Twenty-First-Century Computing, as Explained by My Mother

the Internet: "Where people mess around with words."

e-mail: "A way of communicating with people. You plug in and go for it."

website: "Where you post information about a topic. Any topic. It could be anything. Therein lies the freedom."

firewall: "It must block something. On the computer. It's something you can't get beyond, no matter how hard you try."

Adobe Acrobat: "You made that one up."

virus: "You have anti-virus protection on your computer. It protects against bogey people—like, bogey-bogey. It's really important. This scares me."

Firefox: "Definitely something to do with firewalls."

RAM: "The capacity of a computer ... program. I think. Why don't you just tell me? You're mean."

MP3: "Pass."

(By Pasha Malla for McSweeney's)