I recently had the pleasure of guiding a couple of older folks through their first encounter with the Internet.

Let me tell you, the only thing that is cuter than analogues exploring their digital abilities is, perhaps, online videos of fluffy little kittens being surprised by other fluffy little kittens.

But it is close thing. I am glad to report that after a few sessions, my mission was accomplished: The world is now richer by two online video addicts who are probably pushing the Kenny Rogers viewing count to viral levels.

In exchange, the Kenny Rogers enthusiasts reminded me of two things that the analogue generations do much better than the digital generation. First, the sense of wonder that is, well wondrous to behold. Show a 50-something touchscreen phone for the first time, sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

As a semi-analogue, I also have the pleasure of being able to be completely amazed by the smallest advances in technology. No taking things for granted for those of us who remember when we had to ask Tanzania Telecommunications Company for an undependable and overpriced landline. Phone time was strictly for important business and emergencies, like Morse code and telegrams.

But now? Goodness. The things you can do with most smartphones are beyond my ken and I like it that way.

The second thing the analogues have going for them is a healthy suspicion of social media. This confers online privacy that protects one’s general reputation.

We humans are prone to misspeak; it is a natural part of the communication experience. Misspeaking in the physical world need not be a terrible thing: After all, the only ones who hear it are within hearing distance and they have poor biological memories.

Whatever blunders you made may be forgotten fast, or altered and therefore rendered dubious in the retelling, giving you the power of denial. Your humiliation need only last so long. And despite this, you are less likely to say something stupid in direct conversation than you are online.

Oh, the pain of misspeaking online! Anything stupid or worse done there can be preserved for posterity and shared with an audience of millions of strangers. People have suffered pretty serious real-life consequences from their mistakes.

That racist Tweet that you can’t unsend prior to boarding a transatlantic flight to South Africa, the misogynistic remark at a conference shared by an audience member — career-enders all.

And there you have it. These days it is no longer safe to simply be offline. The simple act of saying something in public is hazardous. Someone is recording and I don’t mean just your creepy government.

This lack of privacy has also come with a wonderful silver lining. These days, public spaces are hazardous for reckless politicians. As we slowly inch towards our General Election in October, a fellow citizen who enjoys the embarrassments of the elected class pointed something out to me.

The old folk are being given a hard time by the youthful citizenry because their digital selves failed to anticipate something important.

I imagine back in the analogue heyday it was relatively safe to say whatever you wanted wherever, even as an elected representative of the people.

If a journalist quoted you saying something untoward, you could always threaten libel or harass the newspaper. If there were only hapless villagers around to audit your blunder, you could always claim they misheard. And thus was the world your oyster: Plausible deniability at every turn.

Politicians who matured in such an environment are now being surprised by young citizens not only recording but broadcasting their every public remark, and commenting on them too. Worse still, modern citizens enjoy delving into the capacious archives of the Internet to dredge up remarks from five, 10, 20 years ago.

Maybe once upon a time they told citizens to, for example, eat grass because the nation needed a presidential jet, or perhaps they disclaimed the many millions in their private bank accounts as mere cents.

Now it would take a secondary-school technology wizard less than an hour to dredge up footage of such unfortunate statements and give them a hard time about past misdemeanours. You know how the kids nowadays have no respect and all that.

Mh. Perhaps the only thing that is more fun than watching analogues exploring their digital abilities is watching an analogue politician struggle at the mercy of a digital votership. But it is a close thing.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]