to think my parents are the most technically-useless out there?

[SileneOliveira]

My parents are mid-70s. Both had professional careers where they didn't have to use computers before they retired 15 or so years ago. (Primary teaching and dentistry). They are totally and utterly incompetent with anything technological.

I had a phone call at 11.59pm last night from Dad's mobile. (An old Motorola brick). Nobody spoke when I answered. So the obvious conclusion is that something is terribly wrong. Called back on the landline, a very grumpy Mum answered. She had no idea what was going on and why had I got her out of her bed? Fuck me, if you can't even "drive" a basic Motorola flip phone you've got problems and why are you tawtting about with it at midnight anyway?

They also think I'm being incredibly unreasonable in asking them to take their mobile when I collect them from the airport. As the airport has no free drop-off zone I've asked them to call me when they're physically walking out of hte airport so I can scoot into the 10 minutes for £2 zone and get them. This is apparently unreasonable as I can phone the airport and find out when the plane landed and make a guess as to how long it will take them to clear passport control and get their luggage. (If it wasn't a late night flight I'd be telling them to get the bus).

I have never sent or received a text from my parents. The would think Siri was a new Lebanese restaurant.

When I read about people's parents facetiming them, or a family WhatsApp group my face is like this . It's so very alien to me.

Anyome else got parents like this???

Your parents are more advanced than mine and they're a bit older!
They own one mobile phone that they can't use AT ALL. My DM doesn't really understand the difference between a fax and a text message. DF is on Facebook, but insists that he never joined. When I said it would be fraud for someone to pretend to be him and sign up for FB (probably not true, but...) he admitted it must have been him, but he doesn't remember doing it.
I found him trying to change the channel on the TV with the car keys a few months ago, but I think that is unfortunately the beginning of something much more serious than tech phobia.

My parents are not even in their 70s and refuse to have a mobile organising airport pick ups is a 2 person mission so I feel your pain. I have called somebody in the middle of the night though

I once told my mum I was going to sign her up to be a product tester for an electronics company as she managed to break or drastically misuse almost every piece of technology she came near.
It was a mental block thing for her - in her mind, technonlogy = very hard not for ladies, so she'd just assume she'd do it wrong and lo and behold she'd do it wrong.
This includes putting her PIN into a handheld payment terminal at a restaurant when it was asking if she wanted to leave a tip. The server was very good and thanked her for her generosity, but perhaps she'd like to restart the transaction.
We don't have a kettle any more, we use a smart water heater thing. It's very easy but my mum has managed to make it come up with an error code multiple times and I can't work out how.

Having said that, she has been dragged kicking and complaining into the 21st century and does have a smart phone. It took us months to persuade her she did need to take it with her when she went out and she could do more on it than just make calls. Now she considers herself thoroughly modern because she uses WhatsApp and has been able to send some GIFs.
When she hasn't accidently set the phone to aeroplane mode of course.

I realise this post makes me sound like a whingy good for nothing. Actually my mum and I have a lot of laughs about how she is with technology. My dad just sighs and rolls his eyes - he's a retired systems analyst.

What worries me far more than otherwise competent people choosing not to add layers of technology onto their already comfortable lives, is people growing up totally dependent on electrical technology and failing to develop basic life skills, like map-reading and navigation.

My DM is early 80s and vaguely manages a smartphone and PC. However, having been able to happily do something for ages she will suddenly forget it, and she is constantly on the phone to me to tell her how to do stuff. Which is difficult as she doesn't know any of the vaguely technical terms. I have lost count of the number of times we have explained her phone's voicemail. I have to set her heating controls for her on my laptop so she has to ring if she wants the timer altered. She regularly can't open attachments on her emails and as for attaching her own...... Endless nonsense texts because she couldn't work out how to delete mistakes! I think it might be easier without the tech!

My mum used to be a retaiil supervisor she could work tills set codes do big orders online etc etc but can't work a mobile!

I agree to some extent with letting them be without tech if they don't want it, but refusal to use a mobile phone is annoying. When DF visited I had to stay in ALL day because he had no way of contacting me to tell me when he was close by.

Mine are your parents' ages and even had similar professions. About 20 years ago they actually took themselves on a computing course. They've needed a lot of help from me since, but they're competent at basic word processing (and some things like mail merge that boggles my mind!), internet and emails... well, until they need to add an attachment or something goes wrong, like they've accidentally leant on a shortcut and their screen is sideways 😂

Dad cannot get his head around wireless internet and the wireless printer can possibly work. He uses both just fine, it's just that he still asks about how they work once every few months, and I think he's fairly convinced they are communicating data via their power cables.

They won't have truck with smartphones, but can send a text or make a phone call - dad is better than mum, who I think uses her physical address book to find a number and keys it in to ring.

The most frustrating thing is that they don't keep their phones switched on. They treat then as if they're good for outgoing messages only, so sending them a text message is pointless, I have to ring the landline. Likewise I'll get a Facebook or text from family friends or relatives one a month or so, enquiring if a parent got their text, and I'll have to tell them to switch on their phones to receive it 😁 I've become a kind of human answering machine service for them 😂

I am always outwardly patient with them about technology, even when I'm not feeling very patient internally and grinding my teeth 😳 I've once ever raised my voice slightly at my dad and physically moved his hands, as he wanted help with his crashing computer and I was telling him to just wait and let it catch up with all the commands, and he would wait about 5-10 seconds then press a key. I told him don't touch anything and wait. He pressed a different key. This repeated about 6-7 times until I raised my voice and physically removed his hands from they keyboard. after a minute or so the computer was fine.

