On a Cspan2 Book Interview a few months ago, the famous author Gore Vidal rather disdainfully said that he never uses a computer. Instead he sends his handwritten material to a typist in another country.
Garson Kanin who wrote the script for that marvelous movie, Born Yesterday, had many claims to fame while he was alive. Some years ago, he headed the Authors' League and chaired the annual meeting. At one meeting, he took most of the time to excoriate the computer revolution. A young man sitting beside me and I agreed that Garson did not understand what was going on. A couple of years later, I met Garson at another Authors'League event and asked him if he had yet tried the computer. No, he hadn't but there were several in use in his office.
Among older people, Garson was not alone. And the same situation persists to this day, although those who refuse to use a computer give various reasons. For instance, Bob Cahill, a writer/publisher who has moved to Celebration, Florida from Massachusetts, does not/will not use a computer because he doesn't understand its usefulness. This is so, although his wife Sandy uses her laptop frequently for email and other matters. Bob thinks that anything that the computer can do he simply does not need done. This is so despite the fact that three of his four children live far away and many relatives and friends remain in Salem, MA. A little chink occurred in Bob's stance, however, when he heard that he could fairly easily learn to dictate directly to the computer. He likes to dictate. Whether this will move him sufficiently is a question mark.
Another creative person, Jack Urbont, the composer of wonderful songs and poems, claims that he does not want to be burdened with all the equipment that his musical friends have although there is space in his apartment. Jack spends a lot of time with his investments, particularly in high tech stocks which have been badly hit lately. This occupation, however, does not translate into any interest in acquiring knowledge easily, and much more completely, over the computer.
Judy Freed, a former television news producer, and a news freak (as bad as I am), uses the excuse of little space not to get a computer. Still she clips and clips (which in my own experience takes up lots of space!) and reads omnivorously. This is so despite bad eyesight. She does not see how a computer - or even an ebook device - can make reading some items so much easier due to the ability to choose a large font. This is not so, however, for the newspaper articles from the New York Times and many other newspapers - but then, these articles can be easily saved on the computer, copied and pasted into a word processing context which allows for font choice. And this whole process means that paper clipping is a long past method of saving much of anything.
I could cite example after example, but most of those who refuse to use a computer are not Luddites disdaining any new invention. Some are uninformed - no one has sat down and showed them in a hands-on way the benefits to them in various aspects of the computer. When this has been done once, many realize that they don't get it, can't remember it, need a lot more help than is available. Some are afraid to learn something new when they feel so pressured by other factors in their lives, like health problems, money problems, and so on. Others, and I believe this is the majority, are stuck in their habits - a particular symptom of older years on the part of people who have gone through an awful lot. And some don't see the advantage of spending the money or may feel too pressed to consider a new "toy." Still others are afraid, afraid to learn something new, and afraid of the speed of change in the technical field. The absence of no-cost or low-cost classes in any convenient place is an additional deterrent.
Judy Freed believes that Bill Gates could arrange for tutoring for older people, as a noble act of charity, even though he has concentrated on giving computers to schools for children. After all, the wealth of health information on the Internet alone should help those in the later years become more capable of taking care of themselves in this complicated society. And the ability to use and enjoy the computer can only turn out to be another profit center for those who sell them and the software needed to use them.
In another column we'll review the various free or low-cost classes available in many cities - many through public libraries. Even though this writer believes firmly in personal tutoring especially for older people, classes do bring some benefits and should be available through every large organization so that the entire population can catch up to the value and use of this extraordinary tool. And many people do find classes extremely helpful.
THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONIC ITEMS I LOVE
Another life-changing
piece of electronic equipment is
Hewlett Packard's scanner.
At least for me, it is life-changing. The version I have is not only a super-duper
scanner, but also a photocopier and a fax machine. (faxes come into the computer,
but you can send using the scanner) In addition, the scanner performs an e-mail
and a filing function. But best of all to my mind is the automatic document
feeder.
This allows you to scan 25 pages at a time into your computer. No feeding a single page at a time, unless you want to do so. So far I have scanned a full book manuscript written before the computer revolution, which I can now update easily. This took very little time even though the manuscript was 275 pages. For 11 mornings, I simply scanned in 25 pages with no trouble at all! Ah, the joys of the computer and of the scanner.
The fax function allows you to fax to anyone from your scanner, as long as you have fax software installed on your computer. Concerning e-mail, you can scan in text or photograph and the email program pops up, thereby allowing you to send the photo or text to one of your relatives/friends - or your spouse in the office or kitchen. Any e-mail program can be used. The file function will put all of your scanned photographs into one file that you create. This works with text as well, but is particularly useful for photos that you will want to find and send at a later time. Another feature is that you can darken or lighten the text or picture, and also change a color.
My ScanJet 1100A with ADF (automatic document feeder) has a list price of $570. There is a version that costs over a thousand dollars, but this includes Adobe Photoshop 5.0, the ScanJet's paper can weigh anywhere from 16 to 28. Legal size paper will fit, too.
In my constantly amazed
mind, the ScanJet is another example of something to be amazed about!
@ Copyright 2001 Shirley Camper Soman