My Mum is lovely. She’s called Dallas and she is a retired social worker and she’s very smart and loves doing crosswords and reading thrillers. I love my Mum. A lot.
Unfortunately, my Mum also has a laptop. I hate this laptop.
I hate the laptop because it means my Mum gets to ring me (as the designated family computer expert) to ask me questions.
Today, she wanted to know how to ‘like’ a Facebook page, because her friend Mike (“The one who married Jane. Jane. Curly hair Jane. You remember Jane. She worked at the opticians. Went to Cyprus.”) has a Facebook page for his new hotel, and wants to her like it.
Now you might think liking a page is simple. Log into Facebook. Open the page. Click ‘like’.
Don’t be so naïve.
Instead we have this conversation:
Me: I’ve liked the page and suggested you like it, so you just need to log-in to Facebook and accept my suggestion. Okay?
Mum: Right, I logged in. I can see where it says ‘Facebook’
Me: Okay, to the right of there…
Mum: The profile?
Me: No, not there
Mum: News feed?
Me: No, not there – just to the right of where it says Facebook
Mum: I don’t have that. I have a capital G?
Me: What?? Hang on. See where your profile picture is? Above that, in white letters, it says Facebook?
Mum: Oh, right! Yes.
Me: Cool. To the right of that, you have an envelope, and a little globe icon, and 2 little heads
Mum: I don’t have that.
Me: No, keep looking. It’s there. I promise.
Mum: Oh, so it is! It’s very faint isn’t it?
Me: Great. Right, click on the globe and select ‘view all notifications’
Mum: Right click?
Me: No, not right click, just click
Mum: Oh hang on, I’ve lost it now, it’s gone. What did I do?
Me: Never mind, I’ve sent you a message on Facebook with the link. Open your messages and click on the link.
Mum: Oh there’s a red number 1 at the top now!
Me: I know, that’s to tell you you’ve got a message from me. Click on the subject line to open it.
Mum: It doesn’t have a subject. It says ‘no subject’
Me: Where it says no subject just click on it.
Mum: Hang on, I can’t click on it.
Me: Okay. Try this. In the address bar, can you type facebook.com/janeshotel?
Mum: Are you getting stressed?
Me: (lying) No. I’m not stressed. Just type facebook dot com then a slash then janeshotel. OK?
Mum: Okay. I’ve typed it..nothing’s happened.
Me: Did you click enter?
Mum: You didn’t say to do that.
Me: Sorry, click enter.
Mum: Right, it’s come up – Jane’s hotel, Jane’s hotel on Twitter…
Me: Did you type it in the Google search box?
Mum: Is that different to the address bar?
Me: You know what? Give me your Facebook log-in and I’ll do it for you.
Mum: Well, there’s no need to be like that.
Tell me it’s not just me, is it?