Parents. It's so often like raising children 😂 But as others have said, they taught me how to use a spoon. it was hopefully a lot easier than operating windows 10

You have to remember that some people on here have parents in their 40s, 50s or 60s who are not retired yet. Many have worked in tech or with tech. My parents have to use smart phones for work. So Skyping or whatsapping is second nature to them. My parents had friends who were having their children whilst they were busy having their grandchildren, so I think that makes a big difference.

Worried sick when the mother stopped answering the telephone. Drove for an hour to find her happy as a clam in front of bargain hunt. She'd been trying to answer the new TV remote

My Mum isn’t quite that bad but she definitely pretends to not understand stuff and asks me to do it and it drives me mad.

E.g can you help me I couldn’t possibly order Tesco online I wouldn’t know how? Yes you would you did Tesco online when it first came out 15 years ago..

Can you sort out my car insurance? I don’t understand compare the market and how it works. Yes you do you just want me to do it for you.

What drives me the most mad is that my brother lives with her, he’s 21 and she always saves this stuff up for me.

I get on and do it for her but it really irritates me that she pretends not to know when actually it’s just she doesn’t want too.

My dad does have an old nokia my sister bought him years ago its a PAYG once the credit ran out he wouldn't get a top up said it was a waste of money

had a phone call at 11.59pm last night from Dad's mobile. (An old Motorola brick)

In that case he's actually a technical genius!
The old Motorola brick phones were analogue phones and don't work on the current networks.

Ha ha when I read the OP I thought, wow your parents have mobiles?!

They have A mobile, not one each. As previous posters have said it's never switched on and they never take it when they leave the house which is why I was so alarmed by the midnight phonecall.

Have just had mum on the landline apologising again and saying that dad has been "suitably admonished".

at least once a week my FIL 'rings' me from his mobile at around 2 - 3am... i actually think he sleeps with it in his PJ pocket as it's always a miss dial.

My dad however has a macbook and i phone and my mum an i pad and i phone oh and MIL has a kindle fire.

FIL is in 80s and rest in 70s though.

My grandparents are a bit like this, I always remember they took me and my sibling on a long journey to visit family, my DM didn’t hear anything from any of us (me and DS too young to have our own phones) for hours, she was ringing local hospitals, checking for accidents as there phone was off. We were completely fine having dinner at the hotel. Turns out they’d turned both thier phones off when fully charged & left them in the boot of the car, turned off ‘in case we turned them on and they ran out of battery’ !! They have improved somewhat now, however they do keep thier phones charging for hours and hours on end because they think the minute they aren’t plugged in they have about 5 mins use before they’ll run out of battery.

as an add on to the above, FIL will then follow up with a call next day to apologise!

I found him trying to change the channel on the TV with the car keys a few months ago

To be fair I have been known to blip the car with the keys to lock it and then point the car keys at the front door and expect it to unlock. And I'm only in my 40s.

My grandmother is in her late 80s and is completely baffled by her Sony Ericsson phone she's had for years. Computer is also a mystery to her. Which is funny since her late husband, my grandad, was amazing at computers and would write his own programmes. They were lightyears apart when it came to technology.

But yeah, it's exhausting trying to explain stuff to her.

The would think Siri was a new Lebanese restaurant.

Actually, all joking aside, I have the same problem! Only my mum insists that she's fecking Steve Jobs incarnate but her dorment talents as an IT wizard have been flimflammed by the fact that she doesn't have 'internet'. She doesn't have internet. It's true. She doesn't have internet because she can hardly use her landline to ring up (whatever the American equivalent of BT is) and get broadband. She woulnd't have a clue as to how to call and ask for broadband. I don't believe she's ever uttered the word 'broadband'.

The last time my mum used a computer was when she had a dial-up modem and Clippy was still alive.

And I can't spell. DormANT. Sorry.

What worries me far more than otherwise competent people choosing not to add layers of technology onto their already comfortable lives, is people growing up totally dependent on electrical technology and failing to develop basic life skills, like map-reading and navigation
I agree entirely. Recently I was driving to a meeting with a much younger colleague who was simply amazed that I can drive without SatNav "But how do you know where to go?" Er, because I do this journey regularly and I know the route. Yes, I know SatNav is useful to tell you about accidents, delays etc but I can drive without it. She said she would not be able to drive without SatNav, even on routes she used daily. That was an eye opener for me!

There also seems to be high levels of anxiety over nothing. Not sure I would have responded in that way to a missed call from parents at midnight

Arrrgh! And wouldn't not woulnd't.
Clearly my heartrate went up with the stress of thinking about mum and her mental quagmire when it comes to IT/mobile/anything techy.

Grandmother also won't use an ATM. She insists on cash back at the supermarkets, and is becoming increasingly frustrated that so many places don't do it anymore.