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???

I am old enough to have been sent on a compulsory work course, along with all middle managers, on how to use email. I could use it anyway, but I think they made it compulsory, as those who were most resistant to using computers, were least likely to attend.

I have a friend who is now retired who attended a very basic computer course as she did not know how to use a computer at all. She had worked in a factory all her life and had never needed to use one at work.

It really is only the last 20 years in a lot of jobs, that people have had to use computers. My DP has only had to use one at his job for about 10 years when they switched from paper notes to computer notes. I know he was very stressed at the beginning about learning how to do this.

My parents can write an email to me and my brother. They can use Skype ( they are in uk, we are in Australia, my brother in Canada) We spent 6 months before we left making sure they could do both.
Mobile phones are however not part of their life’s . They keep saying they will get one , so they can text for prescriptions, confirmation of doctors come via text. They don’t get reminders!! ( mind you my dads in every day at the moment for chemo!)
My parents have Facebook, they never post but like updates from family. I’m not their friend on Facebook as I didn’t tag them in every post I do. It drove me mad! I don’t need to tag them. They don’t get it!!!
They have been saying for the last 10 years that they will learn to email pictures. I’m still waiting and it’s now abit of a joke😂 I tell them we will visit if they learn how to do this ( we’ve been back once in 10 years)

Also remember things like a decent smartphone are not cheap. If you are on a state pension, no wonder people not used to using one would prioritise other expenditure.

They could probably learn but what's the point if you don't use things regularly and then you forget it again?
I'm in my 50's but I know that there is only point in bothering to learn something if I'm going to be doing it regularly.

Same as my car maintenance course in my 20's. When I'd finished it I could change a fan belt etc but because I never needed to do it, I soon forgot.

Call me old-fashioned, but I have a certain sympathy for the "technically useless" older generation here: technology as they knew it used to be easier, simpler, made to last, more constant, not frequently "updating" and evolving the moment you looked away, and not constantly trying to squeeze more money out of you. (Maybe it did in yesteryear, but in subtler ways.)

I'm 39, and I am very resistant to new technology, although I do embrace it eventually (usually just as the next thing comes along, so the older forgotten stuff is cheaper). I never buy into anything brand new: that's when it costs most; I always let them "bed in" before I spend money on them. Some techy fads don't really get off the ground: why are so few people wearing Google glasses? More fool those who spent money on them. I intend to keep my ancient iPhone going as long as I can, cracked screen and all.

I also quite enjoy the challenge of using an actual paper map to plan things, as I remember doing as a teenager, although I will admit to using Google Maps too (to validate what I planned on paper).

My grandparents were all 70+ when I was born, and used to the old ways, so I suppose I inherited their thinking; most of their ways were very old-fashioned then. None of them used a cassette player when I was a child - records or radio only, or possibly tape recorders with the big reels. When I was 11 or 12 I was teaching them to use video recorders, and typing instructions for them, because they were needlessly complicated, covered in tiny buttons you'd never use, and the manual would be no use if you didn't understand the "idea" of recording stuff to watch later.

As for modern computers, I find them really despicable: the way they keep "updating" when your back is turned, they way they run so inefficiently because of their fancy graphics. I remember what they were like in the late 80's, when they had to run efficiently (albeit slowly), because speed, memory and disc space was limited: but they were very functional, no room for gimmicks.

Also, the town where I live is known locally as "God's waiting room": full of people of a certain age. Cheque books are used widely here.

And this, right here, is why all the people who proudly post that they are technophobes, are storing themselves up some major future problems.

Exactly. I remember my mum pulling her hair out with my grandma because her new radio was ‘too complicated’. Mum deliberately got a simple one with two knobs - volume and tuning. She never moved from Radio 4 anyway. But she’d still ring up mum complaining the radio didn’t work.

Technology has always moved on over the decades, and you have to make an effort to keep up or society will leave you behind. Mum herself is now elderly and complains so much is done online and she’s never got to grips with computers. She was perfectly intelligent and capable 10 years ago (she learnt Bridge!), but just decided that it wasn’t for her and now she lives with that consequence.

funnelfanjo Well more fool companies then. Older people are a large market. If they made technology to appeal to this market and made it easy to use, they would sell more stuff.
So voice recognition that works for people whose speech may not be clear, large buttons, easier to use and far less cluttered interfaces, fewer functions and just focusing on the most popular ones.

If I'm picking someone up from the airport I check the flight times and estimate time through security. Never relied on a phone call or text.
The old fashioned way is fine.

