In laws and technology (lighthearted)

[mogloveseggs]

Fil has bought mil a Nintendo switch.
Dh is trying to tell her how to set it up (secondhand so no instructions).
So far he's spent half an hour on the phone trying to tell her how to connect it to their internet (she has no idea what the password is) and another half an hour trying to teach her how to answer his video call so he can look at what she's doing.
He's now got himself a can of beer from the fridge and told Ds good luck in 30 years time with us

Dh had to get his mums new tablet delivered here and set it all up. He then connected to her wi-fi from her garden. She doesn’t understand social distancing though so she kept asking him to come inside and sort out various things 🤦🏻‍♀️

Mine go into a panic and are incapable of reading the error message on the screen which invariably tells them what to do.

The first android phones we had, our twin grandchildren the aged 10 set them up, the one the granddaughter set up worked perfectly, not the one by the grandson, he said he knew what he was doing but didn’t, had to get his sister to look at it a few weeks later.
We now google everything, then ask for help if it is too technical.

She's managed to get it online.
As for downloading games though, that could be a challenge.
Dh has put his phone on silent for a bit

@IwishIhadaMargarita yes they don't get social distancing either. Wanted dh to go up and 'pop in' to sort it.

@Herbie0987 google is definitely a friend in this technological age, as is YouTube.
I certainly think I'll have to keep abreast of technological advances as it must be very frustrating to not understand things.

That was another issue. He wanted to send her links to YouTube videos on how to set it up, download games etc but she doesn't know what YouTube is.

[quote mogloveseggs]@Herbie0987 google is definitely a friend in this technological age, as is YouTube.
I certainly think I'll have to keep abreast of technological advances as it must be very frustrating to not understand things.[/quote]
I didn't mean you herbie sorry clumsy sentence.
But how much mil doesn't understand makes me determined to understand if you see.

Strange really. We are in our seventies and worked in IT from the early seventies. I bet if I said "star exec pling boot" you young folk wouldn't know what I was talking about. 😂😂😂

missclimpson at a guess I'd say something to do with ms dos but I bet I'm wrong?

My SIL's father, now sadly dead, was hilarious. Once he got a computer, but before the technology existed for her to take over his machine remotely she would spend hours on the phone when he would contact her, having 'broken it again'.

We would listen to this end of the conversation.
-Right, dad. Don't touch anything yet. Just tell me what it says on the screen.

• Are you typing something? Just hang on a minute and tell me what it says on the screen...
• You ARE typing. Or tapping. What are you doing?

-Stop pressing buttons! Dad, just stop for a minute while I... what do you mean it's all gone black?

Booting early BBC / Acorn. 😊 When I drive past a road sign that says ! I still read it as pling. That was the 80s to be fair. DH started programming the workings of a steel plant on a mainframe with 32k.

The first BBCs had tape recorders to load programs. They would grumble away for ages and we used to stick blutack over the holes p to stop the noise. Then they would crash and you had to start again. Honestly it is all so much easier now.

My dad has a degree in computer science that he got back in the late 1960s. He worked in IT all his working life. I still have to change the clock on his oven twice a year.

Learned helplessness UncleShady. 😀

It is interesting though. I was just reading the thread about people finding how easy it is to make mayonnaise, white sauce etc. I am also amazed to read about people who can't sew. To us using a sewing machine, preserving food, DiY and gardening were fundamental life skills. I guess we master the technologies that we need and acquire those that interest us. And learned helplessness is definitely a thing in all generations.