To be irritated by this technophobia?

[AnachronisticCorpse]

Sparked by a conversation with DH’s brother and his wife.

They still have the same contents insurance as when they bought their house 20 odd years ago, costing £800 a year, they won’t change it because it’s too much faff to go and see a broker. Ditto car insurance. I dread to think about their mortgage, I haven’t asked. I suggested changing it online and was met with a laundry list of excuses (what about the piano (?), I don’t trust online, our computer isn’t working etc etc).

Their house is either roasting or freezing because apparently their thermostat needs a specialist to adjust it, they can’t do it themselves.

They only use BIL’s work email address so often miss updates or invitations from school or friends.

Bizarrely, BIL has a Fitbit but no way of syncing it other than his pc that currently doesn’t work, so the clock on it is wrong and I’m not really sure what else he gets out of it other than it being an expensive pedometer.

They won’t shop online (in case of fraud) so ask us to order stuff for them (it obviously doesn’t matter if OUR card details get nicked...) and they won’t use credit cards, only debit cards or cash, again because apparently credit cards get cloned all the time.

I wouldn’t mind but they moan about things all the time. Their house is falling apart but they ‘can’t afford’ to fix it, SIL has to get her parents to take her food shopping as they only have one car and she won’t shop online, they complain about how high their bills are but won’t do anything about it because of ‘reasons’.

It drives me absolutely crackers. BIL earns £££ and SIL is a SAHM (same situation as us), so she actually has all the time in the world to sort all this stuff out and just won’t because, I don’t know really, some anxiety about using the internet and just sorting shit out. They are the same age as us btw, and have a child in yr 6, and I think they are really going to struggle with secondary school if they don’t get aboard the online train.

AIBU to find the whole thing really odd?

Reminds me a Finance Director I used to know who still paid for everything personal by cheque. That was about 5 years ago, not sure how he copes now!!!

My friend is early 60s, retired recently from senior civil service audit job, keeps his mobile permanently switched off unless he wants to make a call or use the internet "to save the battery". He switches the WiFi off everything he goes out.

Another vote to stop doing stuff for them. Let them moan. Eventually they'll get it...

I back up the 'stop doing stuff'

I would be polite and say they have to learn to do it sooner or later and if you keep doing it they wont. Its time to cut the apron strings OP.

I know someone who pays her mortgage by going to the bank every month with a paying in book!

I have pulled right back with ordering stuff tbh. I think SIL gets her neighbour to do it now.

The insurance thing really ground my gears though, it came up in conversation because I’ve just done some switching and changing and saved nearly £200 a MONTH, and then they came up with all these excuses why that wouldn’t work for them. Like, they can’t change energy suppliers because of their specialist thermostat (bullshit) and they can’t change their contents insurance because of the piano (wtf?). And then later in the same conversation bemoaning the fact they can’t afford to fix the leaking conservatory.

Not my circus, not my monkeys. I’m going to start changing the subject.

Sil like this. Sahm and has lots of free time. Does not shop online.... or so I discovered a few years ago. She asked me what dd wanted for Christmas so I gave a list (without links) of the item or an approximation of an item and which shop she could buy it from, either online or go to the shop. She had a choice of about 8 things. Easy you’d think. She’s mid 40’s.

A few weeks later and just before Christmas, a message came back saying anything as long as it came from Amazon. Great. The only item I could find in price range was a bloody doll that I’d already bought for dd. From Argos. So my brother bought it as she doesn’t even have an amazon account, sent it unwrapped with a small message. The doll cost £25 from Amazon but I’d picked mine up for £15 from Argos. He wasn’t interested in my wrapping the doll up from them yet sent one in exactly the same state in a big cardboard box that we now had to dispose of the rubbish. I also ended up having to take the fucking doll back to the shop in Christmas frenzy queues. I have ME/CFS pretty severely so it was a challenge .

My mum can be a bit like this. It is annoying when she’s fretting about getting to the shops over Christmas when she could easily order whatever she needs online.

I mainly keep my mobile switched off as I find being permanently available distracting and intrusive.

There are very regular stories about how easy it is for sophisticated scams to take place via online banking - and banks do not have a good record for compensating customers.

I have got some sympathy as well for those who use travel agents. They are after all experts in what they are doing - and it tends to become expensive if you press the wrong button so your flight is on the wrong date or your passport details are incorrect.

On the other hand online price comparison sites and swapping around for better deals - though very tedious - does save a lot of money.

Ethically too, while I like the fact that online shopping means not having to schlepp around crowded shopping centres, Amazon are hardly good employers and are expert at tax avoidance. So ethically it is often better to go to actual shops, especially if they are local independent businesses.

So I'm in the middle on this one.

My parents have a dishwasher that's been malfunctioning for years - leaves greasy film like when you don't change the dishwater enough, powder residue in cups sometimes. They have the money for a brand new one but it's too much hassle.

Weirdly enough though, my mum gets herself a new iphone every time they come out, even though she doesn't use her old one to its full potential. She thinks I'm weird because I used my last phone right up until the screen started to fail and the camera wouldn't work.

They're paying extra money so that they don't need to learn technology which is difficult for them, and that's their right.

