There’s nothing that makes me feel like an old lady more than when people start talking about technology (well, except for when I turn down Halloween party invitations because I would rather stay at home drinking iced tea and wearing woolly socks, like I did last week). I am truly rubbish at technology. Just ask the editor of tabloid! I’ll often send my columns copied and pasted in the e-mail because I can’t get the Word document to attach, or something.

I now work on a website and knowing the basics of technology is kind of crucial. I’ve been given an iPad to help me do my job but, rather than be filled with glee about the fact I have a new iPad, I have hidden it under a pile of paper on my desk (it’s easier to forget it exists if it’s hidden). I dread using it. I tried to the other day. The instructions I was given seemed easy enough but, somehow, the data I had spent a whole evening collecting wasn’t there when we tried to upload it.

I’m the same with all technology — it gives me the same kind of brain numbness that maths and important paperwork do. My brain is entirely disinterested and refuses to even entertain the idea of trying to deal with them. Like, when I get a bill that needs splitting between friends, I just look at it and pretend to work it out. In reality, I am waiting for someone to tell me how much money to put down. There’s no way I’m doing sums in my head. Invoices, maths and technology (phones, computers, etc) are all put in the “yawn” file in my head.

Instead, my brainwaves are caught up in weightlifting (OK, I do love weightlifting maths. I am at present geeking out about trying to lift a cumulative total of 115kg this month. I am sure you are as interested in this as my boyfriend was when I told him. He looked at me, then turned back to the mirror without a word), food, my dog (who is back home safe — you’ll only know what I’m talking about if you read last week’s rant/column) and feature angles. There is no space left to be interested in the latest smartphones or finding out what on earth 4G is or figuring out how to schedule all my social media updates so that they are all in synch. Confession: on two occasions during hotel stays I have had to call reception to ask someone to show me how to turn on the TV.

It’s not a conscious decision to never learn. I don’t enjoy being an old lady about technology. It’s actually rather embarrassing. Two weeks ago my intern had to explain to me what Google Docs is, and recently a man in his sixties was talking to me about sending all his freelance work via Google docs so that he didn’t have to upload huge files all the time. I am still one of those people who doesn’t use zip files and just sends big images in e-mails one by one to fill up your inbox and ruin your day.

Once I had an internship on a radio station’s website (I remember writing a piece about a young singer called Rihanna, who you won’t have heard of now but, believe me, she’s going to be massive ...). They asked me to leave after a month because I just couldn’t understand how to do anything. I haven’t learnt much since then and, the most upsetting thing is, it’s always changing.

I had my iPod stolen in Cambodia four years ago and have never had music on a device since. Because, despite having a smartphone I don’t know how to upload stuff to it. As soon as you you’ve figured out how to do something tricky (like use your DVD player), it becomes redundant because something else has come to take its place. I figured out my DVD player after a tutorial from my boyfriend. Now we only download stuff. Typical. I have no idea how to do that.