How do you rate yourself in terms of computer literacy? That may hint as well how much more you could do with a computer which is a question you might want to explore further, especially when computers are important tools in your life.
What you already know or think you know is your asset. Let’s consider what you might not know yet and could benefit in learning or at least understand. Depending on what you do, there would be software that would appeal to you in how it would potentially help you achieve your goals. At this point you could be wondering how that’s specifically related to computer literacy. Since there is so much software available and being created, you might as well admit barely knowing anything about computers and being computer illiterate. Well, not exactly… software is similar to books or other media which exist in huge amounts and variety and is being produced continuously. Yet, the ability we have acquired to read books allows us to use them and read any written in the language we understand. Similarly, using computers we learned a sort of informal language or environment which presents similarities that reappear more or less consistently in lots of software. In fact, developers are aware as well of those similarities and try to include them in their software to make it easier to use. Just think for example of the X at the top right corner of the application you are looking at, allowing you to close it. Why is it an X and not a cross or why is it not instead at the bottom left corner? Sometimes software is made with such differences from the mainstream easily recognizable norm that they’re confusing to many, as if they were dealing with a new language. That’s how we realize that there’s indeed a computer language, even informal, that we learn and become computer literate. It allows us to use a large variety of software that bear those key elements that help us navigate them.
How many of those key elements do you think you know and how many you feel that you don’t fully grasp yet? Figuring that out will help you rate yourself more accurately on your level of computer literacy. That’s certainly one small step to take before that giant leap into mastering computers and finally be able to use them to their full potential.
