to think people over 70 should not be let near mobiles or computers

[SlightlyJaded]

I know I am BU but honestly....

Normal procedure for contacting my Mother on her Mobile

1. I dial. Phone is switched off (usually because it's on charge which it seems to be doing almost permanently because mobiles are 'for emergencies aren't they')
2. I dial again. It rings
3. it rings some more and goes to voicemail
4. I leave message that will never be picked up because 'it's so fiddly'
5. I ring again. Mother may or may not hear it
6. I ring again. Mother scrabbles about in her handbag because the lady at the M&S checkout has told her the phone is ringing
7. Mother picks up and then immediately disconnects me 'Well I did push the right button but this phone has a mind of it's own'
8. I ring again. It's engaged
9. I ring again. Mother picks up "hello?"

10. I say "Mum it's me" 11. She says "Oh I can't talk to you now, I'm out shopping and you know I hate talking on these things" 12. I jump off nearest bridge

Normal procedure for my mother using her computer

1. Eating supper. Home phone rings. Caller display shows mum and dads home phone number
2. I pick up "Hello?"
3. Mother (sounding irritated)responds "I've got one of those blue boxes that says "error with 3509568.exe file"
4. "Hello? Who is this please?"

5 Mother "Oh don't be so facetious. This bloody computer is not working again"

1. "oh would that be the one DH and I bought you for Christmas?"
2. Mother. "Well if it's all about who spent what...."
3. Me (realising the futility of my irritation and not pointing out that this is her 3rd computer and she's been 'using' them for a good 10 years now) "what are you trying to do?"
4. Mother "I'm writing"

10. Me "ok... what programme are you in" 11. Mother "oh there's no point asking me those sorts of questions" 12. Me "what are you trying to write?" 13. Mother "to Sandra" 14. Me "an email?" 15. Mother "no on the internet" 16. What do you mean "on the internet" 17. Mother "the blue e" 18. Me. "Hang on a sec, DD has dropped a knife" 19. Mother (aside to my dad). "DD has dropped a knife" 20. Dad in distance "who are you on the phone to?" 21. Mother "well who do you think I'm on the phone to? I just told you DD dropped a knife didn't I?" 22. Me "hello?" 23. Dad in distance "well that didn't necessarily mean you were on the phone to SlightlyJaded did it" 24. Me "hello? hello?" 25. Mother (aside to Dad). OOh look at that cat on the telly. How have they got it to do that. 26. Me (under my breath lowering the receiver) "it's done in post fucking production isn't it. Cats can't really play the trumpet you know".

Five hours later, three emails arrives from mother. They are all empty.

I'm nearly 50 and I write scientific software. (and my boobs are still pretty much where they should be ). I've been using email and discussion forums since before the web was invented.

Mum learned to email and surf when she was over 80. She's about to turn 86 and wants a laptop for her birthday.

MIL though - DH bought her a mobile. She was having difficulty using it so he tried to talk her through it over the phone (landline, obv). After some considerable period of time it transpired she had picked up the remote rather than the mobile. She's not stupid, just can't see well.

well ok then. AIBU that a 'silver surfer's course' at the local library is obligatory to OAP's with laptops who should have to also bring their mobile phones and demonstrate an ability to at least answer the bloody things!

Yes, yes alright. I am BVU. Possibly something to do with latest call from DM who is annoyed that there is 'no hole' so she can't retrieve her 'letterhead' from a 1996 floppy disc... How hard is it to type your address at the top then??

OMG this thread has made me laugh so much.
.mammaries saying nobody over 45 should be near a microchip..christ our age group invented the sodding microchip!
Anyway..just to prove you all wrong..
my MIL who is 86 uses facebook daily to talk to her grandkids and greatgrandkids... looks at pictures / videos even plays games.
I find it really very sad that some people prefer to remain / pretend to be, ignorant of technology.

