older adults and technology

[perditaplum]

What it is about older adults and technology? When do they change from being able to use technology like setting things up, playing games on things like the playstation and so on to it all being incomprehensible to them and asking younger people to do it for them ? They were younger people once and got asked to do it by older adults then!

Like @rslsys we've managed to keep ahead of the curve since the mid80s. I suppose we've grown with it over the years. DH works in IT while I use a range of complex business systems on a daily basis. On reflection we've got quite complementary skills - DH is definitely the 'early adopter' investigating new hardware and connectivity as it comes along while I'm the one who finds the best applications to meet our needs and works out how to configure them. We're still the first point of contact tech support for DS who's in his mid 20s despite his engineering degree.

My dad wrote some of the early software that gets your food, parcels to your door or organisations fleet control. His contemporaries invented the internet, email, sent the space shuttles up, mobile phones and created online gaming. They are all in their 80's and so fucking awesome. They created the world as we know it....

And they are the same generation who invented computers and processors. so you can reply to this post........

It's nothing to with the age and more to do with the person. My mum has ALWAYS been inept with technology. She has only recently worked out how to use a smart phone to make phone calls. She couldn't even work the video when she was my age.

My PIL are similar. See lots of fancy gadgets on the telly (think Ring, 3D TV, Netflix, Smart light bulbs), buy it and then have no idea how to operate it. They've been like this for 20 years.

My dad on the other hand is a similar age (early 70s) Still working, using computer at work and at home (well at home now). Happily uses a tablet, smart phone and streaming. He knows what a cloud is too (OMG trying to explain clouds to MIL ) and set up a family group chat when covid hit.

So its not about the age.

They aren't playing catch up. We are in a lot of cases

Leaannb speak for yourself I'm not playing catch up. I'm 47 my kids are 13 and 16. My email address is older than them! I have more tech experience than they do because I've been around longer.

They've come on board along side me with tech as they've grown up. Why would/should they know more than me about new tech just because they are younger?

Sir Tim Berners Leigh (who is late 60's) invented the internet ....just so you know.

My parents are in their early 80’s. Both have iPads and iPhones. My dad has internet radio, Bluetooth headphones, laptop, Fitbit... you get the picture. They both text, are on Instagram and can join zoom meetings. I think it’s largely to to with motivation and interest.

I'm in my 50s.
Half the stuff these days I just don't want to do.
e.g. computer games, social media, streaming music.
I'm capable enough if I'm motivated enough.

This ^

and I totally agree with @peapotter - (at 21:05:49). That really strikes a cord with me.

Well said Soontobe60

Different people have different skills.
No need to mock and sneer at those that don't have one particular skill or don't have another.
Of course there are exceptions, and lots of them, but it isn't 'ageist' to notice that there is a correlation between less interest in learning new technology and being "older". I know 3 people in their 90s who are very up with computers, have Facebook accounts, take interest in other social media etc., but that doesn't mean to say "most" people in their 90s are.

@pallasathena and he was one of the late comers. Lunux Unix ... the skeleton on which all operating systems work. Works of beauty.

A thread people pretending they are better than others because they have a skill that they think is more modern - can they write in copperplate or touch type at 210pm. Doubt it. Would they take the piss out of a child who couldn't use a pen and paper... I would hope not because those kids can type faster on a phone using their thumbs and 2 fingers. Yet because they can "program" something they are so fucking awesome...... has it occurred to you they don't give a shit about what we have become & how low are standards are,

At least lots of the older adults discussed on this thread are willing to give it a try.

My parents refuse to have a smartphone or a computer. "It's not for the likes of us". Both took early retirement in their early 50s from jobs which didn't require use of a computer, so they never learned. They have no interest in learning, and mum in particular has a bit of a sneery attitude to online, as if it's some sort of second-rate thing used by people who are too lazy to go to the shops, speak to people on the phone or write a cheque to pay the electricity bill. We have offered to teach, supply the iPad, get them a new phone - nope, not interested.

It's incredibly frustrating but it is their choice. They are late 70s and stubborn. But they really have lost out over the last 9 months by not being able to Zoom, or facetime the kids. I have huge concerns with things like GP appointments being offered primarily online instead of face to face, my parents could no sooner do a Zoom appointment than fly to the moon. Even if the GP supplied a tablet/phone, we're not allowed to visit to show them how to use the damn thing!

@pallasathena

Sir Tim Berners Leigh (who is late 60's) invented the internet ....just so you know.