Not so fine now that most airports have introduced massive fees for drop and run or pickup zones.

You're wrong OP. DD insists * I * am the most technically incompetent parent in the world. She's a teenager, so she knows everything and is always right, natch? Funny part is my 76yo dad agrees with her (!)

I know my problem is that I know I'll learn something, barely use it, and 3 yrs later it will be replaced by different interface or OS I have to learn all over again. I cannot be bothered to put effort into something with such short-term benefits. I do lots of tech things in my work, but I am selective about what I put brain power to.

I can't figure out how to make a phone useful. Am I supposed to check it every half hour IN CASE there is an important msg on there? Other people's phones seem to non-stop buzz, chirp & vibrate with incoming messages. Most of the chirps/buzzing gets ignored. How do they know which ones they can safely ignore?? How do those people get anything else done?!

My DGF who died in 1994 set himself up with his own pc that had homemade switches on the side so he could go from using the printer to his fax with unplugging and replugging them into his hard drive when he was in his late 70s. His passion was genealogy and he wanted to get online so he could access the Mormon church database and communicate with other genealogy nerds.
My DGM on the other hand, who lived another 10 years, never used a computer in her life. she visited the bank every week for cash, she wrote cheques at the grocery store and she did any postal orders using a paper order form. The only thing she did master were using a credit card at clothes shops and the TV remote. This was because she loved shopping and watching telly.
At that age I reckon people have earned the right to do the things they love and to hell with the rest of it.
My DM asked each subsequent grandchild to explain Facebook it to her as they got into their teenage and each time she then promptly forgot. The GCs now refuse to do any tech tutoring for her as it's too frustrating. She lives happily unaware of crackbook.

I sympathise, OP - my DM is just like this (although DF worked in the tech industry and loves his gadgets).

But... it's all very easy to say that you are willing to learn. Just because people in their 40s and 50s have enthusiastically embraced computers and smartphones, that doesn't necessarily mean you will continue embracing all new advances in your 60s or 70s. There might turn out to be things in the future that your dc think are invaluable no-brainers, but to which you will find you have (to you perfectly reasonable) objections, just like your parents do to mobile phones.

My MIL is early 70s but is improving. :)

She used to switch her mobile phone off after she'd used it to save the battery as, in her head, it was only for when she wanted to call anyone that she'd need it. It lives in a drawer when she's at home.

She always shunned technology and refused to have a computer/tablet/internet installation. Until her 50yo son moved back home after splitting with his wife and had it installed for her.

DM (80) is like OP's parents and it is frustrating when someone has actively chosen to detach away from the way society is developing. It's funny how by MN standards DM's Daily Mail attitude to race is not down to age and failing to keep pace with society, but bless her, it's unreasonable for her to adjust to technology.

The irony is she had a mobile phone in the mid-90s. She forced an Ericson brick on me in 1998 (she was aged 60) so she could keep tabs on me, but has remained there. I don't even have her mobile number. There is no point as it is never switched on. No point in sending an SMS for anything less urgent than a month when she can get a friend to open it.

She has conciously chosen to detach from technology. She had me and DB around that could have got her started, there were computers in the house from 1985! Her friends are competent and can handle family Whatsapp etc. Meanwhile DM moans that she can't do this or didn't find out about that when it's down to her choices.

It costs her on things like car insurance as she loyally gets ripped off by the same company for years. When she had a price hike at 70, I did a price comparison to set her in the right league, and it saved £££.

MiL is 87, has had less exposure to technology but has realised that it is more than a passing fad to feel smug about and has learned a functional level of using a tablet, email and messaging which makes a massive social difference.

Fooferella I think you have hit the nail on the head. Most people will learn if it is something that will benefit them. So I too have known older people learn how to use computers so they can research family trees. But if there is no real benefit, no a lot of people won't bother.

And I too would love to see if those who are bemoaning older people they know, will be the same themselves in their 70s and 80s. Technology will undoubtedly have moved on lots. Will you be the one still ordering on the internet and getting home delivered parcels, rather than figuring out how to use a drone so it can deliver your goods to your home?

*My Mother took a picture of herself sitting on the toilet (accidentally) and posted it to Facebook advertising site & tagged me in the process.

I really did lol at that.*

Me too

As for the computers in classrooms thing - my Mum probably stopped as a full time class teacher in about 1990. There were two or three computers per school, which were wheeled around on trolleys. It was used to play pre-loaded games from discs. No internet. She also always taught the Infant stage - 5 and 6 year olds.

