Saying you are not a digital person

"I am not really a digital person," says the owner of a family hardware shop in Amman, half apologising and half proud. He says it the way some people say they do not dance.

It is worth asking what he means.

Being at ease with technology is not a talent. It comes down to two habits. You meet a new tool expecting it might be useful, and you go looking for what has changed instead of waiting to be told.

So "not a digital person" is rarely a description of ability. It is a choice dressed up as a trait. It means: this makes me uncomfortable, I would rather not keep up, and I have decided that is acceptable.

That decision has a cost, and the bill does not arrive on the day it is made. His customers already check stock on their phones before they drive across town. His supplier sends price lists that only make sense on a screen. The younger shop two streets away answers questions at midnight. None of it waited for his permission.

Plenty of people do things they are not naturally drawn to because it keeps them capable. They read outside their field. They learn the basics of a language before a move. They sit through the dull explanation so they are not lost later.

For anyone who sells anything now, knowing roughly how the tools work belongs on that list. Not mastery. Just enough to see what is happening to you.

The tools are in use either way. The only open question is who is using whom.