I know we're talking here about people in their 40s, but for older people it can be difficult - you start realising short term memory isn't always going to be what it was, and relying on accurate typing of bank account nos doesn't feel as secure as writing a cheque, you're not going to want on-line banking if you have difficulty remembering passwords or even something simple like arthritic fingers making accurate typing slow/impossible.And the idea of carrying £400 worth of smart phone around with you when there's only a 50-50 chance of getting home with the umbrella you went out with ...

My mother's always been like this - we were the last family I know to get a normal washing machine: for years she faffed around with a contraption that was essentially just a drum on wheels and a hose you used from the taps to fill it with water; you had to empty it manually. Even now she approaches even quite basic new technology as if she'll get an electric shop from touching the controls. My father on the other hand is quite tech savvy and definitely into using IT; my mother of course won't touch it. It's really a shame as she's just the sort of person who would love accessing discussion forums, online newspapers and things like FB if only she would accept that the computer won't bite her.

I'm a slight technophobe - I don't have any smart technology, just an old mobile which I don't use. I book holidays from travel agents because I'm scared I'll make a mistake if I book it online myself (highly likely). I don't like new gadgets - when my camera broke I bought the same old-fashioned camera I had before because I couldn't be bothered to read a new instruction book. I never order food online, I prefer to go to the shops. I think technology can be a trap and I preferred life before technology took a hold of everyone. I think there may come a time when electricity is in very short supply and some people will be completely lost without it. I'm mid 40s.

I'm a bit like this but not as bad.
I need to be shown how to do things online you can't just leave me to it but I find so many people don't want to teach me so I do worry about what I'm doing.

Same with the car I hate driving but that's coz I don't trust insurance

You know, I can believe that having a smart thermostat might have tied them into a particular energy deal that would be difficult to switch from. I could also see that a piano might make switching insurance less effective, if it's worth more than the usual single item allowances on most household insurances.

But there are solutions to all of those things, so to me they sound like they don't like change and are very risk averse not necessarily technophobic.

I know a few people like this in their 60's and older. And when I was a student I knew someone who refused to get a bank card and instead went to the bank every week to get cash out.

Where I live has a larger older population and although it is not a large place we have two travel agents on our high street, so there are still plenty of people around who are the same.

If people are anxious, then adopting to new technology is tough.

It’s not a smart thermostat, it’s just ‘complicated’ apparently. And our piano is worth twice theirs and I’ve never had a problem insuring it.

But yes, they are risk and change averse and I think that’s the crux of it.

Mind you, they think we’re bonkers for having Alexa and Hive and at least eight ways of accessing the internet at home.

I think actually it’s not the technophobia itself that annoys me, it’s the fact that they are both moaners by nature and have millions of bullshit excuses why the simple suggestions won’t work for them. And I’m a bit of a fixer so I always get sucked in.

My parents are in their eighties now and with declining mobility and health. They are very like this, and worse.

They could benefit so much from things like online shopping, home delivery and online banking but they won't even touch a computer with a barge pole, let alone consider WiFi. They would absolutely go back to pen and paper for everything if they could.

Oddly enough, they say they do understand how I have benefitted from online services when ill or injured, can sort of see how it could help them too but they are stubborn about it and have this aversion to computers and technology in any form.

I find it sad and frustrating, but I can do nothing about it.

Some people just like to moan and not take action, it's their personality. If everything was sorted to your satisfaction they would find other things to moan about. So step back, don't try and solve things for them and let their moaning wash over you.

Yes, stop doing any online ordering or anything else for them. They sound as though they have the means to do it, but just won't. Make them have to.

Honestly, stop worrying about them and just take the smile and nod approach. MIL is exactly like this. Her local bank closed down and she now has to take two buses if she wants to do any banking as she won’t just do it online. We bought her a nice simple tablet and she hated it. Wouldn’t entertain signing up for Facebook even though she misses out on a lot because her friends all organise things on there. It drives me barmy. So I literally don’t even suggest it as an option anymore and I just nod as she moans that she missed some church event or another.

I’d be more worried in a few years when their teenager gets a smartphone and has two clueless parents who don’t know how the internet works!

@BossyBitch My mum, who's only 59 and has two Masters degrees, is the same. She will actually travel quite a way in order to get herself to one of the few remaining actual travel agents in order to book a simple return flight from London to some other European city - given London traffic, this arguably takes her longer than the flight itself.

My mum is the same. Her last holiday was all booked in a travel agent, and she got charged a premium for booking flights on sodding easyjet! And even then she had to go back and point out the agent had forgotten to include luggage or transfers, which cost even more.

(I get some people are happy to travel for a year with just a handbag for luggage, but an experienced travel agent should at least dp the one job they are there for and double check if not to cream a bit more profit off them for old rope )

Actually using a travel agent isn't so terrible. I was trying to book a holiday to Cyprus and found that I was getting more and more confused by the multitude of options.

I went to a local long established travel agent www.abbottstravel.com/

They recommended a good small hotel and to change the flight to one day later to save money. They also arranged the airport to hotel transfers. It was a great trip! I wouldn't have picked that hotel myself. Not having used a travel agent for many years, I would now do so.