She had a whiteboard in her classroom - but one of the sorts you wrote on with felt-tip pens, not the interactive smart boards in schools now. All classroom admin like register and reports were handwritten. After she stopped as a full time class teacher she did supply in various schools - usually in the nursery where they needed a registered teacher in addition to the nursery workers. So she was finger painting and reading stories.

I have a friend who is now retired who attended a very basic computer course as she did not know how to use a computer at all

But that shows that your friend is interested and willing. My brother once bought one of those "computers for dummies" type books for the parents. Never opened. Their local library runs drop in "internet for the terrified" sessions, Mum was telling me that the librarian was telling her about it when she took her books out. Not interested. The internet is all pornography and russian hackers anyway.

If I'm picking someone up from the airport I check the flight times and estimate time through security. Never relied on a phone call or text. The old fashioned way is fine.

It's really not unless you are prepared to shell out upwards of £30 on parking. The airport here has a 10 minute pick up zone. Stay longer, and it's something like £1 a minute. Nowhere to park up and wait. The old pick up / drop off zone has been blocked off with barriers. So the sensible option is to park in the Ikea car park 5 minutes away and get whoever you're picking up to call you.

I agree with Lottie earlier, and I think there is a debate to be had around how much tech is necessary.

I'm 53, and grew up with black and white TV, maps for navigation, and phone boxes. At school, computing was for boys, and it wasn't until sixth form in the language lab, that I saw a Sinclair ZX spectrum.

We had an Amstrad wordprocessor from about 1987, and dh had various handheld things after that when it died. I used a computer with proprietary software at work, but didn't have a PC at home til about the millennium, and I don't think I had a mobile til the mid 90s.

Having grown up without tech, I suppose I see it as a nice to have, but not essential to my existence. I think I'd miss the microwave and the Kindle most, and of the two, the microwave, as I have loads of books anyway.

I don't have, want, or need a smartphone and I always have maps in the car as the satnav has been known to die, and an AA road atlas of the UK is as cheap as chips anyway. I use the tech I want to use and that enhances my life...if it doesn't, why bother?

My dgm died in 2006 at 93. She had a radio, but never had a TV, never learned to drive, and avoided having a bank account. She only got a phone in the late 80s, as my parents insisted, and they paid for it. She didn't feel the lack of anything.

My late 70s mum had to use a computer at work from 1993 onwards. Retired for ages, she says she can't think until she has switched her laptop on in the morning (I share this).

Despite this, she has never learnt to text and only an extended stay at my aunt's during a house move got her to start taking the mobile out of the house with her. I don't think she's ever answered it, though.

When my sister's kids started using WhatsApp, she learnt that, a little bit, so as not to feel left out. And if she was being collected from the airport - late at night! - she would be ashamed to put you to additional trouble by not calling you. And she would apologise for scaring you late at night with an acccidental call. So on that front I don't think you're BU at all.

Loving the post earlier about how some don't understand the scope of change they've been through in terms of technology.

Well, I also started teaching when there was no tech to speak of (pre 2000) apart from the odd BBC computer or Acorn 3000. There were no windows computers in school, no internet and not even a photocopier in my first school.

I've seen the same march of progress, yet I've been ICT subject lead and am admin for the google system we use at school now.

I think the difference is, I know I need to get to grips with it as I've got many years left having to use it all, and I can see how it benefits me. Some of my colleagues are younger than 50 but still are resistant to the constant change of things. And those approaching retirement are trying, but realistically weigh up whether it's worth their time to get to grips with new tech and software if it won't benefit them in the long run.

I am very resistant to new technology, although I do embrace it eventually

This is so true of me too - my computer scientist DD says witheringly, "You're always at least 2 technologies behind, mother"

And those approaching retirement are trying, but realistically weigh up whether it's worth their time to get to grips with new tech and software if it won't benefit them in the long run.

Prediction: in 10 years' time, it will for practical purposes be impossible to travel other than by booking online and using a smart phone to carry the tickets.

Prediction: in 15 years' time, it will for practical purposes be impossible to pay any utility bill, or make any mail-order purchase, other than online.

Prediction: in 20 years' time, there will for practical purposes be no bank branches.

Quite what sort of retirement are they contemplating?

DrMaxwell No I think you do not understand. There are always those who embrace new technology whatever their age. But they are a relatively small percentage of the population. Similarly there is a relatively small percentage of the population who will resist any changes at all.
Most people are in the middle. They will embrace new technology if they can see the benefits to them, but ignore it if they can't. They will not embrace new technology just because it exists, or if they only would benefit from its use a few times a year.