Lao Voices

My dad is in his early 70s, since one of his Thai TV channels is no longer available because I think they want him to pay for it, I’ve been printing the news from Manager Online, a Thai online newspaper for him on a regular basis. I think it might be time for him to surf the Internet, and when I read an article on “Meet the gang at the Computer Grannies Society,” this only confirms that it’s something that he can do. This will allow him to surf the Internet on his free time, which means all the time, but I don’t think he’ll be able to chat online, can you imagine if he could.

Grannies online…when I read the article, it was somewhat amusing because when you chat with someone online, you never know what s/he looks like, or if s/he is telling the truth. You might be thinking that you’re talking to a gorgeous girl or a handsome guy, but in reality, you might be chatting with someone’s granny; according to this article that reads,

“My husband isn’t home tonight. Would you like to…” reads the suggestive email on the computer screen.

Obviously, the sender has no idea that the recipient is 78-year-old grandmother Kikue Kamata.

“What does she want me to do?” an amused Kamata says. “I know I shouldn’t open spam but sometimes I do because it’s fun.”

A high tech granny used to be considered an oxymoron. But in Japan, with its love of technology and a declining birth rate, a growing number of elderly are learning to surf the internet, finding it to be a crucial lifeline.

“I turn on my computer the first thing in the morning. It’s a pleasure to see the e-mail that came overnight,” says Kamata’s friend, Roko Shinohara.

The two women are members of the Computer Grannies Society, launched in 1997 to nurture a new breed of net-savvy elderly.

The group, which accepts men as well, now has 200 members, mostly in their 70s, across the nation. The oldest member is a 97-year-old woman who lives alone in the western city of Kyoto. Read the rest of the article here.

I would imagine that there are many grannies out there surfing as we are speaking, which makes perfect sense to me because they obviously have more free time, who could say that the world of the Internet is designed for young people when in reality it might be for older people that are lonely and the vibrant world of the Internet makes it easier to find new friends, this makes the world a lot smaller.

As the approaching retirement of the baby-boom generation, I would imagine that there will be more older people surfing the Internet, would it be ironic and somewhat comical if you were one that never visited your grannies because you think that they’re old and boring, but met them online…who is to say that they’re not your grannies or someone’s grannies. As for some of us that might be living in the same household as our grannies, we often times ignore them even when they are sitting in front of us, making them feel unwelcome in their own home, but the world of Internet always welcome them with a smile as everyone can be young and vibrant, maybe they are more interesting when we meet them online. ..signing off