Technology 101: On digital Iiteracy, I write

by Oluwatobi Soyombo

I have a friend who can help you. His name is Google, he’s an oracle. He answers almost everything as long as you ask the right questions.

My ear pinched me as I heard his question. No? Maybe I’m day dreaming. To be sure of my consciousness, I slapped my ears and asked him to repeat his question (pretending I didn’t hear the first time).

“… but what is a blog?” he asked again expressing a high level of curiosity as if it was a question on rocket science. He is a 28 year old graduate of a Nigerian University.

I was speechless when that question hit me. Of course, not that I was short of an answer (you know I can write an encyclopedia about it *smiles*), but I was surprised about the fact that someone of that caliber is ignorant of what blogging is.

Here’s another shocking event

“… you can use PowerPoint na”, I said to him thinking he’ll understand. He turned back to me and said “What is PowerPoint and how does it work?” I quickly navigated to PowerPoint, still thinking he will recognize it when I open the environment. Nope, he didn’t. It was then that I knew that he was truly ignorant of PowerPoint.

These two experiences above are that of graduates. Sometimes, I wonder how they managed to pass through the four walls of a campus for four (4) years plus (considering the Nigerian factor) or so without coming in contact with basic digital tools. When I tweeted this, I got mentions which told me I haven’t even seen anything yet. Many gave me more poor instances. *Sad Moment* Yeah, I understand that there are a thousand and one reasons why people (especially youths) find themselves in the above situation, I still choose to be frank about it.

Two paragraphs and I’m done:

You see, I still feel publishing a post here on “how to open a yahoo mail account” or even “How to power on a computer” is not a waste of serve space, time, and bandwidth. As an industry we will need to push for mass education of the masses on digital compliance. Adult Illiteracy is a menace that strongly pulls back the progress of any country. The same applies to digital illiteracy – it has the capacity to pose a strong limit on the tech community. Now tell me how someone who lacks basic computer education will be a code spinner. If we keep spinning out apps and softwares, who will use them? At least at the basic level, first, we need to make digital education available, affordable, and accessible. Not just that, it has to be practical.

Perhaps, you find yourself reading this piece and “you know that you know that you fall into the above category of people”, I have a friend who can help you. His name is Google, he’s an oracle. He answers almost everything as long as you ask the right questions. Before you ask any other person, ask him first. His homepage is publicly accessible. You’ll be amazed about how he can help you close the gap between knowledge and ignorance. If the guy above had asked my friend, Google, “What is a blog?” he would have gotten 3,670,000,000 answers. While there may be junks among the results, he still would have had his question answered correctly with a few clicks. The good thing is that Google is your friend too, only if you knew.

Evolve!

One comment

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail