Computer Illiterates of the Serengeti Plains

I've written about computer illiterates at the "liberry" before. It's a subject that frankly never gets old for me because human ignorance is an amazing and varied field of study the depths of which will never be fully mapped.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that there are people in the world who either don't know how to use computers, don't want to know how to use computers, or may be coming in to the library to try them out for the first time. That's cool. I grok it. And the library is not a bad environment for such a learning venture, particularly if the computer-illiterate patron calls ahead and takes advantage of the FREE computer tutorials one of our savvy library friends offers. However, as a 32 year old guy who has been around computers of one sort or another since age 6 and who was actively using the internet a full five years before Al Gore's invention became popular with the rest of the country, it's still a little disconcerting to me when someone walks in cold and asks "Do you have the inta-net here?"

A prime example of this sort of thing can be found in one of our inactive Rogues, Mr. Little Stupid. Like his near namesake, Mr. Big Stupid, Mr. Little Stupid was only interested in coming in the library to use our computers. Unlike his near-namesake, however, Mr. Little Stupid had no idea how to do so.

Three years back, in he walked, a small, balding, skinny, bespectacled guy wearing overalls and carrying a Girl Scouts of America binder. He asked to use a computer, signed the clip-board and let me log him onto one just like any other patron might. I didn't even realize this man was completely without clue until later when I logged someone else on and noticed that he was still staring blankly at the Windows Desktop, exactly as he had been when I'd logged him on 20 minutes before.

"Uh, do you need some help?" I asked him.

Turns out, Mr. Little Stupid was trying to find some poetry, specifically some poetry written either by or for one of the teenage victims of the Columbine shootings in Colorado, (he wasn't sure which). I assumed by his binder that he was working on some sort of project for a Girl Scout troop and further assumed that his wife must have sent him to the library to research it for her troop. I was wrong.

Okay, so he didn't know how to get on the internet. Fine. That's fine. You can't know what to do if you've never done it before, even if the program you're seeking to use is helpfully named INTERNET EXPLORER and not, say, ASSHAT EXPLORER.

So I brought up Internet Explorer for him then asked for the name of the poet/subject he wanted. I then brought up Google and did a search for the poet, Rachel Joy Scott, which immediately brought up her page. I showed Mr. Little Stupid how to click on the link and bring it up. I then even wrote down the address of the page for him and showed him the blank in which to type it should he want to bring it up in the future. After a few questions about page navigation, he seemed pretty comfortable with everything, so I left him to it.

The following day, Mr. Little Stupid was back. He signed the clip-board, I logged him on and twenty minutes later he was still sitting there staring at the Windows desktop. It was like someone had rebooted his brain and lost all my programming from the day before. He'd completely Mementoed and had NO idea what to do. Most folks faced with that scenario would have come up to ask for help. Not Mr. Little Stupid. He just sat there staring at the screen until I discovered his predicament. Still, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't really a complete moron.

Once again, I had to show him everything that I had shown him the previous day.  The only shortcut I had was that he still had the website address written down, so I was able to forego the Google search. Still, from his reaction, it was like I was showing him something completely new.  He reacted to the page's appearance like he'd never seen it before. I had to question whether or not this was even the same guy, but the Girl Scout binder and my hand-writing in it gave him away.

Day three: Mr. Little Stupid returned and it was an exact repeat of day two, except this time I knew he had probably rebooted again so I skipped the inevitable 20 minute desktop-staring-session in favor of just loading the Rachel Scott page for him when I logged him on. This time I also showed him how to print the poems he found there, in case he wanted to take them home and enjoy them at his leisure. I was now pretty sure that my assumption about his wife's Girl Scout troop was erroneous as the man had no wedding band and his Girl Scouts binder smacked of thrift-store purchase rather than officially licensed use. I now imagined that he'd heard about Rachel Scott's website from some radio show or saw it on the news and decided he wanted to check it out. Great. Whatever. Just pay some damn attention and learn how to use the equipment so I don't have to keep doing it for you! Never before had I more wanted to enforce our posted internet policy that patrons should have at least a passing knowledge of how to use a computer before attempting to do so.

Day 4: Two months actually passed between Day 3 and Day 4. During that time, we saw nothing of Mr. Little Stupid. When he returned, though, he was still the same skinny little man in the same overalls with the same Girl Scout binder tucked beneath an arm. He was also on the same mission. I imagined now that this strange alien had gone back in his pod to bake for a couple months, as he wasn't quite done on the first try. Of course, by then he'd lost the website I'd written for him and I'd forgotten the name of the poet he wanted so I had to repeat Day 1's lessons and look it all up for him. How could this guy continue to reboot like this, yet still remember that he wanted to come in and search for poetry? Was he really a moron?

Turns out, he was.

Literally.

Mrs. C eventually alerted me to the fact that not only was this guy computer illiterate, he was functionally illiterate as well. In fact, he'd been a part of the library's literacy program some years back but kept failing to show up for his lessons (or just kept rebooting, more likely) and eventually gave up.

Naturally, I felt embarrassed at having ridiculed the man, but I was still no closer to answering the question of just what the hell he was trying to accomplish? Not being able to read certainly explained why he couldn't get to the site he wanted, but what precisely was he planning on doing once he got there? It was nothing but POETRY--more words that he couldn't read! WHY????!!!!

I don't think he's been in since.