Old question: How to explain computer programming to my Grand Mom? 🤔

Just give up

I provide solutions for people who find a task monotonous and time consuming. I make it easier for them by developing a computer algorithm. This way they can focus on more important tasks.

There you go

Monkey that does problem-solving on a fancy typewriter amongst a sea of other monkeys. It is foretold that one day those monkeys will solve a problem with such a perfect solution that no other problems will need to be solved.

You hack facebook

Point to the computer and say "I make that thing do cool stuff!". I am being serious with this suggestion.

When non-technical people ask you what you do, they just want a really high level simple overview. It's not a job interview. A mechanic says "I fix trucks when they break", not "I specialize in common rail diesel injection and transmissions".

You write instructions for a very powerful calculator.

And just like any other calculator it can be used in many different areas.

Just say to her there are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. If she understands then go technical on her else break it down into idiot code where you build your own code based on the parties using it (pick a topic she would understand).
For example: Any sentence where 'apple' and 'banana' are used means 'eat'. The number mentioned will be the quantity to eat.
Plaintext: eat X.
Codetext: yesterday we had an apple and a banana but was full! Tomorrow we will have X.

Code goes in, applications come out. You can't explain that.

I make computers do things.

I can't even explain it to my parents.

You tell computer how to behave :)

There are bees and blooms... The bees stick their... . Wait thats not...

I'd just say I drink a lot of coffee and out comes sarcasm and and that box there does the opposite of what I told it to do.