My dad is the one person technology passed by. His phone is about 8 years old. You can call and text on it. We bought him a smart phone but he couldn't use it. He doesn't know how to use a computer. We first got a computer 18 years ago. As time went by every member of my family except him had a laptop. My mother learned to use one my dads siblings learned to use one. Yesterday my mother got the bright idea that buying him a kindle fire would be a smart idea. I was told to teach him how to use it. First I had to set up an email for him even though it's 2018 and little kids have their own email. Then an Amazon account. I know his password he doesn't. I showed him the email app, the alexa app and downloaded Google. He wanted to access YouTube from Google. I got that app for him too. I showed him how to buy kindle books and assured him the device would keep his place in the book. He was the one person I knew who didn't do technology. The last Luddite has given in to technology and loves his new toy. Who was the last person who didn't do technology you know?
Back when my mother first got a smart phone, I asked her "What kind did you get?" And she just says "I don't know, but its a smart phone." I just cringed inside because all I could think was you don't buy a phone like that. I read reviews, specs, all that so I know I'm getting what I want.
Omg, my great aunt (she's 68 I think, I don't see her often) couldn't work out why she wasn't getting messages or calls on her iPhone and asked me to take a look at it...the reason it wasn't working? It was dead flat lol. She didn't know you needed to charge phones or how to charge one so it'd been sitting in her handbag ever since it first went flat XD
Last summer I went to my wife's family's house for a birthday and by the end of the day I had set up two Chromebooks, fixed a laptop, and her aunt's network. @_@ Worth pointing out that everyone but us was 60+. It was a rough day.
Hey Guys....Don't be so rough on those of us who are 60+ I run two desktop computers, often at the same time...a PC and a MAC. I have an iPhone 7+, an iPad Air and an Apple watch. I also have a Master's Degree in Computer Technology...someone had to start all this tech! .....David
I've never understood people's obsession with technology. I've grown up around technology my entire life and still don't like it very much. I don't even like talking on the phone, any phone. I do like discussion forums like this one, and even manage a pretty large one myself, but still can't get into the social media stuff like Facebook and Twitter. I guess everyone else my age loves it all, but I just don't see the appeal in having 30 different social media profiles all over the internet. I don't know how they have time for it all either... it looks like a part time job just keeping up with posts on so many different social media places.
First, Tech is nice but it's also over-rated. It's almost scary sometimes... Go out to dinner and there are people sitting at a table and instead of enjoying and living in the moment they are sitting next to each other all staring at their "Smart" phone while my Kids (Teens and College age) are all just enjoying each other's company. Saw the same thing at a Renaissance fair ... Big bench around huge tree with over a dozen people sitting there and 8 of the 12 were on their phones with all the eye candy and things to watch going on all around them. That being said I'm a bit of a geek myself and I think a lot of is that as you get older you just want things to be simpler and there aren't many devices and apps that cater to people in that category because they aren't the primary purchasers of technology. I know for me I've spent a lot of time working on my Dad's computer (He's 85) but to his credit he can reload an operating system and do more than most. The other thing I've noticed is that often the info and remembering new things and "how to" doesn't stick as well as you age.. I've noticed that in myself to a degree and I'm in my mid 50's... while I still remember how to do things I've not done in over 20 years that I learned in my 20's and 30's things I've learned more recently can sometimes be elusive. So my advice to anyone assisting someone who's older and having a hard time with technology is use "KISS" (Keep it Simple Stupid!) and even if it means not getting the most out of the technology, try to set things up to be as easy to use as possible without all the bells and whistles and extra icons and eye candy, at least that's what I've tried to do and found that I get a lot less phone calls and can fix problems a lot easier when they do occur.
Being an IT guy, i deal with this all the time. Sometimes I get people who ask me what their password is and it is literally “password”. I know, not to safe, but it is what it is. I’m 52 and I go back and forth with technology one day I love it the next day I would rather have a stone tablet and a chisel. **Sidenote, I’m on my phone a lot and would be lost without out it. My mother is 77 and every time she wants to watch a DVD she has to call. This is even after I have made her directions with pictures! My sister got her a smartphone, lasted 2 weeks- she “accidentally” called all the time regardless the time of day. We have given her laptops, iPads, and desktops- she fails every time. She now has her slide phone back and is somewhat happy. She is a mean SOB, so that adds to the frustration. The ironic part, she loves to text... however I’ve received many nasty texts from her... I’m worthless, should have given us kids up for adoption, how she wished the Catholic Church wasn’t against abortions. Finally, one day she was watching “Cheers”, an 80s comedy sitcom. It was obviously a rerun- she was bitching that it wasn’t as good as the original. I told her it was the same damn show- she argued with me that they changed it and then called me a bunch of offensive names. Always a joy visiting Mommy Dearest!!!!
Lmao my dad hates technology and it takes so long for us to upgrade to modern tech. My mom wants an Alexa but uuuuhhhhh it looks too much like a wiretap tbh. And I, unfortunately, am taking after my parents in that I don't know how to work technology or even modern apps. Oops.
Well that's going to be my mother. A long time back, prolly some centuries ago we had that old white big computer which me and my brother would only use for games. She didn't even on how to turn it on. Well we upgraded to notebooks and for long time she kept asking me to help her write in the Microsoft Word because she didn't know how, I found that kind of fascinating xD also asked me to write and send emails. I also had to maintain her facebook profile which I partly do to these days.This actually reminds of one funny incident when she got her first touchscreen mobile phone and installed messenger. She never used the app before and was kinda clumsy with controls. As a result she accidentally posted few smileys to some people. What she told me was: Help, someone hacked my messenger and sent smileys to everyone!! I'm pretty sure you can imagine that burst of laughter I had and weirdly it took quite a while to assure her that if someone had indeed hacked her messenger they wouldn't use it to sent smileys. Welp she still has some problems with technology to these days but we're getting there.
My mother, whom I'm trying to convince to get on the web (especially since my father has a computer, so it's not like she'd need to buy something special). Mostly because she has Parkinson's and can barely write anymore, so I'm thinking that a keyboard may be more manageable than a pen. Buuut... :/
I don't live anywhere near to my grandpa, so every time we visit him he needs help with a lot of things. Helping him, I've noticed he doesn't read any error messages of anything telling him what to do. He often just clicks on continue buttons before clicking on captchas, and when I tell him he needed to click the captcha box before pressing submit, he gets all mad claiming he did!
