I'm an internet dunce

I’VE just discovered – not that it should be any surprise – that I am an online dunce with an internet age of seven.
This shocking revelation was made to me after I tackled a questionnaire on website www.myinternetage.com.
Launched by communications company Orange, it gauges your internet experience to work out your ‘internet age’ and was built to quantify different generational attitudes to the internet.
The site is on track to become one of the UK’s largest ever studies into internet use. I followed in the hallowed web-steps of 16,000 people, including Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry, who, no doubt, scored a little better than me.
The website told me in a gentle teacher-to-child way, that “I’m doing well but I have a lot to learn”.
My problem soon became apparent. I don’t download or upload, use instant messenger, talk to anonymous online punters, parade my private pictures across Facebook or make funky video clips for You Tube. In fact, I am so out of touch the computer survey could only assume I was a child.
Bit patronising really. Most seven year olds are more computer literate than their parents. For example, my high-tech, switched on, internet-savvy kids (aged nine and 12 but with a joint internet age of 182) wanted a Facebook page. I said no but (and this is probably illegal) said they could create a site for me. It kept them quiet for all of five minutes.
Consequently a web page exists in my name plastered with rotating Burton Albion and Derby County logos. It also states that my favourite TV programmes are The Simpsons and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the person I would most like to meet is Robbie Savage “because he’s a real character”. So far, the sophisticated online community – with respectable online ages – have not cottoned on to the fact that an ancient mother-of-two is living in a 12-year-old’s world.
And that says it all for me. The internet is a make believe wonderland, where people sit for countless hours escaping from reality when they should be doing the garden, housework, essential DIY or at least cooking the tea.
Me? I’m too busy doing the washing to bother with it all. Just coping with oodles of e-mails and text messages is enough for me.
This morning I had 600 spam e-mails in my work inbox. The vast majority were utter junk but, irritatingly, I had to flick through the lot as genuine stuff gets trapped amid the rubbish.
To my tender, seven-year-old- internet-age sensibilities, the online world seems to be obsessed with replica watches, cheap viagra and men’s privates.
Tempting subject lines among this hefty batch of spam included: Playboy bunnies in beach photo shoot; No woman can resist you; Express your masculinity better!; Nominated for an MBA; Safe natural way to size up; Very CheapPrice Bacheelor, MasteerMBA, and Doctoraate dip1omas eklyvjxa yq33rp3 (that’s how it read, by the way) and Be as attractive as 007.
All laudible pursuits, no doubt. I’d love to look like Daniel Craig but I am not sure his macho muscles would look so good on me. These spam machines really should learn to differentiate between the sexes!
Anyway, those waste-of-space e-mails have been sent to the great recycling bin in the sky – but still used up valuable minutes of my day. They underlined to me yet again what a complete waste of time the web world can sometimes be.
Yes, it’s great for shopping, football news and booking holidays but, beyond that, I can’t help feeling it’s seducing a generation of people into being obsessed with the virtual world rather than the real one.
For example, a chum practically married to his PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) spent his entire weekend downloading a whole series of the Sopranos. He hasn’t actually watched any of it yet. When time allows, he can enjoy countless hours of fun glued to a screen as big as the palm of his hand. Whatever lights your fire...
Personally, I haven’t got the time to download that lot, let alone watch it. Perhaps I’m spending my time stupidly doing mundane stuff like washing the car, shopping for food and scrubbing the bog. I’m going to be left behind, a technological dinosaur, unable – or unwilling – to embrace the digital age with the passion it demands.
The trouble is I have hit 42 – the official age when your brain gives up the ghost when it comes to learning anything new, or so the experts say. I’m sure anyone reading this who is beyond that age will beg to differ.
I certainly do. What age has taught me, however, is that life is too short to spend countless hours glued to a computer screen.
If that means I’ve got an internet age of seven, so be it. I’m rather proud of the fact. Because at last it means I’ve got a life.