Complete refusal to use technology

My mum is the same age as your mum. She was a cleaner then a care assistant. She never worked in any office job that would require use of technology and we were poor growing up so no computers or mobiile for us in the 80s/90s. She still goes to the post office to pay her bills. She does not trust online payments or banking. She lives next door to a supermarket and goes every day to buy food and the newspapers.

Nevertheless she has persisted with technology (despite the ribbing of her children and grandchildren). She can email and keeps in regular contact with her family overseas and has a new network through Ancestry.com. During lockdown we trained her to use zoom and facetime. She has a facebook account. She looks up things on YouTube and buys things online occasionally. I do not think age is the issue. People either are open to learning new things, or they are not.

I sympathise OP. Maybe a stylus would help if she can’t feel how hard to tap the iPad? Worth a shot perhaps?

Im staggered councils still let people pay in cash - though it did make me think of Margot in the Good Life (50 odd years ago!)

mathanxiety
This is my experience and, like you, you feel hurt and try to move on 💐

Do your parents see your children regularly and do they know them well, play with them, enjoy meals and family times with them?

My DM lives in another country and even the prospect of being able to make video calls and receive regular photos of or from her grandchildren on her phone didn't motivate her to learn (despite seeing photos and videos of her friends' grandchildren on their phones). She just put up with losing the chance to really know the GCs and shrugged. They've connected now that they're adults and can buy a plane ticket and fly over to see her, but she really missed out on huge chunks of their childhoods, their interests, friends, and activities. I've moved on from the hurt I felt that she was prepared to just not do something simple that would have been so life enhancing for us all. She is who she is, and she has some really good points after all. But at the time I was bewildered and felt a lot of pain.

I agree. This is what really bugs me. Computers were commonplace in the 90s as was telephone banking. Technology isn't something that's happened overnight. Like the OP's mother who gave up work in her 50s because they introduced computers at work. Just a modern version of Luddites. Did these people really think that computers/tech etc wouldn't become even more commonplace? We've had internet banking for over 20 years, online shopping for 20 years. 20 years ago, most of today's elderly were still in the workplace or otherwise perfectly capable of keeping up to date with mobile phone apps, laptop computers, the internet, etc.

I don’t tend to think that’s true - my mum can use a computer better than I can. My dad knows his way round his iPad at 73, he just can’t be bothered to try and figure things out. A lot of it is willing refusal. iPads, iPhones, laptops etc are not new technology.

It is totally okay to be frustrated. Helping someone who helps themselves is a very different thing from helping someone who won’t help themself and feels entitled to someone else’s time and energy (like the OP’s mother). Even more infuriating when, as so often happens, the thing they themselves do not have the ability to do is denigrated as ‘stupid’ etc.

I think that is wonderful and I am pleased you feel able to help your parents. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same experience as you and therefore may not feel able or willing to help their parents. Speaking personally, my parents chose a long time ago to not learn computer skills and I help them (I have children and a FT job).

I think the poster is frustrated and that is ok too.

With luck, all of you on here expressing annoyance, disbelief, anger and despair at your elder relatives (usually their mothers) and their lack of modern IT skills will live to be at least as old as those relatives, if not older. Then you will be in a position to mock the lack of technological skills because you will be living it.
As we age it’s not just our bodies that decline - it’s often our ability to retain information, to learn new skills, to remember how to use old skills. The fact that many of you think it’s just awkwardness, or learned helplessness or even a way of pissing you off is really saddening.

@soupyspoon
It's definitely the modern great divide.

In my DM's case, she never had to embrace any tech or even simple diy, and couldn't ever understand the advantage of changing her ways (but now complains bitterly about having to pay 'a man' to come and do simple jobs in the house and garden). She always tended to get stuck in the here and now, and was always very passive, an attitude that came from make do and mend - which to her translated as a lifelong motto of 'put up with inconvenience and do things the long and slow way if the alternative looks complicated'. Her response to having no TV for a few days is to listen to the radio.

Even the radio is problematic though. She once had half a dozen dead battery-operated radios that she was holding onto because she didn't know what bin to put them into - when the batteries ran out she didn't know what sort to buy to replace them or how to take out the old ones and put in the new. I showed her the battery selection in her local supermarket, the different kinds of batteries, and what to buy. Then I showed her how to open the battery compartment, take out the old ones, and put in the replacement (pointed out pos and neg sides). She had never noticed the battery section. There are lots of other sections she never really looks at. She's astonished that I know stuff like changing batteries or how to go about painting a wood front door, or replacing windshield wipers, windshield fluid, etc.

Otoh, she is a superb seamstress and was able to tell me over the phone where I was going wrong with the bobbin of my sewing machine.

This post has saddened me somewhat, and as I posted previously, you should be glad to have your parents.
I can’t believe how many of you selfishly would consider not helping. I just hope that when you are all elderly and your health, sight, mobility and cognitive abilities are reduced, and there’s an advancement in technology that your children don’t decide to stop
paying your bills, helping you out, doing your foodshop etc because you can’t keep up with how fast the world has moved.
My parents are in their 80s, not tech savvy and it’s a privilege to help them, and yes I do work full time and have my own children.

I get your frustration. My DM is the same age - but, her iPad will have to be extracted from her - she very much loves her tech so its not all an age thing!

Has anyone talked to her about what is the barrier - you say she is pressing like apps are a button that has to be pressed. Had she had difficulties with cognitive processing her whole life. Something isn't clicking for her and it's overwhelming for her so she is shutting down. Would finding that initial barrier help do you think. I've pmd you suggestions from Ai.

