Another trick up my Android

SILENCE. No reply. Blue-ticked.

The yoof in the granny flat were shocked beyond response. They discovered that mom had another technological trick up her Android.

How I laughed at their amazement at this pathetically simple act, a yoof Whatsapp group, forced upon me by their trickery in non-replies to messages. The SIM cards are swopped between the two of them daily – nay, hourly – and I never know which one of them may be on the receiving end.

It gave them wriggle room to say: “Oh I never saw that (usually the designation of a chore) because we swopped SIMS.” Now they both get it and there’s no escape.

As they, and other young ’uns are discovering, there’s truth in the saying: stealth and treachery will always overcome youth, or words to that effect.

Couch research once read that, slowly, the youths began to discover that sites originally started by the young for the young to flirt, date, dodge the fogies, evade elder eavesdropping and say rude things using an entirely new language were being “infiltrated” by said fogies.

First it was Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram. Give a fogey a funky handle and they were in. All we had to do was learn the “lingo” (there were websites for that, ROFLMAO) and we could fake youth and track down what the youngsters were doing. I think the “elders” were finally busted by their boredom and they started friending people who had more interesting conversations.

Young folk either got old enough to join the growing-up FB, left to be twits or moved on to let pictures tell the 1 000 stories as their parents followed.

Now the “granfluencers” have invaded Tiktok too, according to the main story on this page. What really made me chuckle was the author’s shock at her 65-year-old mother’s independent set-up of internet connection, tablet purchase and account sign-up.

Why do kids, of all ages, think their parent/s are incapable of these things?

In the early days, as in the TV/ video/dvd days, parents handed the remote/device to the kids because it was easier than reading the bloody manual and spending hours doing it themselves. But the youngsters became too busy on their own devices and the adults were forced to figure it out.

Once we’d done FB, Twitter and IG, online shopping and delivery and the bigger interweb where all the news happens were the places to be, and so we learnt. On occasion, my device has been used for stuff because I have set it up and it’s easier for the yoof. I love those days.

They even express amazement at, for instance, my having seen something on Youtube or setting up one or another app. My bird app, which involved payment other than an EFT, had them gasping at my grasp of this online miracle.

In the electronic ether, terrible creatures lurk and everyone, yoof and granfluencers, have to beware: every apple could be hiding a rotten worm (SWIDT?).

Some good news, though: I will never appear on Tiktok teaching anyone to dance, sing or dress for an “older” first date. But I will sometimes blue-tick you if my ears are plugged in and I’m watching something online.