'I'm crap at maths' is a phrase that millenials used to throw around like scrunched-up past exam papers. Dad can handle the finances. Trigonometry is for fourteen year olds with thick glasses and bad breath. By contrast, few of us would proudly announce, 'I can't read', because reading is accepted as vital for just about every walk of life. But maths? Getting 15 year old boys interested in algebra was a monstrous job even for Carol Vorderman's boobies. And Brian Cox's seductive Lancashire tones had to be brought in to sway a good portion of the girls, too.
Today, a similar nudge is needed. But for a different issue, and, largely, for a different generation. Because for too many people, the phrase 'I'm no good with technology' strikes a similar chord.
Struggling with tech issues is nothing to be ashamed of. Unless your eyes are actually surgically attached to 6.5 diagonal inches of glowing Samsung brightness, keeping up with the messy tangle of year-on-year changes to preferred gadgets and the services they connect to is like trying to jetski in a swamp, clinging to the tail of an enraged African elephant. Babies' nappies are changed less frequently than service providers and web accounts. Things move so quickly that I sometimes wonder how long it'll take before someone looks at me and demands, 'How are you still using apps!?'
And just as it's all to easy to leave finances to Mum and Dad, a lot of the older generation tend to leave the digital ones and noughts to Baby Dave. ('He's so smart. Look, already flicking through the iPad's photo albums and he's barely learned how to breathe.') For those without the know-how, there's simply been no need to understand how it's all meant to be used-or how to fix it.
Until now.
Because unless you're tending to the dead or preventing others from becoming that way, you're probably stuck at home.
For many a tech-confuzzled person, this presents two problems. Firstly, Baby Dave (now 26, and moved to Woking) can no longer pop round to defibrillate the family business-dependent laptop. And secondly, in order to establish any meaningful relationship with Dave, his parents must-shudder, shudder-embrace the tech themselves. Emails. Passwords. Distinguishing genuine heartfelt messages from wallet-pinching robots. And which video conferencing platforms are guaranteed to be buttnaked-gatecrasher free during the Easter service live stream. If the internet stops working, then it's down to our own wits to find another device and google the solution. Because whoever isn't already doing that probably doesn't appreciate the fact that 105% of the time, that's what their 'tech genius' friends have been doing since ones and noughts began.
Tech is challenging. Unlike a lot of skills, it also requires constant learning and re-learning as new systems replace the old every few years. But tech literacy is now a lifeline to entertainment, sustenance, medication and other people. Illiteracy of any kind is rarely something to be proud of. And in a time where no one can physically help you with it, stating 'I'm no good with technology' is less a declaration of pride, and more remniscient of a tearful 12 year old sobbing 'I can't read'. Those willing to learn will avoid a cynically self-enforced barrier to survival. And those who are willing to help them, by any means they can, should stand up and be counted. Hopefully by someone who's not crap at maths.
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