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???

@53rdWay

they are convinced that there is an exact step of clicks and menus to take to fix 'broken internet' and I know exactly what it is and won't explain haha

Keep it secret.

Worst for this though was someone I worked with about 10 years ago, who was in her 20s and refused to do anything 'with technology'. She got the (extremely overworked already) office admin staff to do anything computer-related for her. We were all hmm but work just shrugged it off because she was only there for a year anyway

Maybe she was taught by the OP's mother?

@clairemcnam I’m not sure you can get a simpler radio than one with two knobs on. But my point wasn’t about the tech as such, it’s about folk who actively decide not to try and keep up with tech advances and then get left behind by society. Simple things like sorting insurance for an elderly person is so confusing if you’re not online. 45 years ago my mum won a long fought battle with my grandma to get a landline installed because she didn’t see the point as she lived in a small community and saw her friends every day. Stuff like that, everyone needs to keep an open mind and learn what you can, even if the latest tech is too expensive, you need to know how it works.

DH is doing it himself with his refusal to use a smart phone - I’ve told him that he’ll be unable to keep in touch with future grandchildren as email is already becoming passé. He’s only in his 40s.

Until recently I worked with the elderly and there is beginning to be a massive divide between those who have embraced the online world and those who are refusing to use it. Online shopping, online prescriptions and appointments, more secure banking, staying in touch with family and friends make a massive difference to quality of life.

DPIL are avid skypers with their equally ancient siblings (all 80+) but were lured in because one of their kids told them it was FREE! DUncleIL keeps his ancient laptop, mouse and mouse mat in their original packaging and spends about half an hour getting it out and set up for a strict-3-minute call then another half hour wiping it clean and putting it all away again. Love em.

DH has what we laughingly call ‘parental control’ for his dad’s PC - he can log in remotely to fix whatever DFIL thinks is broken this time (Google is broken, Microsoft is broken, etc etc)

I don't think it's an age thing.
DH is 69 and retired from a career in tech. He was at the forefront of computer development all his working life. Admittedly he's better at sorting out a computer's insides than using android.

My mother is 85. In her sixties she went on adult education courses in computing. She manages an iPad, does Skype and online banking, albeit with help from me.

people growing up totally dependent on electrical technology and failing to develop basic life skills, like map-reading and navigation
Somebody upthread said this.
Once I was driving with DS and the sat back broke. This was before phones could be used to navigate. He had a lesson in map reading and was thrilled to direct us correctly

The travel companies will be missing out on a lucrative market then. I will only buy a smartphone,when there is literally no alternative, and I can't just buy a mini brick.

No, they won't. Providing and processing paper tickets is an expensive pain in the arse for travel companies. The minute proportion of society who think that using 1990s phones make them hip could never outweigh that. Amazon are "missing out" on customers who won't shop online: I'm sure Jeff Bezos loses sleep over that.

Until recently I worked with the elderly and there is beginning to be a massive divide between those who have embraced the online world and those who are refusing to use it. Online shopping, online prescriptions and appointments, more secure banking, staying in touch with family and friends make a massive difference to quality of life.

Exactly. Refusal is a choice. I have endless sympathy for, and am doing research in how to deal with, people who for reasons of cost, handicap or other force majeure cannot use modern technology. The refuseniks I couldn't give a shit about: if they think it's clever and posh to refuse to use (say) the Internet, out of choice, then the problems that causes them are theirs to fix.

Your parents grew up when there were two television channels, neither of which broadcast all day, and were in black and white. There was no way of seeing a television programme apart from watching it at the time it was broadcast. making a telephone call involved picking up the receiver, dialling for the operator and asking for the number you wanted.

I remember all that and we had one of the first ginormous video recorders, about 4 by 5 foot. I remember the excitement when Channel 4 started. My parents were born in 1920 and my dad loved his computer. When he was in his 80s, presents came either from the village or the Internet. I learned to type on electric typewriters; word processing was one hour a week on a machine that had an entire desk pedestal as the workings. I remember using military teletypes when you had to be plugged in like a giant antique telephone exchange. Now I work glued to multiple computer screens, analysing data from enormous databases. I still have a period authentic fixed landline but live on my latest smartphone and wouldn't be without my TV setup, linked to my Roku, gaming console and everything else, despite being only 26 months off my bus pass. I can still navigate by map or nautical chart as well as by SatNav or Google maps. I bank online, sort all my bills online, shop online if necessary (if I can't get to Aldi and Lidl). So did my dad who would have been 99 next month.

Oh, and I have arthritis, including in my hands. Touch pads and touchscreens are bliss.

My parents are early 70s and very progressive with technology. Neither required it much professionally (especially since my Dad retired 20years ago), I think it's because they're just interested in it! Inside they still feel about 30, just like I do, so why wouldn't they be all over the Internet etc.

They've got iPhones, iPads, to Milne accounts everywhere...it's great.

I recon my parents could give yours a run for their money in the hopeless with tech stakes!

Both my DPs have ancient phones. DM does at least keep hers charged and switched on, but it lives on the hall table next to the landline phone and never leaves the house with her. DF switches his on to send a text and then switches it straight back off again. If he remembers he might switch it back on at some point over the next week to see if the recipient has replied.

I remember when DM first decided she wanted to have an email account to be able to keep in better contact with her wider family. I was enlisted to help make it happen. After giving her a brief explanation of internet providers and suggesting a couple she might consider using, her response was "but I only want email, I don't want the internet!"

