Enough with the patronisng, ageist, books…

Yes, I know there’s a typo in the title, but to change it once the post is published will cause problems with Google.

…

Aaaaargh! I’ve just stumbled across a book which seems designed just to piss me off – “Teach Yourself Digital Photography for the Over 50s”. It also boasts that it’s “Written in a manner that is especially suited to and of interest to older readers…”.

Patronising bastards! We – the over fifties, very over in my case – do not need our own special books, thank you ever so much.

Assuming that there is nothing wrong with their brain – something, sadly, that can’t always be guaranteed – there is absolutely no reason why a person should not be as technologically proficient at 50 – or any damn age – as they were at 20. More so, quite possibly, as they have had all those years to acquire knowledge. Although it’s true to say that many people my age – 66 – are technophobes, it’s also true to say that they were, in all probability, technophobes at 20, but no bugger is writing special books for them, no “Teach Yourself Digital Photography for the Fumble-Fingered Dolt”.

Nor, indeed, would anyone ever contemplate a book called “Computers for the terminally stupid,” but dear god, there’d be a huge demand, and at all ages!

Age simply is not a factor – intelligence is, and the willingness to apply it. But it doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t make the effort to learn. I do, I’m always happy to learn something new, especially if it’s also useful, and I’m quite happy to teach myself stuff like, just this year, how to make sausages – damn good ones, too! Education continues until the day you die – it doesn’t stop when you leave school, or uni. Or turn 50!

As I said in an earlier post, I have a bunch of digital cameras, of varying degrees of sophistication – all but one of them bought since I turned 60, and that odd one out was bought in my fifties. None have caused me a moment’s difficulty. True, the learning curve has been steep, but not remotely difficult – my biggest gripe is that there is no standard menu structure or, in some cases, terminology but, like any other gadget, you learn to use it by actually using it. OK, there’ll be occasional cock-ups during the learning process, and you’ll learn from them, too (mainly not to do what you did again!). And it’s not like film – a botched pic can simply be deleted and retaken. As long as you’re methodical, and logical – and not a let’s push this random button/change this setting to see what happens dingbat – you’ll learn quickly.

OK, it also helps to have the sort of mind that looks at a computer, or a digital doodad of any sort, with anticipation rather than trepidation, and this is the sort of book that will help you if you do the latter – but this is in no way age-related. Turning bloody 50 doesn’t suddenly reduce your intelligence or ability to learn. True, people have their blind spots – I can’t write code to save my life but, then, I can’t speak Yiddish either – in both cases because I have no need to, and it doesn’t interest me. I have a considerable facility with my own language, but with foreign languages I can just about get food, drink and accommodation (and to be honest, it’s generally been enough, and it’s more than many manage). Code is a foreign language.

So please, publishers, stop associating age with stupidity, or a learning impairment, it’s insulting and totally unjustified – after all, would you publish “Digital Cameras for Women,” would you? No, of course not, you wouldn’t bloody dare!

Nor – he said quickly – is there any need.