Retirement blog about technology, should I be using it more?

There’s been a hell of a lot, in the last few weeks with the virus thing, about how our lives are working on the internet and that social media thing. Except from me. I’ve never been a fan of social media. Maybe until now, maybe not. Mrs Summerhouse says I think too much. Stop it, she will say, as we walk the dogs. I can tell you’re thinking you’re looking at the ground. Look up, she says, at the world around you and listen to the sound of the birds.

But she is right, I guess I do think quite a bit and that’s where many of these blogs come from. So I was thinking this weekend about social media and why I didn’t bother with it. Unless of course this blog counts as social media. And you see I don’t even know that. Shows how woefully ignorant I am of these matters. Facebook, now that’s social media isn’t it? And I’m on that. But that’s it, I think.

Blame my son-in-law for my current uncertainty (aka thinking). He practically insisted on showing me how to put an image of my new book out on Instagram. Mrs Summerhouse produced an image for the Hockney (he’s around a lot at the moment) competition – Printemps something or other and she wanted to know how to put that out on social media. Instagram to be precise although the competition didn’t specify which social media.

Anyway she did that and I’ll return to this in a moment. One thing led to another and he went on to show me how to put an image of my vineyard book (The Vineyard Years) on to Instagram. Next morning Mrs SH informed me about the number of likes she had had on her Instagram. This caused me to alter the habits of a lifetime and count mine. The result? Mrs SH 21, me, 0.

I was not amused. It illustrates quite neatly my irritations with social media. That is the pure illogicality of it, at least to me, in my ‘woeful’ ignorance. I don’t want to write this but I did say way back when that I would write in these retirement blogs about my life in its good, bad and ugly form. So, a few short blogs ago I wrote about being on the first page of Google for retirement blogs. This I thought was good. I was wrong but at the time I didn’t know this.

I admitted then, and will say again, I have no idea what, if anything at all, I did to get there. So imagine my frustration at now, as of this morning, being on page 5. You will remember that old dictum – it is not enough that I succeed, others must fail (attributed to Gore Vidal). In this case it was more like, not only am I failing but others are succeeding. There are blogs that were on page 1 when I was and they’re still on fecking page 1, whilst I am not.

And I don’t have a clue why.

But then along comes the son-in-law and, before you can say Bob’s your uncle, Mrs SH is social mediating all over the place. As above. And I’m wondering should I be doing more of this, despite initial lack of success? Should I be hash-tagging my way to page 1 or re-activating my Twitter account?

What was it that lady at The Guardian said on one of those Masterclasses I attended entitled, Turning Your Blog into a Brand? Facebook’s for the head and Twitter’s for the heart. What the bloody hell does that mean? How am I supposed to turn that into a blog-promoting action?

There’s an article in today’s Observer about this guy, ‘acclaimed musician’, Igor Levit, on how ‘his riveting Twitter concerts began’. I mean I thought Twitter was something about a quick message into the inter-space of no more than 240 characters, characters mind you, not even words. And here’s this guy putting a whole bloody concert out there. I’m swearing a lot aren’t I, just shows how mad I am.

And all this angst just about Instagram, never mind WhatsApp, Zoom, Youtube, Pinterest etc. etc. None of which seeming to do what I thought they did or at least what they used to do. I told you a while ago that book publishers weren’t interested in receiving manuscripts from old people because they don’t have a social media presence. No bl—-. (No stop with the swearing) – wonder. It’s all too complicated.

Now in an effort to make my life even more complex, they’re (the children) offering me their ‘old’ iphones because it will be better for me. Damned (is that a swear word?) if I understands why or how, even after I asked them to explain why iphones are better, I was none the wiser.

True, I had been complaining that my O2 account on my analogue phone hadn’t been working which might have been something to do with my Sim card. And I’d also asked my daughter to sort out my Sky account and all that that entails or rather at the moment doesn’t entail (sport for example). So maybe they felt I had invited them into my technological world with licence to give me, what they regarded, as useful advice.

OK I know I’m missing several tricks in the SEO world – key word repetition, links to other blogs, adverts, fake awards and so on. And, yes, I’m too proud or stubborn or stupid to go down this slippery slope. But then why complain when you don’t get the results? Well, because it’s my blog and I can.

So nearly at 1,000 words and amazingly I still have no clear idea of what this retirement blog is about. I did use the term social media in the title and the picture, but you’ve read (I presume) it so you tell me what it’s about. Just an old git’s frustration with the world of social media and at the same time wondering if I’m missing a serious trick in promoting this retirement blog. Answers on a postcard please.