My name is Aspidistra and I am an internet addict

I would not describe myself as a technophobe but the fact is I can be inept when it comes to dealing with some of the technology that others seem to deal with so easily, almost in their sleep it would seem.

Take my first post on this blog. It was only achieved with much swearing and the help of The Attached One. I can’t help feeling that one of the reasons his hair has taken on a distinguished silvery tinge is that the internet has entered my narrow life (well it was his fault). Before he knew it he was having to help me email, blog, post photos and generally do stuff and things. Believe me, I’ve stretched his boundaries.

I do wonder how those who have less experience than me actually manage these days. It is easy to forget that, even though website addresses for everything from political parties to biscuits appear all over the place, a considerable chunk of the UK’s population don’t have access to them. In some cases it isn’t because they don’t want or need it. For a while one of the most common complaints to the BBC was that the assumption had been made that listeners and viewers could actually “find out more” on the BBC website. Older listeners were the ones most likely to find this a problem. If some of us need teenagers to set up the VCR to record something off the telly then we will certainly need them to visit a website. I occasionally see someone of a certain age plugged into their MP3 and wonder if it took a grandchild to sort that out for them.

On the whole I can handle that myself these days, now that I don’t use an iPod. I was seduced by the compact and clever design of the Shuffle, ignoring all the negative rumours surrounding this particular company’s technology. The Attached One and I came to the conclusion that you have to be on a higher plane/telepathic/a cyborg to be able use it because I ended up with music on the damned thing more by accident than deliberate intent. So the Shuffle was stuffed back into its funky little box and replaced with the lovely Zen Stone. It really is lovely and we ooed and aahed over it when it arrived (courtesy of the internet - well, when did you last buy anything in a real shop?). The Attached One wiggled it into its “skin” (you see, we even do the lingo) and we went into a downloading frenzy. But the quality of the sound wasn’t as good as the iPod and I spent rather too much time browsing the Argos catalogue and before I knew it I was the proud owner of a Sony E Series Walkman - pictures and telly too. Everyone knew it as well - I kept showing them pictures. They began backing away and crossing the road. They were occasionally doing that anyway but the Walkman didn’t help.

I even have my own computer and all it cost was some of The Attached One’s time and petrol. I am a member of the Freecycle group and dedicated daily scouring of its lists over a period of weeks netted me keyboards, a mouse, a printer, monitors and, eventually, a three year old computer. And now I even suffer from that increasingly common problem - I have spare technology. Three sets of earphones to choose from - I can rotate them.

Unfortunately, an excess of technology is a privilege that a relative few enjoy in the UK. Efforts have been made by the government to provide a degree of free internet access through public libraries but it is clear that even this is not enough. Last year I was encouraging a retired man I know to use the library to access the internet and learn about it. When I spoke to him a few weeks ago he was complaining that it is hard to get any time on the library terminals. Another addict. I noticed that an internet café in the area is offering an hour’s access for £1 but if its a choice between that and your bus fare when you are unemployed or on a tight budget then internet addiction remains a luxury for far too many of us.