Happy New Year To All

I used to be of average intelligence. I could do simple math, function independently and follow instructions for setting up the toaster oven my parents got in 1970 for opening up a savings account.
I'm no longer average. I've either become an imbecile or everyone else has become a genius. How do they know how to tweet? How do they know how to download...or is it upload... a podcast? How do they know how to find useful apps? How do they know what apps are? How do they get their cameras out of video mode? If they can take still photos, how do they get them from the camera into a wallet? I could go on and on with more questions, but you get the idea. The twenty first century has left me in the dust.
Can it be that everyone born subsequent to 1975 has a genetic mutation that enables them to intuit the workings of all new technology? Or is it that they read the manuals? Either way, I'm screwed. I'm too old for the mutation and too terrified to read the manuals. If I were to read the manual and still couldn't work the device, I would be certifiably stupid. If I don't read the manual, I can convince myself that if only I had read it, I would be able to punctuate a text message.
I have never been in the vanguard of adopting new technology. But, there is some technology I couldn't embrace quickly enough. Cash machines, for example. The motivation was twofold-being able to get cash on weekends and never again having to wait for the teller to count out the 702 singles for the blind person in front of me cashing her social security check. It was also love at first sight for cordless phones. I could actually pick up a call in the living room, continue it while paying my bills in the den and conclude it several hours later having finished a master's thesis. A few well placed "aha's" and the caller was convinced of my undivided attention. Recently, I received a Nook,Barnes and Noble's e-reader, as a gift, and I'm in love with it. Sure I would not be able to work it, I waited three weeks to take it out of the box. Knowing the manual would intimidate me, I went to Barnes and Noble and played dumb--not a stretch- and told the salesperson I had no idea how to get a book onto it or to read it, should I manage to get a book onto it. Experienced in dealing with the slow, she showed me how do magically download a book and read it. I take it everywhere, as much because it makes me feel like a techie as because it alleviates the need to carry around the 900 page Pillars of the Earth.
If I am to make even the feeblest attempt to use new technology, history shows I need sufficient motivation. Before going to Spain last spring, I bought my first digital camera. Unfortunately, somehow, prior to the first shot, it went on video mode and I came home with 120 videos,55 of flamenco dancing which is not one of my favorite dance forms, and the remaining videos of the inside of my tote bag. I shelved the camera permanently. In J&R, while I was buying a camera as a gift, a customer asked the salesman if the camera had a setting for "beauty." Curious, I asked what the setting did and the customer said,"it removes wrinkles and gives you a flawless complexion. I'll show you." She took my picture. I had been given a fabulous, painless face lift. Had I been dressed appropriately and been 9" taller I would have hightailed it to Ford Modeling.
I am now determined to find where I stashed the camera, figure out how to charge it and look for"beauty." It would have remained shelved, if like ordinary cameras, it showed you "truth." Who in her right mind wants truth in a camera. For "beauty," I'll read the manual.
Wishing you all health, wealth, happiness and beauty in the new year.