Computer literacy

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Inspired partly by the question from schwarmerei1 about sexting and partly by my boredom at my own incompetence technologically I am wondering which Marlows, indeed which characters in Forest overall, would embrace technology and social media and who would struggle ....

Ginty, of course I see as facebook (and similar) obsessed, on her phone all the time.
Lawrie perhaps following actors/actresses she admires on Twitter?
Ann competant and a surprisingly enthusiastic user of social media.
Karen, having left University before the web, found it hard to get back into academic work, as she lacked the necessary on-line research skills.
Anthony Merrick becomes an early adopter of all things web-based, one of the first MPs to tweet reguarly, and Chairing parliamentary committees about social media.  Some are surprised at this, but he explains that his theological position does not make him a Luddite.  He is also an anti-pornography campaigner, much to Helena's emabarrassment.
Patrick held out until not having an email address made functionning in the adult world very difficult, but has never read one of Anthony Merrick MP's tweets on principle.

At school ...
Jan didn't join the class of 19xx leavers facebook page set up by Val ...
The consquences of sexting are immediate expulsion, but it takes a while for the staff to believe that such a thing could happen, let alone at Kingscote.  That is as far as I care to go down that street - but others may be braver!

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Lawrie can't resist donning various disguises and trying out fictional personas online - with various misunderstandings and possibly unintended criminal results...
Patrick is indeed scornful of all social media, until he happens upon a group of Richard III enthusiasts, campaigning to show that despite the new evidence found under a Leicester car park Richard did have a horse and didn't have a hump.
Ginty changes her FB profile regularly and becomes addicted to selfies.
Pam Marlow, during the long winter evenings, comes across the "the brother of a friend in his family's engineeing firm" that Mme Orly always intended her to marry on facebook, and falls into an unintentional internet romance.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Lawrie the Catfish! It makes a horrible sort of sense.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I can see Lawrie having at least three facebook/LJ accounts including one as Sophia. Sometimes she'd get them muddled - oh too plausible for her to get carried away and blur truth and fiction!

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Lawrie totally ends up on Fandom Wank in a confused mess of sockpuppetry.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Lois Sanger sent the Marlow twins a friends request on facebook. Nicola ignored hers (but hasn't actually rejected it because clicking reject would make it too much of a *thing*) and Lawrie did accept, but only after the Prince and the Pauper dress rehearsal. Lois is smug that Lawrie accepted and feels she has the moral high ground over Nicola because Lois reached out, didn't she?

Some well meaning and slightly sentimental soul set up a Marie Dobson RIP facebook group. Only three people joined, and one of them left shortly after.

Patrick got into particular trouble at school for trolling message boards and blasting any praise for the Vatican II changes. After he publicly insulted one of the governers he was deemed to be on a final warning. The maths paper was a very good excuse.

Karen won't let Rose get a facebook account and heavily restricts her internet access because she (Karen) is terrified of cyberbullying.

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

*thumbs up* to this entire post!

[chiasmata]

This is actual genius, particularly the bit about Lois.

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

Ginty, of course I see as facebook (and similar) obsessed, on her phone all the time.
Ginty's profile picture on Facebook is photoshopped. And she likes to put risqué selfies on SnapChat.

Lawrie perhaps following actors/actresses she admires on Twitter?
Lawrie is a complete pain at dinner every night. "Did you see??? XYZ favorited my Tweet!!!"

Nick has serial bouts of obsession with online games. It used to be FarmTown; then it was Angry Birds; currently it's Candy Crush Saga. She also plays Words With Friends rather well.

Ann competant and a surprisingly enthusiastic user of social media.
Ann never misses anyone's birthday; "likes" everything; shares inspiring memes; and makes thoughtful comments on everything in her Facebook newsfeed. She also does quaint photographic effects on the pictures of peoples' kids that they post and emails them back to them.

Karen would have 10,000+ posts on a parenting discussion board, and is moderator of the "blended and step-families" section.

Geoff finds the whole social-networking thing baffling. Every time he returns from a deployment it seems that everyone is on a new site or thing. Then the family chips in to get him an iPad for his birthday. It changes his life (he never could get the hang of that dratted mouse, but the touchscreen...) and then he becomes intensely irritating asking for technical help with new applications.

Anthony Merrick becomes an early adopter of all things web-based, one of the first MPs to tweet reguarly, and Chairing parliamentary committees about social media. Some are surprised at this, but he explains that his theological position does not make him a Luddite. He is also an anti-pornography campaigner, much to Helena's embarrassment.
Anthony also sends out an email newsletter to his constituents that includes updates on the Merrick family animals. Patricks finds it deeply embarrassing, being approached by complete strangers and congratulated about Regina's recent success at ducks.