Both my daughters think Im a complete technophobe cos Im not completely up to date with all the latest gadgets,yep a Blackberry only goes in a pie nothing else!
What they forget is Ive managed to bring them up alone,lived and worked in States with them and used to keep patients alive on a ITU unit as a nurse.
Guess we all have different skills eh?

LOLing at this thread...but as my Dad (who turned 71 today) has several websites he's coded himself and is the go to bod for a lot of technical stuff in our family I'd have to say YABU ...but I do know he's an exception...not many people studied computers at Cambridge in the early 60's

you're right jaffa, of course you are...
but I can't start to tell you how being computer literate improves your quality of life, as you age.
my MIL again, is unable to walk,is stuck in a little flat, day in, day out but has the world, her world at her fingertips.

I agree with Ingles, my OH is almost 40 and everyone he works with is 45 or older. They all work in IT, using complex databases and data transforms.

All of them are committers for open source and spend loads of time meeting up and talking in geek speak to push the software boundaries.

My mum is 71. This week she set up the webcam I gave her for her 70th and has been merrily Skype chatting to her mates in another part of the country.

I bought a webcam at the same time so me a DD could Skype with her. Still haven't managed to get mine going yet

She is an absolute fiend on eBay too

Very funny stories on here.. I've really enjoyed reading this thread.

I think it's the person rather than the age.

OP I've just shown your post to my DH and he burst out laughing. Because you have just described his mum, too, at least with email (she is quite good with mobiles and texts). She rings up in a blind panic about losing an email and DH goes through a million different steps, only to find out that she's minimised it!
My parents have email and a mobile, but never answer emails or texts (at least from me). When I call them, I usually will say "did you get my email / text?"
"oh yes, thanks".
I do ask them whey they don't reply but my mum says something vague about "emails being hard to reply to". I am trying to get them to get Skype but they won't have a bar of it!

My mum got herself a laptop last year. This is someone who can't work the DVD player. My fears were confirmed at first by panicked calls about things disappearing and mysterious boxes and virus updates etc. Then it all went a bit quiet on the computer front until this conversation a few days ago:

Me: hi mum!
Mum: hi! Oh, you know you were asking about those long sleeved white vests for DD? Well I googled it for you and found out where to get them from.
Me: what? Oh, well, thanks that's great!
Mum: no problem. Have you been keeping up with the news? I was checking out this one blog and they were talking about the child benefit thing...
Me: this one... blog? What?
Mum: yes! I check it every day. They had a link to a mumsnet thread - have you heard of mumsnet?
Me: well, yes, I post on it sometimes...
Mum: oh do you? What's your username? I want to look you up.
Me: you want to.. what? Well, I... it's Psammead.
Mum: funny name..
Me: well it's from a book...
Mum: huh. Anyway I'll email you with the link to those vests later. Coming on Skype this weekend?
Me: what?
Mum: yes, you can tell me what LMAO means. I have worked out the rest.
Me: what?
Mum: bye!

So, erm, hi mum if you are reading this. Sorry about the swearing. And don't be offended if I change my ussername soon!

Excellent thread

My IL are quite OK with the technical stuff; actually DH uses FIL's cast off smartphones.

My parents aren't too bad either really - my DM will follow written instructions and has just bought a netbook as my DF has bogged up their desktop by installing anything and everything in sight. DH does a general clear up of it when we visit but my DF just fills it up again with all those stupid IE search bars etc.

DF has been using and programming computers since the Spectrum ZX81 but refuses to actually properly learn how a current desktop works. He scans everything in the default black & white, 96 dpi setting and complains the scanner's crap. And he refuses to accept help because "I've been programming these things since the 80's."

My lovely Aunt OTOH bought her computer so she can play solitaire on it when she can't sleep. Well, not really but after only being able to send emails by post she's accepted her limitations :)

My mum freaked out when I was talking to my DB on Skype. (He's overseas)

I said "Mum do you want to talk to DB"

"Where is he"

"On Skype"

"How did he get into the computer, I thought he was overseas"

LMAO! Psammead!

