Mastering Smart Technology

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”

Christian Lous Lange

Those words were made famous by the Nobel Peace Prize winning Norwegian Historian….nearly a hundred years ago. They are perhaps more true today than in his time.

Do you sometimes feel that technology has been introduced to exclude you, trip you up or even enslave you? How can you ensure it remains of service to you rather than a source of stress?

It’s all down to attitude. Believing you can master new skills, including using new technology. Because you can.

If you’re reading this, you’ve already agreed with the descriptor “Smart You”, and you should.

Think of all the skills you’ve already acquired… reading, writing, driving, parenting? How many of those skills did you pick up on the first attempt? Not many, I’m guessing.

Learning technology is similar to acquiring any other skill. It takes some practice and most of all, a good dose of patience. So expect some moments of frustration or confusion as you figure things out. And accept help.

Do you think most others figured out on their own how to work their smartphone? Think again. They asked friends and colleagues how they had managed to add text to a photo before sharing, insert original emojis, edit a video. You may have noticed your laptop or smartphone didn’t come with any instruction booklet on how to actually use them. The other people didn’t receive one either. But they may have consulted one or more of the millions of tutorials found online. The Internet has a wealth of free instructional videos to help you with just about anything you can imagine, including how to use your smart tech. Stay tuned for the upcoming post on how to find videos on YouTube.

Plus you’ve now got Gransplain to help you acquire skills one by one.

Accept that the road may not be perfectly smooth, but be confident that mastery lies at the other end.

Thanks for sharing the journey with us. If you know anyone else who may want to join us on the road to mastery, please share Gransplain with them. You can do so either by tapping the social media network logo of your choice below or by uploading this post and sending as a link however you prefer. To access the upload, if you’re on a smartphone, swipe up from the middle of the screen and the upload button should appear at the bottom of the screen. Tap it and you’ll be prompted by which medium you’d like to send (email, text, Whatsapp, etc). Select your recipient(s), add a quick message (why you’re sending this) and hit send.

If you’re on a computer, go to the address bar at the top of the page. Put your cursor anywhere on the text (address) and right click with mouse or trackpad. A drop down menu will appear. Choose “copy”, then go to your email or messaging platform, choose recipient(s), add a subject and message. Then go to the message body and right click again, this time choosing “paste” from the dropdown menu. In another post, you’ll learn how to embed a link into an email, so stay tuned!

Now feel great that you’ve done your good deed for the day.