@asknotwhat
Same, with the lifelong hatred/ phobia, and even the years and years of persuasion to get a microwave (he finally went out and bought one when she was away visiting a family member).

Why can’t you just accept your mum doesn’t want to get tech savvy? My mum didn’t. She wouldn’t even use the microwave that was pre installed in her kitchen. She wasn’t a fan of using the phone, either - mainly, I think, because of her hearing issues. Yes, it might be a bit frustrating for you but not everyone is able / willing to embrace technology in the way we are.

Link to alexa so she can ask alexa

My parents are late 70s and have never had the Internet. They both have a simple smart phone and my dad uses the mobile data on both to go on Facebook

My mum can text me on hers and take a photo but that's it.
It makes it so difficult because I end up having to do everything for them. My dad uses online bank accounts to get a good rate but doesn't know how to use the apps so I have to do it all.
He cant ever remember passwords and doesn't write them down and then gets angry with me when he doesn't know it.
What annoys me the most is my late nan was completely deaf and ended up so isolated. If I could have text her or sent her photos , and she could have watched her favourite old programmes with subtitles but she couldnt because she couldnt use technology. We had to tape all the buttons over on the tv remote. It was stressful. They saw and dealt with all this and now they are doing it. Have never ordered anything in their lives and think people that order food online are disgraceful and wasteful. I wish people
Could see that technology opens up people's worlds!

Nor would I refuse. My mum was terrified of all IT but I now realise that she was starting to lose her sight and was in the early stages of dementia. It was a pain but I’m now glad that I helped her.

I have a friend who’s 66 - she refuses to learn. She’s always getting others to order stuff for her and collects from them. She won’t book any event - we all have to do it. She is full of excuses about arthritis in her hands (not as bad as mine!) says that she likes the walk to banks, shops etc but I can see that she’s scared of tech and of all the scam horror stories. I have gently explained a few things and tried to encourage her - I’ve also said that we’ll never be this young again so it’d be better to try now.
My 85 yr old neighbour on the other hand, goes to bed at 7 pm with a large glass of red and her iPad to watch soaps, make calls etc. 🤷‍♀️

Sympathies OP, my DM is the same age and exactly the same. In her case, though, it's down to a lifelong, passionate hatred/phobia of all things technological, not just stubbornness. It took dad 20 years to persuade her to get a microwave (which she wouldn't have a clue how to use). She's never had a mobile phone, smart or otherwise, or used the Internet. If we're visiting and someone gets a phone notification, her head goes up like a startled deer and she'll say in a panicked voice, 'what's beeping, something's beeping!' She changed bank a couple of years ago out of rage, because dad wanted to open a savings account for her and they wouldn't do it without an email address. She can just about navigate the TV, but that's it.

In practical terms, it's never caused major problems because dad is very tech savvy - but if he weren't around she'd be totally screwed, and even now it would be very helpful if she had a phone. She's now developing dementia, so she definitely won't change (though I don't think she would have done anyway) - but it also means that a lot of the tech things for dementia that might really help her (like an Alexa) are completely off the table. It's very frustrating.

My mum is funny. We got a VCR about 35 years ago. She would have been early fifties. Never learnt to use it. I remember ringing her to ask her to video something that night: simply put a blank tape in and press record. She went to try then came back to the phone to ask “Which was do I put the tape in?”

I bought her a basic mobile when she was 60. Could barely use that. The one time I had train trouble and it was useful for her to have she needed to ask for help from someone to answer it. (Push a button - definitely not a touch-screen.)

Yet computers she could do to some extent. Even learnt how to use tablets in her late 70s. Though she slammed the phone down on me when I was unable to diagnose a problem she was having from a distance of 600 miles. Apparently I should have known the mouse was the wrong way with the buttons under the palm not fingers!

My parents are 95 and 90, and while they need some help occasionally and won’t use the online bank, they do their Sainsbury’s shopping online, manage phone contracts, and email, WhatsApp etc. Mum had even mastered emojis. It’s possible to learn if she wants to. Sounds as though she doesn’t.

Is it a 'rejection' of technology though or cognitive or excecutive functiong that simply cant manage it?
Why do we accept (quite rightly we do) that there are some young people who cant do certain things, they're always going to need support to do x, y z

Those older people who never needed to know whether they could encounter computers or digital skills or understand those things, wouldnt have been viewed as needing support or help, its only when those things have come along

I cant use a phone that well, I dont have the eyesight and now have very poor fine motor control. Impossible to navigate on it, I cant be relied on to click or point to the right thing. I dont know how much pressure my digits are giving at any one time. Over time its getting worse, Im only in my 50s!

I think people fail to see just how exclusive the digital world and online world is, not just physically in terms of holding and physically managing a device but remembering and understanding the methods and order and sequences and passwords etc etc. Lots of people are being slowly eased out of access and inclusion and the narrative is 'learn or die'. Nice.

I’m a bit in the fence here… yes, there’s no excuse for older people - especially younger older people, to be rejecting technology.

But… my aunt, for example, is 96. She was an early adopter of all things technological and loved online shopping/banking/SM. However, she is now suffering from poor eyesight and is a bit shaky. So she’s out. It’s a bit thought-provoking… how are we all going to operate when we’re too decrepit to see the damn phone?!

Re the television… that’s me! Dh is a major tech nerd. He’s always messing about with the sitting-room tech. It’s like the flippin’ Odeon. Sometimes I sit down to watch something and every remote control has changed or has been “reconfigured” 😡