I am a robot…

By Breda Nathan

I was just trying to buy a book online when I discovered I was a robot.

This was not the first time I purchased something or updated a passport or driving licence.

What’s happening to these websites? How many times have we been told to

“Just do it on line. It cuts out all the time wasting of form filling and cost and trouble of posting in forms or queuing for an hour at some office.”

I have spent hours recently, trying to do simple things like updating something or buying a simple item. It used to be straightforward, but all is changed now it’s,

‘Security verification… Please click on the number five on the yellow stool. How many cars with black roofs are on this street? Click on the pictures with no dogs…’

Then the message loud and clear, you are a robot.

Maybe we complained a lot about queues, but at least we got to talk to human beings.

In future my shopping will be personal. Choose my article and pay at the counter.

We are becoming a cashless society is another idea being floated. Already there are places that wont accept cash.

Where will it end?

We read all the time about the danger of young people with smart phones and children on social media going on the dark web.

This can be frightening I know, I was told recently by a neighbour of a child’s First Holy Communion lunch.

This child and her friends and siblings spent the entire afternoon on smart phones, appeared unaware of the beautiful dress she was wearing or even had a childish delight in counting her money presents.

They averaged eight years old. I would never let an underage or even young teenager near them, but the damage is not limited to kids.

My mind is deranged after an hour trying to pay the car insurance.

I don’t even know what the dark web is, but I do know that ten and twelve year old kids have managed to get me through many of these mad situations with the ‘bright web’.

Is that what you call the government sites?

The passport one told me I was using an incorrect name and the driving licence let me fill in a long and tedious form and at the point of submission it disappeared and I had to start all over again.

Meanwhile I am flooded with advertising blurb of whatever I am trying to access or purchase on a regular basis.

“It’s the algorithms” A twelve year old informed me.

“What does that mean” I pleaded.

She tried to explain, as if talking to a two year old.

Apparently it’s the role of the algorithms to follow your interests or in my language to check up on what I night be pricing at some company or even having a look at something on offer in a shop.

Then swamp me with ads.

For all this stuff. That’s a fancy name for spying in my brain.

Another problem I had was with my emails being returned.

I would resend them only to discover that they had actually been delivered… This according to one of my young friends, is a problem with the servers clashing.

Sometimes they work, but you cannot depend on certain servers.

What can you depend on? I sigh.

Websites are supposed to be the answer to everything.

After searching for. something for an hour, I checked for a contact number, I dialled and after listening to mad music for twenty minutes, I got through to someone on the moon…

He didn’t understand a word I uttered no more than I knew what he was trying to tell me.

Then a background voice advised helpfully “Go online,”

“I am a robot.” I said before hanging up.

When I mentioned this to my very refined friend recently, he answered shortly.

“I no longer call them websites, webshites is more descriptive,”

Obviously I am not the only robot in town.