To think that all over 65s should be given mandatory mobile phone training?

[rhetorician]

My mother is 80, has hurt back, in terrible pain. Has twice called an ambulance because she can't stand the pain. The most recent time, I was due to call her, couldn't get her on landline or mobile (because she was in fact in A+E). I don't live in the UK, am only child, no relatives...so I end up calling the police. Finally find where she is, but then spend the best part of 24 hours finding out what is going on. Finally talk to her and she says "oh, I should have brought the mobile phone, but didn't think of it"....Aaargh...she is able to use it, to text (at 3 in the morning!). All this hassle could have been avoided if she had used the bloody thing...

Not so much now I don't think. My mum's ok with tech and she was a primary teacher. I have worked with a lot of people who would be that kind of age. My great uncle had a mac that he got in his 70s and he was fine with tech too.

It was the blanketing of over 65s that I reacted to really. These are the people who were programming in machine code, who were working when PCs overtook the mainframes, who didn't have calculators at school but totally adapted to new technology. I have plenty of 40+ contemporaries who claim to be IT dunces when there is no excuse.

Sorry will stop in a mo. DH seems to be baffled by our tablet whereas I get it. He's 2 years older than me. It's how your brain works, attitude and not purely age.

And I forgot to wish your mum well!

My DM doesn't need one. If I ever actually get her to use it, she yells that loud down it, I might as well just open my window. . If I ever send her a text, she phones me to tell me 'I got you're text which says you're running late and will be here in 15 min' . I'll sign her up

Don't get me started on the time I put 'This message will self destruct in 5,4,3,2.....

Fortunately DM has a sense of humour before you lot start on me!

My DM can text but is deaf so doesn't answer her mobile. She can't work out how to use the internet though so I regularly get random texts like "who played Douglas Bader in a film?" Because I am apparently google.

If the OAP (Old Aged Parent) is beginning to get a bit deaf, then helping them learn to text and email is really useful.

My parents who are over 65 are fine with mobile phones. My FIL who is over 80, is a totally different kettle of fish. He has a basic one, but it never seems to be charged up.

My dad does have one but it's useless really. He doesn't turn it on because he doesn't want to drain the battery.

FIL is 82. he refuses to have a mobile phone. It's ridiculous.

you could try and persuade him but you'd get an earful of "reasons" why there's no need for him to have one.

MIL on the other hand is 73, has a mobile, a laptop, an iPad and is always catching up with technology.

DH is 49 and he is utterly incapable of answering a Text. He still insists on using an ancient Nokia, not a decent apart phone.

I wouldn't mind, except he can rewrite the Fucking operating system at the heart of a bloody Android phone. We had the study desk covered in the disembodied guts of one doing all sorts of clever things, but send a simple text, no.

My mum thinks that any technology that hasnt been around for at least 20 years cannot be trusted at all, but dad is fine with it. I think it is attitude and fear of the unknown.

We were the very last people we knew to get a video, because mum didnt want one on the basis that "it might record unsuitable things" off its own bat. She didnt want a CD player with their new stereo, never did find out why. She is now just about OK with DVD players but doesnt like Blu Ray and refuses point blank to get a digital recorder despite complaining about how much it costs her in DVDs to record anything!

Dad is deaf and has a text phone, it had been in over a year when the extension it was plugged into failed. She had never trusted it so of course it was the text phone that made the line fail. It wasnt, it was the fact that the extension box had been moved so bleeding often (on her decorating whims) that made it fail! She still wont have it despite the BT engineer telling her as much.

If the boiler dies the same week that dad has a new laptop then it is the laptops fault. If the lawn mower breaks down within a month of them having freesat installed then it is freesats fault.

She is a genuine technophobe, she cried many nights over the IT training she had to have in her job, not because she didnt get it because she did, but because she didnt like it. She is the control freaks control freak, so anything she cant control with shouting and will power scares her.

DM has a phone and always carries it fully charged etc. However as soon as she's made a call she switches the thing off again ( to save battery) leading to a great deal of teeth gnashing if you have missed the first call ( handbag scrabbling) and are trying to meet up in a crowded place. Recently in a big shopping mall I reverted to childhood and stood very still in one place till she came and found me - who needs technology?

And this one!

you are one naughty chicken!

Sorry corus I am being very childish about something Zing posted on another thread!

Kate

I hope you were reasonably flummoxed!