Blogging granny takes on the Internet

Blogging granny takes on the Internet

Before you're ready to write off the younger generation – and who among us hasn't had a pen poised over that page for some time? – here's a heartening little item that shows there could be less of a generation gap than we'd always suspected. It turns out that the Greatest Generation can conquer more than just Nazis. Now they're taking on the Internet.

At the tender age of 95, a great grandmother has added "cyber celebrity" to her resume. Maria Amelia Lopez of Spain has a blog that's visited regularly by over 60,000 readers.

While any idiot can start a blog, very few garner such a massive readership. Maria calls herself "the world's oldest blogger" – and she's probably right. And since Maria is just shy of the century mark, it's a fair bet that the majority of her readers are several decades younger than she is. Which means that a good portion of today's uber-connected cyber youth actually appreciate that older generations have something important to say.

This shocked Maria, as well. "No one pays attention to old women any more. But I was surprised by the Internet, because young people who are as young as 14 years of age tell me about their lives, and ask my advice," she said.

Perhaps the problem isn't that different generations have little to say to one another — we're just speaking a different language, or, should I say, communicating through a different medium. And if it takes learning how to blog or text message to get through to our grandkids (or even our kids, for that matter), then I say have at it.

As a doctor, I suspect that the success of Maria's blog has given her something more valuable than Internet notoriety: It's given her a new purpose in life. That Maria has been able to use the web to shatter the sense of isolation that often comes with advanced age is something we can all learn from. The Internet can help those with less mobility maintain a social life through email, chat, or instant messaging. And this feeling of connectivity could keep Maria blogging well past her 100th birthday.

To a long life,

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

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Boren's Laws of the Bureaucracy: 1. When in doubt, mumble. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in charge, ponder.