To ban my parents from using mobile phones

[AndromedaGal]

I am fed up instructing my parents (in late 60's) how to use their mobiles. They don't even know how to turn the volume up properly, so all you hear when you call them is "Hello? Hello?...." Followed by an inevitable pause then, "Oh. Er, it doesn't appear to be working Pam. How do I........." and then lots of intermittent sounds as they randomly press buttons, followed by me being inevitably cut off. This has been going on for years. It's just painful.

They ring people inadvertently when they've stashed their phones in their back pockets because they don't know how to lock the keypads.
They send text messages to landlines.

They delete contacts, forget to turn them on when they're out and about (so what's the effing point having one) and lose them ALL.THE.TIME. And accessing the internet on their phones just causes a whole new level of trauma.

Why can't they learn the basic principles of mobile phone usage? They're intelligent and manage very well independently. But it's so exasperating as they don't always take their phones with them, and when they do, they have them turned off.

I think they should just stick to their landline TBH. Anyone else experience similar??

What a nightmare! My parents are both in their 70s; Mum used computers in work for about 10 years, and my Dad had never set eyes on one until retirement, but they're both fairly good.

The key thing is, they know their limits! If they don't know how to do something, they'll Google it, read it carefully, and see if they can do it. If they can't, they stop until they can get help, they don't just press random buttons any more.

I would do as others have suggested, and get them lower spec phones which can't go too far wrong!

iPhone and sent dad to apple store for classes (pre civid)

These are people who probably spent many hours teaching you skills such as reading,.using cutley, writing, going to the toilet. Listening to you playing an instrument badly, sitting beside you when you were learning to drive.

And we’re probably in stitches laughing when their DC mucked up! You can’t get through parenting small children without a sense of humour.

My parents are in the 80s and they aren’t too bad as long as things don’t go wrong when it can all get a bit painful. The one thing that really bugs me is the way they tap the screen of the iPad. They sort of jab it and clearly don’t believe me when I tell them you just have to touch the screen. Drives me nuts when they are both sitting there jab, jab, jabbing away.
My Mum copies things from her iPad into a little notebook which also drives me a little crazy as I’ve explained (very patiently!) how to cut and paste a million times.

IME it's not just about attitude. There is a theory behind technology programming and you either 'get it' or you don't. If your brain is used to working in ways that don't match up with how tech is developed, it makes it really hard (impossible) for you to ever really grasp the tech - because so much of it is about intuitive usage. i.e. if you intuit in a different way than the way the tech assumes all people intuit then you will always be behind.

Nonsense. You don't need to intuitively know these things, you just need to make an actual effort to learn them. Nobody intuitively knew how to use the technology from the start as it was all new, they just learned. Anyone can learn to use a basic smartphone, if they want.

For people in their 60's there is no excuse at all. Some people can't be bothered and some like to feign helplessness for their own ends. But if they are intelligent and able in other areas, they could do it, they just won't.

@JudgeJ

To ban my parents from using mobile phones

What an arrogant person you are, since when did children 'ban' their parents doing anything?

Lighten up! I think the OP is joking. 😅

Often it's how people are taught to use tech,not the inability to learn.

FFS, surely anyone over 60 should be put down.

Late 60s? That's strange because mobile phones have been around for quite a while. Maybe they shouldn't have smartphones, just old school Nokia type phones?

My 82 year old grandma has trouble working the iPad but she's had a mobile phone since 2005.

Can you please stop referring to us as an amorphous mass of "The elderly".

We are older people and we are individuals with different experiences, knowledge and skills. Some older people experience cognitive decline, others don't.

I remember when I was trying to show my mum how to send an sms back in 2000. She couldn´t grasp that on one key you had ABC, you press once, twice or three times (quickly) depending on which you want. She took ages between taps so it was AAAAAAA.
21 years later she has Ipad, Laptop, Mobile (I showed her how to take photos and send them over Whatsapp) and she Facetimes her grandchild and does her shopping online. She is 76.

They send text messages to landlines. Landlines do accept text messages.

@UhtredRagnarson

These are people who probably spent many hours teaching you skills such as reading,.using cutley, writing, going to the toilet. Listening to you playing an instrument badly, sitting beside you when you were learning to drive.

And we’re probably in stitches laughing when their DC mucked up! You can’t get through parenting small children without a sense of humour.

Right, but this is not humor about parenting. This is just another example of how increasingly dismissive & patronising (thinly veiled as humor) mumsnet is towards anyone over 50 really. It's been very visible particularly in the last year.

Yabu to be ageist about it.

