Show Me Again

Show Me Again — the AI-made song and lyric film made from this essay (captions available). Watch on YouTube →

There is a particular kind of quiet that falls over a grown person who has just been shown something for the second time and still does not have it. Somebody leaned over their shoulder, moved the mouse, clicked three things too fast to follow, said “see?” and leaned back. They did not see. Now the question sits in their throat: can you show me again? And very often they do not ask it. They nod, they say “got it,” and they wait until everyone has gone home to sit in front of the screen alone and feel stupid.

I said “got it,” I said “got it,” but I didn’t get a thing
Waited till the house was empty, sat there feeling small

I want to write about that moment, because I think it is one of the loneliest small moments there is, and one of the most common.

A lot of people were never shown. People who worked with their hands their whole lives. People who were away for years and came back to a world where the job application, the benefits form, the clinic and the child’s school all live behind a login. People who never had a computer at home. People for whom someone else, a husband, a daughter, a friend at work, always did “that part,” until one day that person was not there to do it. None of them are slow. They are new. Those are different things, and the difference is the whole of this essay.

Being new at fifty, or seventy, or at thirty-five after a long time gone, is harder than being new at seven. Not because the mind has stopped working. It is harder because a child is allowed to be new. Nobody sighs when a seven-year-old asks again. A grown person has spent decades being competent at something: running a kitchen, fixing an engine, raising children, holding a crew together. To sit in front of a machine and not know where to put your hands takes that away for a while, and it can feel like losing yourself. So people hide it. They let a form go unfiled. They let the email sit. They say they are not interested, when what they mean is that they are tired of feeling small.

Here is the first thing I would say to anyone in that chair: asking again is not failing. It is how everybody learns everything. The people who seem to know computers did not get it the first time either. They clicked the wrong thing a thousand times, mostly alone, where nobody saw. You are allowed the same thousand times. You are allowed to write the steps on paper, in your own words, and keep the paper by the keyboard. That is not a crutch. It is a notebook, and people who are good at things keep notebooks.

The second thing is for the one leaning over the shoulder. If someone asks you to show them, take your hand off the mouse. Let them drive. Say one step at a time, in plain words, and then wait, even when waiting feels slow. Do not click it for them because it is faster; faster is how they got lost the first time. When they ask again, show them again, the same way, without the sigh. The sigh is the part they will remember. If you can, end by letting them do the whole thing once more while you sit on your hands. That moment, when they do it alone and it works, is worth more than any explanation you could give.

Don’t give me the sigh, the sigh is what I’ll keep
Give me one more time, and the same words, slow

And there is a quieter third thing. Patience is not just something we give other people. It is something we owe ourselves. A lot of grown people are much harder on themselves than any teacher would be. They would never call a grandchild stupid for not knowing how to tie a shoe. They call themselves stupid for not knowing how to attach a file. If you would not say it to someone you love, you do not have to say it to yourself.

I would never call my grandchild stupid for a shoe
So I won’t say it to myself, no

Nothing breaks, most of the time. A wrong click can usually be undone. A page can be closed and opened again. The truly risky things are fewer than people fear: be careful with passwords, with anyone who asks for money or codes, with messages that hurry you. The rest is practice.

That is why we built a set of practice pages at scarletbeast.com/new-to-computers. They draw pretend things on your own screen: pretend squares to click, a pretend browser, a pretend form, a pretend mailbox, a pretend video call. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, nothing can be broken, and nothing has a countdown. Each lesson asks for one thing at a time, and waits. A page cannot sit beside you the way a patient person can, and it does not replace one. But it does not sigh either, and it will show you again as many times as you want.

I cannot promise it will be easy. Some of it will be frustrating, and some days it will not stick. But being new is not the same as being behind, and nobody is too old to be shown. Ask again. Show them again. Begin at the first step that is new to you.

The song

“Show Me Again” is a 1960s-style highlife song made from this essay, sung by a man who ran a restaurant kitchen for forty years and now cannot make a little arrow land where he wants it, until somebody sits on their hands and lets him drive. The lyrics were written by AI, the music and the voices were generated with ACE-Step, and the pictures with Stable Diffusion XL. The chorus:

Show me again, show me again
Take your hand off the mouse and let me drive
One step at a time, then wait for me, friend
Nobody’s too old to be shown
Show me again

Where to start

• Free practice pages, one step after another: the mouse or trackpad, the keyboard, web pages, passwords, forms, email, files and video calls. Private: nothing you type is sent anywhere, nothing can be broken, nothing has a countdown. New to computers: where to begin.
• Begin at the first step that is new to you, and skip any step your hands already know.
• If someone asks you for money, a password or a code, or a message is hurrying you, stop and ask someone you trust before you do anything.

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