| “我叫阿米莉婭，1911年12月23日生于西班牙。今天是我的生日，我那小氣的孫子，送給我一個博客。”這是瑪麗亞?阿米莉婭?洛佩茲在博客上寫下的第一句話。在不到10個月的時間內，這位95歲高齡的老太太用西班牙語寫就的博客吸引了來自全世界的粉絲閱讀，僅固定讀者就有6萬，成為互聯網上最有名的高齡博主。 |
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One of the world's oldest Webloggers, 95-year-old Maria Amelia Lopez.[Agencies]
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"Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog."
So reads the first entry by one of the world's oldest Webloggers, Maria Amelia Lopez, who, at the age of 95, has surprised herself by a sudden conversion from Web-illiterate to cybercelebrity.
"At first I thought a blog was just a type of paper notebook," said Lopez, a great grandmother.
"When I saw my grandson using the Internet, it caught my attention. I said to myself 'What's this? You can find out about anything. I want an Internet!'"
With 60,000 regular readers so far, Lopez's homely mix of memory and chat, available at http://amis95.blogspot.com/, attracts regular readers from around the world and has put her back in touch with the younger generation in a way she had never imagined.
"No one pays any attention to old women any more. Not many people love us. But I was surprised by the Internet, because young people who were 18 years of age, or 14 or 15, tell me about their lives and what they think and ask my advice," said Lopez.
Only one in 10 people over the age of 65 use the Internet in Spain, slightly below the European average. Although that proportion has nearly doubled over the past two years, it still suggests older citizens are missing the digital revolution even though they make up a growing portion of the population.
"Age is more important (to determining Internet use) than income, gender .... or level of education," said Domingo Laborda, an official of Spain's Industry Ministry.
The proportion of Internet users declines even more steeply after 65. Only 2.7 percent of over-74s has ever surfed the Net.
But technology can help break down the isolation of old age.
"The Internet can help communication, with mail, chat or messaging, and it's fun and always available," said the ministry's Laborda.
Visit Lopez's home in the village of Sanxenxo in the rainy northern Spanish region of Galicia and you see her ability to pour out words on the net is matched by loquaciousness in person.
"I was always talkative, but now I feel more wanted, embraced, because so many people write to me," said Lopez.
On her blog she makes occasional references to her youthful good looks ("Ah, how pretty I was, and how little I realised it"), but today she has white hair and walks with a stick.
"Look at what I was," she wrote in one entry, beneath a photograph of herself from 60 or 70 years ago, "And look at what I am, at what I have become. My eyes aren't pretty, nor my mouth, or anything, not my body. Age disfigures everything."
"The Internet has given me life," she told Reuters, describing how she receives messages from places as diverse as Brazil, Russia and Japan.
A quick google search for the world's oldest blogger reveals 108-year-old Australian Olive Riley, who can be found at www.allaboutolive.com.au/.
Because of poor eye sight, Lopez is assisted in her blogging by her grandson, Daniel, who takes her dictation.
Many of her stories deal with a long life, which started happily and then had to steer through Spain's Civil War and Franco's dictatorship.
(Agencies/China Daily)
Vocabulary:
loquaciousness: 非常健談的
（英語點津 Celene 編輯）