My mother didn't start texting until years after it was already common place, and now she texts all the time. However, when she first started texting, she began every single text to me with "Hi, it's Mum.". No shit! I fucking know that because you're a bloody contact in my bloody phone. It took her weeks to stop doing it even though I told her repeatedly that I KNEW when texts were from her. She was doing this to her friends, too. They probably wanted to kill her.

When my mum upgraded to a smartphone, I told her at the outset that if she opted for an iPhone, I may be able to help her and if she opted for another make, I definitely wouldn’t be able to. In the early days I asked her what Google had said before she defaulted to me. So now she’s not too bad and attempts to solve problems herself first. If I can’t work things out (by Googling myself) I play a similar game and say that it’s one of those computer mysteries and I don’t know the answer. Occasionally I’ve suggested that she reverts back to non-technological methods, that doesn’t go down too well. But she accepts that I’m not a technological whizzkid. She does assume (and has said herself) that all young people know everything about modern technology so the ageism can work the other way.

Makes no sense that they should be this way? I’m 58, use every aspect of my smart phone, teach IT when I didn’t grow up with it, use every streaming service etc.
Age is no excuse.

I don't mind my ILs being a bit lost with their mobiles. It's not their age at all: my aunt is the same age and uses more apps and tech than I do. But the martyrdom, the whining that nobody can be bothered to teach them (I have, several times, as have all their grandchildren), gets on my bloody tits, honestly.
At least lockdown meant they weren't picking up yet another bargain secondhand phone they couldn't operate, with or without instructions, every few months.

Well Im 76 and I run an online business with 4 shops, post up stuff for sale every day and make good money at it. So we are not all technological duffers.

Having said that I use social media VERY selectively and the mobile is for MY use when I need a taxi etc. It is not for people to stalk me when Im in bed, on the loo, or relaxing. I do have a smart phone but its smart enough to stay out of the way unless I need it. My Farcebook page is for business, and says nothing about my private life.

Unlike the smart generation I do not need to be validated by the opinions of so-called friends, followers or random others that I never met and probably would never wish to meet.

They're intelligent and manage very well independently.

They’re only in their 60s, I wouldn’t expect them to be otherwise.

However, this is pitiful.

Is this a sudden decline in ability or have they always had issues?

I wondered this as well. I am in my 60s and have owned mobiles for over 25 years. DH is 69 and has owned a smartphone for years. It seems odd that someone in our generation is struggling with how to use a mobile.

FFS, surely anyone over 60 should be put down
Oh no! I've only hot a couple if years left! Poor DH will be on his way out as well!
😂😂

@IbrahimaRedTwo

IME it's not just about attitude. There is a theory behind technology programming and you either 'get it' or you don't. If your brain is used to working in ways that don't match up with how tech is developed, it makes it really hard (impossible) for you to ever really grasp the tech - because so much of it is about intuitive usage. i.e. if you intuit in a different way than the way the tech assumes all people intuit then you will always be behind.

Nonsense. You don't need to intuitively know these things, you just need to make an actual effort to learn them. Nobody intuitively knew how to use the technology from the start as it was all new, they just learned. Anyone can learn to use a basic smartphone, if they want.

For people in their 60's there is no excuse at all. Some people can't be bothered and some like to feign helplessness for their own ends. But if they are intelligent and able in other areas, they could do it, they just won't.

I work in this sector

Software design for these kinds of tech is designed to work in the way most humans intuit. It IS intuitive.

Early day tech was designed a bit differently, but since then massive research time and £ is spent looking at the way people think so that the tech is desined to complement that and NOT require learning. The very last thing any developer of new technology wants is for people to have to learn to use it - it cuts down take up and limits profit.

It's a massive aspect of tech dev.

Nice summary here:

www.forbes.com/sites/ehrlichfu/2016/02/05/the-tech-design-conundrum-intuitive-vs-learned/?sh=5b24839258e7

But occasionally some people just don't seem to click and my presumption (based on 20 years in the industry) is that their life experience and specific brain functions are not in line with the way the tech is designed. They perhaps are outliers or a lifetime of experience learning different rules to the ones tech plays by, hampers them.

My 93 year old Aunt is very proficient on her mobile phone,
( I think this thread is being a tad ageist)
I am in my late 60's and have had a mobile phone since they first came out, so has DH.
I do know that many people of my generation are very anti phone because they see so many younger people completely glued to them to the exclusion of life going on around them!

Just use the landline.

Never had the issue with my parents, indeed my late father (RIP) knew more about technology before he died 10 years ago than I do now.