Today you most likely missed an epic event in internet history.

Since I’m in a technology field, I keep up to date on what’s going on in the technology world through Twitter. I’m following several tech blogs that post the titles of their latest blog posts throughout the day. About three weeks ago Apple and Steve Jobs released the iPad, a new device that’s supposed to fit between a laptop and a smart phone, kinda replacing the netbook. Techies are preaching that the iPad is useless, mostly because of the iPhone-like operating system and the lack of multitasking.

What they can’t seem to realize is that the iPad is NOT for them. It is for the computer-challenged demographic. You know the ones that I mean. The parent that can hardly turn the computer on. The person that thinks “Google” or “Internet Explorer” is the internet. The friend that constantly deletes system files. The sibling that always has viruses on their computer. The co-worker that has a million icons on his desktop. How do we forget about these people? They’re the ones that call us up when they have a computer problem.

They don’t even know what multitasking entails. The complexity of an internet browser confuses them. All they want to do is get on Facebook or print pictures of their grandchildren. They just want it to work, and they want it to be easy.

So this brings me to the gist of my post, an event that happened today to remind us that computers and the internet are just too confusing to a lot of people. We found out today that one way people access Facebook is to type “facebook login” into their search engine, whether it be on the toolbar of their browser or in whatever search bar pops up when they first open their browser. But by some cruel twist of fate, the first result was not the link to Facebook, but a link to a blog post about Facebook (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php). While one would think that one would see that this wasn’t in fact Facebook, a plethora of users, likely thinking this was somehow tied to the recent redesign, scoured the page looking for the login, only to find the Facebook Connect feature in the Disqus comment system. Seeing that logging in through this didn’t direct them to the familiar News Feeds and profile pages, they spewed their panicked, troubled thoughts in the nearest textbox they could find: the comments box. The result is a humorous list of hundreds of very confused Facebook users pleading to be logged into their Facebook page.

Now, we don’t think twice about this. We can tell a blog post from the Facebook site. We are a very small percentage. These are our users. These users may rarely use the computer. Maybe it’s just to download photos from their computer, use AIM, or play a game on Facebook. Do you think these users would be more happy if all they had to do was click a Facebook icon in their desktop and up popped Facebook, ready to go?

Computers shouldn’t make people feel stupid. Conversely, people need to adapt to changing technology, or they’re going to be left behind. There isn’t much that can be done to change this demographic. It may not be a priority to some, or they simply refuse to learn. Thus, people like Steve Jobs are going to capitalize on this demographic while the techies watch in bewilderment.

All that being said, the whole situation is epic internet comedy. Go read the comments for a good laugh.