Well, this thread has cheered me up a bit, as I'm a little old lady who does use computers! I used them at work from the mid 80s onwards, but they were very basic, performing simple tasks, often on a closed network.

At home, I've had the internet since the old dial up days, and use it daily for many of life's essential tasks, such as shopping etc etc. I keep in touch with family via iMessenger, and can send a text on my iPhone!!

I don't bother DS if things go wrong, which they rarely do. I look it all up on Google via another device and sort it out myself.

I'd quite like an "intermediate users" computer class to keep up with the latest developments, but courses aimed at my age group seem to be about how to get on line or send an email.

How are they coping with other things in general? My DM actually took computer classes in her 60s and was quite capable of shopping online etc, however when she started to get less able she found it hard to learn how to use new gadgets, etc tv and microwave.

My dad, currently 75, was an engineer and therefore apparently not daft, he would speak of the technical computer programmes he had to train others in.

However when we got the internet at home in the 1990s (when my dad was early 50s) he point blank refused to use it. My parents divorced shortly afterwards and he has never to this day used the internet at all. No dial-up, no broadband, no smartphone or computer. No on-demand TV, nothing as had never had internet.

Has all sorts of hurdles that would be overcome by getting online but just won't do it. Worked as an engineer until only a decade ago too.

In his case it is like a belligerent type of helplessness to keep people on the hook running around at his beck and call (he's abusive - DV in at least two of his relationships so no surprise that he's alone now).

Won't even let you order an online shop for delivery to his flat - he insists people to go to the supermarket for him in person, he is particularly controlling around sell-by dates and will get abusive if you couldn't get the specified ham with a three week sell by. Probably a good thing that he doesn't do online shops as he'd treat the delivery drivers despicably!

How can you be so rude and horrible about your parents does it matter if they arent into tech? The internet has a dark side and not everything about it is good. At least they wont get scammed will they or fall prey to lots of other things that go on.

Also mobiles phones are nuisance they have to constantly be charged,a you have to worry that you dont lose it etc.

I was just chatting with DD and reminiscing about being sent by my parents to a farm to pick up a turkey for Christmas. It was alive but the guy killed it for me (to my absolute horror, I was expecting a farm shop and an oven ready bird not something still clucking).

I mentioned that both my parents were capable of killing, plucking and gutting a bird, or gutting and cleaning a fish and even skinning a rabbit. I have seen it done and could probably do it at a pinch but DD's generation - no chance!

My Dad could strip down a motorbike at the kitchen table too.

We might be good at technology but by crikey if technology ever goes wrong we're all fucked.

What a crock - my Dad was a primary teacher until 1999, and is all over technology, and was teaching kids how to use BBC computers at the school and programming robots, so which ever parent was the teacher is not being 100% honest about their experiences.

My housebound grandmother died 2 years ago. She had an iPad with Facebook, email and Skype to stay in touch with her family all over the world. She was ace on Facebook - commented on Ladbible and everything! My Dad taught her how to use it all and kept the iPad updated for her every week or two.

Ignorance of technology is a decision, and can be very isolating. Making use of it to suit you is fab. This was, my Gran got to "meet" my friends 600 miles away, see my flat, my cat, my city, my work, me in my police uniform (at the time), and the same for more distant family in the USA, Australia and South Africa. It was great!

I've had a career of over 30 years writing scientific software, was an early adopter of email and the internet (ASDL line installed in 1995 etc) but I managed without a smartphone till this year and am deeply mistrustful of online banking and 'the cloud'. I-things sometimes annoy me because unlike Linux or windows I cant really see what's going on.

Dad is OK. He uses a basic smart phone, can go online to browse and if he had to could send a basic email.

Mum on the other hand is completely adverse to modern technology. She uses a basic Nokia mobile, has no idea about being online, purchasing online or social media To her tweeting is something birds do!

It can be frustrating at times, as Mum refuses to use an ATM. Her and Dad still queue up in the bank every week and 'draw out' the cash that they will need for the week ahead! They pay bills with cash or a cheque too. Call people to book holidays etc.

They simply cannot/ do not want to understand modern tech in their seventies because they " got on perfectly well without it"

Dad is perplexed @ amazed that I can text, talk to someone in a different location, bank and transfer money and shop at the touch of a key pad or click of a mouse!

does it matter if they arent into tech?

Yes, if it means they have to go to the shops in the winter when they could do online shopping, if they live 20 miles away from a bank branch, if they want to communicate with their children or grand children, if they want to book travel...

At least they wont get scammed will they

Yes, fortunately there are no scams carried out by post or telephone. Which is nice.

My mother would give yours some competition for the title. Admittedly she's 10 years older, but my father was always keen on using his computer for all sorts of things so it's not as if she hasn't had the opportunity. We were the last family I know to get a proper washing machine - for years she made do with a contraption which was basically a tub on rollers that you had to flll with a hose and empty manually into the sink. She's never understood mobile phones, and only uses the TV remote reluctantly: she has this annoying habit of stabbing at it suspiciously as if it might electrocute her. It bugs me, because she's perfectly capable of understanding technology when she wants to, and I think if she would just get her head around basic computers she'd absolutely love the internet and messaging applications.

Ah the endless FaceTime conversations were we've been shouting at a picture of an ear 'DO NOT PRESS THE RED BUTTON' and then heard MIL say 'she said press the button to answer' and then we're cut off 😁

DH has what we laughingly call ‘parental control’ for his dad’s PC - he can log in remotely to fix whatever DFIL thinks is broken this time Which program do you use? We used to use Logmein, but that's now become expensive and we hadn't found a cheap alternative.