EXPLAINING WEB 2.O TO...MY MOTHER

Yes, folks. My Momma, although she uses email and can even scan stuff and attach it to an email and plays games online? She is not on any social media networks, does not get the concept of them, abhors them ("I don't WANT to see pictures on the Facebook! People are always shoving their phones in my face when I ask to see a picture! What ever happened to getting pictures developed at the PhotoLab so I can frame them?!).

Ma with a few of our postulants (nuns in training)

Ma never actually mastered the concept of "online" and "offline."

So here goes.

Me: Ma! We're going to try--one more time--to understand what the internet really is.

Ma: Oh, I've given up on that.

Me: No. We have to. It's a class project.

Ma: Oh, OK, honey.

Me: Remember when all you could do on your comptuter was word processing: type stuff? And then print things out?

Ma: Yes.

Me: Well, what if your computer was suddenly hooked up to a huge, worldwide library of information, videos and places where people can interact with each other through text, videos, pictures, comments on each other's stuff, sharing all kinds of things, buying and selling things, meeting new people, etc.? We call that being or going "online."

Ma: Well, OK....

Me: Now, to go online, that might require some wires, right?

Ma: Like that blue wire coming out of my computer?

Me: Exactly. But, while that wire is always plugged into your computer, you don't always have to have your computer actually connected to the big library (which we call the web).

Ma: I don't?

Me: Nope, and without even pulling the wire out (just like you don't always pull your phone wire out when your not connected on a phone call), you can go on your computer and do things without "being online." Only when you click on the big "E" for "Internet Explorer" do you go online. You also need to "go online" to retrieve new emails, but once you have them, you can read them "offline," too.

Ma: This was your class assignment?

Me: There's more. I need to explain to you the difference between Web 1.0 (when the internet was new) and Web 2.0 (today).

Ma: Shoot.

Me: Web 1.0 was just a place where you could read printed documents, a bunch of text with some pictures, maybe. Or maybe look at a catalogue of pictures of things you could then call up on a regular phone and buy. Or learn about some brick and mortar business or store or institution somewhere. It was static and couldn't do much except make some print and images available to you as long as you had a computer and an internet connection (for your purposes, Ma, a blue wire). Web 2.0 made the internet like real life, where you could do all kinds of interactive things that we mentioned above: a worldwide library of information, videos and places where people can interact with each other through text, videos, pictures, comments on each other's stuff, sharing all kinds of things, buying and selling things, meeting new people, keeping up with old friends around the world. Does that make sense?

Ma: Clear as mud.