Why I will never want to be a member of a digital nation

I HAVE just finished reading Eddie Copeland’s article entitled “Britain must become a digital nation” (The Yorkshire Post, May 29) and I am just thankful that I shall probably have left this world before his vision of future life comes to fruition.

I have to admit that I do own a computer (bought about two years ago) but do not find that it has improved my life at all. I have spent a considerable amount of money on courses intended to show me how to use the machine but all I have achieved after two years is the ability to look up information on Google, and even that is a struggle. As for communicating with other people (via Skype, whatever that is), I can do that perfectly well through that old-fashioned method called talking!

Mr Copeland lists all the activities which one is supposed to be able to carry out with the aid of the internet but he does not mention that there is a sizeable criminal population out there just waiting to steal your personal and banking details or even take over your computer, and that combating this menace is quite an expensive business.

Even if I knew how to do it, I would never put any sort of financial transaction online as the chances of your money disappearing into the ether seem to be greater than the likelihood of your payment reaching the correct destination.

Just yesterday morning, there was yet another programme shown on TV about people having lost considerable amounts of money because of illegal activities on the “net”. As to the 9.8 million people in the UK without basic digital skills, how many of these are not capable of learning such skills? How many are, like me, not fanatical lovers of digital technology who do not have either the time or the inclination to spend hours struggling with a recalcitrant machine.

Just to put all this in context, I am a retired 80-year-old living in a village in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales (which does rather negate the loneliness issue as we have a very strong sense of community) with a wide range of interests, including working as a volunteer at Gayle Mill; making a large number of craft items; coping with a large garden; walking my dog; helping, singing in the choir, and a member of the PCC at St Andrew’s Church; a member of the WI, the local Naturalists Society, the monthly Ladies Luncheon Club, the Wensleydale Society, and the Wensleydale Philharmonic Orchestra!

People like me do not require an impersonal machine to help them occupy their time!