Yes indeed, Ingles. One may add that just around the time when the elder DCs were just learning how to Find Spot on the class computer at school, I was working as a mainframe programmer. I have to admit I get the boys to do most of the maintenance to my pc these days, but that's more laziness than lack of ability. Anyway it's good for them to feel a bit superior sometimes, I can't be better than them at everything

Mammaries, when my sister was 18 she thought her life would be over by 30. She's now just coming up to 50 and never had it so good. Life gets better as you get older, as you know everything you used to know about how to enjoy yourself and have had time to learn some more. Just get a really good bra and/or a boob job and you can go on pretty much for ever. Or do as I do (since cosmetic surgery scares me) and accept that the orientation of one's nipples is not all that significant in the scheme of things.

Annie, some of the youngsters on this thread may not know what a 'mainframe' is. *

Did you first learn to program using punched cards - I did!

*A computer which occupied a whole room with probably less processing power than many modern appliances. This meant you had to be really clever to get them to do anything useful on a timescale less than geological.

I sympathise.

I don't expect my mum (who is 80) to know everything about using computers. But I do expect her to listen when someone who does know about them is trying to explain to her how to use it, and not to get in a tizzy, say "ohhhhhhh, this thing, why do I have this thing" and say that she doesn't understand "the Blueband" and why can't she have "the Blueband" cut off...

My parents can use Windows pretty well. Mum is 62, so used pcs at work until her retirement 2 yrs ago and Dad is nearly 70. With some of Mum's retirement cash, they decided to get a laptop. Good idea, thought I... until my little brother, who lives abroad, suggested that they get an Apple laptop as they are, according to him, 'much easier to use than Windows'. Well, yes, they are easier, when you are a bloke in his early 30s who's been using them for a decade, mainly for music-making. For some reason, and despite being told by me and every single shop assistant they spoke to that they should stick to Windows, my Dad was insistent that they got an Apple laptop (apparently so as not to offend my brother's suggestion, as he doesn't see them often and I live nearby and always help out).

That bloody thing has been the bane of my life for the last 2 yrs. Apart from it running ridiculously slowly because they let my brother fill it with all sorts of fancy programmes that they will never need and never use (and are scared to delete in case it breaks the laptop - sigh), my Dad rings me at least 3 times a week asking me to either instruct him how to do/solve something on the phone or to come over and help. When I point out that I have never used Macs and have no idea how to help, he gets really angry. Half the time, however, he rings me in a flap because a page has failed to load or a video has frozen; I cannot get him to understand that these things just happen sometimes and that I can't do anything special to help. It's got worse since I introduced him to YouTube.

He also has no idea how to 'read' an internet page - he often rings me in a panic claiming that there is no 'buy now' button on Amazon. AND he seems incapable of learning or understanding the simplest terms - when he rings in a flap, I can't even get him to understand how to 'scroll down' a page or minimise a page: 'Do you see the slider thing on the right hand side of the page?' 'No' 'Look at the very right hand side of the web page' 'Okay...' 'There's a sort of column with a button in it that you can move with the cursor' 'I'm telling you, there's not one! And what's a cursor?'. And so on, until Mum hears him on the phone, shouts at him for bothering me with nonsense, then shows him herself for the 100000000th time that week.

We once had a blazing row because he asked me how to do something and I just didn't understand what he was asking. I even rang DP to get him to speak to him in case I was being dense. After a good 30 mins, I finally realised he wanted to know how to send a photo in an email. At no stage of his explaining had he used the words 'photo', 'picture', 'email' or 'send'.

Do not get me started on how he only turns his mobile on if he needs to make a call because otherwise 'people will be able to ring me'

I wouldn't mind, but he's a life-long member of Mensa and practically a mathematical genius. GAH! I love him dearly, of course.

Mum can use both the Mac and her mobile phone fine and is a more prolific texter and pic-taker than most teens