MSE News: Fears raised over digital benefits system

Anny_2

Many years ago now I came up with the idea of loaning laptops in the local community and having PC's in all community centres and other appropriate public buildings. After meeting initially with the Adult Ed Service and then several other key organisations I applied for and was successful in attracting a very large pot of European Match Funding.

Locally, all ages applied for and were granted limited periods of use of laptops in their own homes, which covered everything they needed, inc training to 'get up and running' and the PCs...well most people can now access them in many public buildings across the UK.

The scheme and my contribution to the creation of the scheme - IT in the Community - was acknowledged by the Department of Trade and Industry and despite people thinking because I had set up and organised the running of the scheme I was technologically minded, my knowledge of technology was and remains very, very limited, and although I can use a computer I only tend to use it like a word processor and my son 'needs' to visit regularly and sort out the total chaos I can cause by clicking on the wrong things and generally accepting programmes I should decline and so on.

I even had to ring my son several weeks ago to ask if I had a DVD player (someone kindly offered to lend me a DVD) and apparently I do and it is one of the little 'black boxes' sitting beneath my TV in the cabinet. I never touch the little black boxes and have never used the DVD player - although one is Freeview and that is on all the time.

My 'turnerover' (remote) remains a mystery to me and apart from the basic functions all the other buttons are never used. All I really need is a up - down volume and the channel buttons. I do sometimes accidentally catch one of the other buttons and then have to ring my long-suffering son again to tell me what buttons to press to get me back to 'normal'.

My son bought me the home computer I have now for my b/day and set it all up for me and when he was asking what facilities I wanted on it he did say ' I am just going to keep it really, really simple because all you really do on it is go on forums and collect pictures of little furry animals' and that is true. Although I do now also bank online.

I am lucky in that I have admin support for employment purposes, but due to that I have never had to master a computer for business use.

So I have no doubt people will struggle and it is good that telephone and face-to-face help will still be available, although for many it may be a very good opportunity to learn new skills that can be transferred into the workplace.

For me though, despite the creation of a very successful and now nationwide scheme, I remain a technophobe.