were born, you young whippersnapper!  It's not technology that keeps me from mastering smart phones and iPad-equivalents.  It's money, plain and simple.  We were brought up to be more careful with our money than to pour it into the latest electronic gadgets.^*  Give me one of those devices (and a subscription, which is the worst of the cost) and I'll gladly take on the supposed challenge.