Patrick held out until not having an email address made functionning in the adult world very difficult, but has never read one of Anthony Merrick MP's tweets on principle.
Utterly...*grins*
But...
Patrick is indeed scornful of all social media, until he happens upon a group of Richard III enthusiasts, campaigning to show that despite the new evidence found under a Leicester car park Richard did have a horse and didn't have a hump.
Total contemporary AU headcanon! In fact Patrick becomes the moderator of the group's LJ community.

Jan didn't join the class of 19xx leavers facebook page set up by Val ...
Jan was the only holdout natch. ;-) In fact, she actively avoids having any web presence, although she'd technically very competent. When her law firm insists that all the equity partners have to appear on an "Our Team" section of the new website, she negotiates to be exempted and has it written into her partnership agreement.

Miranda enjoys a good stoush on discussion boards. She mounts an excellent argument and doesn't take it personally when people disagree with her. She also enjoys subtextual slash ships, and pointing out the heteronormative assumptions of het canon shippers, when they insist that "character xyz *isn't* gay!!!"

The consquences of sexting are immediate expulsion, but it takes a while for the staff to believe that such a thing could happen, let alone at Kingscote. That is as far as I care to go down that street - but others may be braver!
Heaven forfend! Now I am imagining that Lower Fifth lot going far worse than Eileen and Joyce's kirbigrips, and up-skirting with smartphones!

facebook

[(Anonymous)]

All very sharp. My facebook friend group is obviously nothing but Anns since it is always knee deep in motivational sayings, preferably accompanied by pictures of roses or kittens or sunsets. Karen on mumsnet is brilliant, and I bet she takes a frosty line on hippy parenting and is very keen on routine and children getting their five a day, AT the dining table WITH a hands inspection first.

Caroline

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Lois isn't on the leavers page either - isn't she Never Heard Of Again at Kingscote after that cricket match?

I love the idea of Lawrie having multiples IDs. I wonder would she upload film of herself doing various bits of the Shepherd Boy and Caliban to youtube? And tweeting the links to members of the cast?

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Ginty, of course I see as facebook (and similar) obsessed, on her phone all the time.

Ginty's profile picture on Facebook is photoshopped. And she likes to put risqué selfies on SnapChat.

And she is a horrible offender in the matter of duckface.

Computer literacy

[bridgetblood.livejournal.com]

Marie Dobson FB page - brilliant.
Might Tim have a blog?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Edwin only uses social media for professional purposes, but is a BTL menace on the Guardian's Comment is Free pages. He has to own up (to Kay at least) when they offer him a guest blogger spot.

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Genius!

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Loving this post but if the Marlows were real teenagers they would be telling you that "NO-ONE uses Facebook any more" (subtext 'you very stupid OLD person'). So it would be instagram / kick/ snapchat for all of them, except for Patrick who was born to be old-fashioned.
The challenge at Kingscote would be to take a selfie in class - in a lesson with Miss Cromwell for the really daring, and get it posted on Instagram.

Thank you, all

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful: put something up before I go to work, and then come back to a delicious, amusing treat. A trennels version of a slow cooker!

Amazing ideas, and I giggled my way through them, thank you!

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

This whole post (comments included) is absolutely brilliant. My two cents:

Nicola would like to write Hornblower fanfiction, but can't quite bring herself to do so (or at least to post anything she's written for the eyes of the public). Miranda, as suggested above, has been known to write dryly subversive fics in various fandoms (some very minor, some unexpected takes on huge fandoms) which include but are not limited to femslash.
Ann doesn't really approve of fanfiction--she thinks if you have the talent to write you should keep it for original work--but she still has a few self-insert Chalet School fics she wrote before going to Kingscote.
Peter has a photography blog with a small but devoted following, on which he would really prefer his sisters didn't comment.
Tim, I think, is probably with Lawrie on Twitter--the acid one-liner seems like her medium. Also I think she has a Tumblr, where she posts cartoons and costume sketches and reblogs (or whatever it's called on Tumblr) whatever catches her fancy.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Just thought, though: could the Marlows afford smartphones all round? Maybe the Lower Decks share a laptop?

Esther's facebook would consist solely of pictures and video of Daks. In fact, Daks has his own facebook, on which Esther posts updates as him.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Esther also has a strictly impersonal gardening blog, mostly pictures, with notes such as "Pre and post greenfly spray" and "This arrangement worked rather well."

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes she would.

That's how it starts. But as she moves Daks onto Twitter the zeitgeist appreciates the world view of a shy, but lovable, poodle puppy and before long she has 50,000 followers. It's the last thing she expected, and sometimes the pressure to be entertaining is too much.

[jumpingpowder.livejournal.com]

Mrs Merrick runs the village webpage, regularly deleting inappropriate comment and adding strictures about appropriate paint colours, railings, door knockers etc. Pam Marlow has run up an enormous bill playing online poker, which she has not yet revealed to anyone, although Rowan suspects.