There are a few mistakes in your post I'm afraid!

1. The internet was invented in the 1960s. Started off with universities and big corps. It became accessible to households with a telephone line in the 1980s.

1. What Tim Berners Leigh (spelt Tim Berners-Lee) actually invented was the world wide web. The thing that you see using a web browser such as Firefox or Chrome. The internet itself is wider than the WWW. Such as email clients, phone apps, video conferencing (Zoom and MS Teams). Also, smart devices (Amazon Echo and Google Nest), the so-called "internet-of-things".

1. The world wide web was invented in 1991. Sir Tim was 35 then.

This is ageist.
I'm in my 60s and am always sorting out the phones and computers of all my family and friends - including the 20 something cool nephews

I've started out programming basic bbc computers in the 1980s. I progressed to an amstrad - bet some of you don't know what that is, then I had an early Mac classic.

Our local college ran free courses in the late 90s and I learnt to use word, excel and PowerPoint And I used to fix people's pc issues where I worked

So my message is: don't make assumptions

What Tim Berners Leigh (spelt Tim Berners-Lee) actually invented was the world wide web.

HTTP and html. They're what made the internet accessible for non-techy types, really.

There were Internet forums in the early 80s. On which I played Mornington Crescent and was persuaded there still was a need for feminism.

I have to agree with others before I had DC I'd get stuck in with the technology but now I really can't be bothered. I have less time now and tend to read or listen to music in my spare time. I do play on the consoles/watch films with my DC or DP sometimes but I just let them set it up. I don't really have a need to know how it works now although I could if I tried, I'm sure!

And I'm only late 30s!

I’m 56 and quite frankly can’t be arsed
I’m at that in between stage when I can do stuff but get fed up with set ap an account, get through security, passwords not secure etc n just want a shop, phone call or real life human

I've always been a tech head but now at only nearly 40 can't get my head round any of the stuff. My DD has always had me set stuff up for her so she is terrible at new tech and DH has never set a thing up in his life. Tech in this house at the minute is a barrel of laughs 😂😂

My pil struggled to use the most basic mobile phone. My own dm in her 80s used video calls, Facebook, WhatsApp etc.
It isn't the age but the person.
Though I do think failing eyesight doesn't help with phones especially.

Though I do think failing eyesight doesn't help with phones especially.

Well, yes. An extreme case:
DH bought MIL a mobile phone, a 'brick' back before smartphones, same model as his. She used it a couple of times but then started having problems. He tried to work out what the issue was, talking her through it on the landline. She couldn't find the buttons he was describing...

She had very poor eyesight due to diabetes and had picked up the TV remote not the phone.

So, while for now I wouldn't give the likes of Alexa houseroom, I can see there may come a time when that sort of tech may be genuinely useful and have advantages which outweigh their potential problems.

But these days technology for a user is mostly intuitive. It's not like when you had to figure out how to set the vcr for Eastenders.
And if you don't know how to do something you can always Google!
But my DM doesn't realise this and insists on going deep into the settings on every device she has, has a fiddle and accidentally hanged a setting, when she really can just use the device as it is.
But I agree, poor eyesight doesn't help.

I’m 51 and occasionally teach basic IT. I’m much more proficient with IT than my younger colleagues. However my nine year old can run rings round me IT-wise!

Both my parents - in their 70s and 80s - are fine with IT and are capable of setting up stuff, but then my dad had to set up my Commodore 64 in the 80s and my mum worked on the first computers in the 60s!

It's just laziness or disinclination to learn or try which can strike at all ages.

I remember when my FIL died (in 1997) and my MIL (who was 51) claimed she couldn't use a cashpoint machine. It's just bollocks.

It's just laziness or disinclination to learn or try which can strike at all ages.

Is that a bad thing?

I never cut the grass or take out the garbage.
OH will do it, I can;t be arsed.

@speakout

It's just laziness or disinclination to learn or try which can strike at all ages.

Is that a bad thing?

I never cut the grass or take out the garbage.
OH will do it, I can;t be arsed.

no, but it's nothing to do with age.

I cba to do lots of things which have no interest to me, and my teenage children are the same.

My dad is 70, so no computers when he was growing up, not even a tv remote control and he manages most things just fine.
Has had trouble getting his phone to work with his car display but like younger humans found help on YouTube.

I'm certain the old setting up the video was far more about it being hard to get up off the floor, than not being able to master the tech. That and how tedious it was to set the damn clock.