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??

I always take mine with me as I walk in really quite remote places, I want to be able to call for help if I fell down a steep bank or whatever. And I listen to podcasts.

My mum is 82 and pretty ok with tech, she can text, use whatsapp (though sometimes she mixes them up, so I ask her to whatsapp me a photo and it comes via text) and order things. She does have a tendency to forget passwords, or, as a pp said, not understand what password is for what.

But the best one, as other pp's have also said, is Facebook. She doesn't turn the email notifications off, so she says "y is always sending me jokes/annoying posts about Trump/whatever". Well change the notification settings and then you won't get them. I have tried to unsubscribe her from some things but they seem to come back.

She is always getting marketing texts and emails, even though, again, they seem to come back - I don't know if they are app notifications instead.

And going back to Facebook, if she gets the "person you may know" notifications, she started befriending them to get rid of the notification. Even if she didn't know them. Instead of pressing the x. At least she doesn't do that anymore.

I think she also has a few accounts. Who knew that Facebook could be so confusing.

It's really difficult being a not-so-friendly helpdesk over the phone. I have a new-found respect for IT helpdesks :) And of course everyone else has their sons and daughters living round the corner so she's the only one who has to figure things out herself. To give her her due, she has figured things out herself by googling and watching youtube videos. But Facebook...

@Lweji

used my phone as a sat nav (better than purpose built sat navs these days IMO).

Does anyone still use traditional sat nav?

I do sometimes because I have to disconnect my phone from Bluetooth to hear the audible instructions on my phone. My car is 8 years old and I can't have Bluetooth and audible on media at the same time.

Why are people so helpless

Sometimes I think it's a studied helplessness to get attention from family. Especially with people in their 60s for goodness sake. I'll accept the granny in her 90s confusing the remote with the mobile phone :)

I find it amazing to hear that some of the people described in this thread are in their 60s - a lot of this sounds like what I might expect of people in their 80s or above. My dad is, at most, 5 years younger than the OP's parents if they're 'late 60s' and he runs a large division of a major bank - unsurprisingly, he can work a mobile phone! But he's also been working one since at least the early 2000s (such very fond memories of family holidays with him taking urgent calls on the balcony...) - I don't understand how someone who must have been in their 40s when they were introduced then never got to grips with such a widespread piece of technology?

*Also on this point: they don't always take their phones with them, and when they do, they have them turned off. Having a mobile phone doesn't mean you've consented to always be reachable or to always have it on you. I don't always take it with me as I have this crazy idea that I'm allowed to go a walk undisturbed. I really dislike if people get annoyed at me for that as I never promised to always be reachable"

Completely agree with this. People seem to get very offended if you don't answer a mobile. Well, I could be in a meeting, on a run, driving somewhere, cooking or I just don't want to answer it.

My parents are in their 70s and use mobiles, ipads, laptops very competently. Both had office jobs though so were very familiar with tech and IT until they retired. My grandmother is 90 and I tried her with a mobile phone but it wasn't a success and she opted out of using it almost immediately. She can just work out how to charge her Kindle and select a new book on it from the ones I download for her. She doesn't do Internet at all.

poppycat yes I agree. Your Mum sounds amazing, I am only mid 60s but I hope if I were her age I would still be googling and youtubing looking to resolve my own problems.

At the age I am, I just knew techology was not going to go away and it was either embrace it and learn, or give up and be helpless and dependent on others.

And I remember going out for a meal with workmates and one of them had a brick sized mobile phone and he rang the restaurant to ask for another bottle of wine, as we couldn't get the waiter's attention. Everyone crowded round as they'd never seen one before!

Gosh my children are so silly. If I have to go round 1 more time & show them how to change a light bulb or a fuse, or show them how to check their oil & tires I'm going to make them come back home because they are just struggling to manage independently. The younger generation are just have no practical skills or common sense. Anyway I'm going for a glass of wine. Enough if this bullshit.

they don't always take their phones with them, and when they do, they have them turned off

So do I...it stops patronising, condescending people getting in touch when I don't want them too. Maybe your parents aren't as dumb as you think they are OP.

I wonder how many of these older technophobes would be scornful of all the ‘young folk’ who can’t do simple things like knitting, baking, fixing cars or DIY. ...or whatever.

I’m always gob smacked at how many people (women especially) who say they can’t change a car tyre. (Note, they could if they tried)

My dad is in his 80s, my mum died 18 months ago and my dad had to learn very quickly how to be a grown up ! He has done incredibly well but technology will always be the enemy.. however he manages calls, whats app text and email athough all are at times brilliantly random. I love emails with attachments especially as neither of us know if he has attached the right thing or something utterly random until I open it. It has taken him a year and many many hours of my life explaining to do on line shopping and we have weekly panics when it goes wrong but he has persevered and even found an on line IT tutor to teach him.he also has amazingly patient neighbours who sort out his WiFi , phone, laptop at frequent intervals as I live 2 hours away.

Dad has given up trying to use his smartphone and gone back to using his ancient clamshell, much to everyone's relief. The battery lasts loads longer too, so that's another plus.

MIL (85) has just got herself an Alexa.

😱🤯😳😹

Just to add, if they're dead set on smartphones and not already using Apple, then try them on an iPhone.

I agree with this. I’ve had several work phones of varying types sitting alongside my own personal iPhone. The iPhone is the easiest to use by far.

My mother is 78... I’ve spent the last 15 years as her IT help. She’s great with a digital camera and can get the photos on the PC (with step by step illustrated instructions) but it took til she fell down at the clothesline and couldn’t get back up for over an hour to persuade her to keep her phone on her and, crucially, switched on. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be contacted - she does - but she’s ‘saving the battery’... this results in fun times like her asking me to call when I leave work so I can arrange to pick her up from the shopping centre, and she switches off the damn phone so the battery doesn’t ‘run out’ and I get to waste an hour wandering around looking for her. ‘Why didn’t you call??’ She says. ‘Is your phone on’ say I.. ‘ oh nooooo I’m saving the battery.’ This has happened many times.

I live quite a long way from them now so I either have to help over the phone ‘the internet has vanished!’ Or ‘I can’t find the blue square?!’ Or she saves up the problems in a notebook til the next time I visit...

This is yet another example of ageism on Mumsnet. There are some dreadful posts on here. Mumsnet be ashamed of hosting such awful ageism.

It’s not an age thing though, my sister is possibly worse and she’s in her 40’s

@poppycat10

Why are people so helpless

Sometimes I think it's a studied helplessness to get attention from family. Especially with people in their 60s for goodness sake. I'll accept the granny in her 90s confusing the remote with the mobile phone :)

DH did this at 39... I was heavily pregnant and effectively snowed into the house without access to the TV as it was a cheapy freeview box with no manual controls. Fortunately I'm no lover of day time TVso didn't realise until late in the day.

@trappedsincesundaymorn

they don't always take their phones with them, and when they do, they have them turned off

So do I...it stops patronising, condescending people getting in touch when I don't want them too. Maybe your parents aren't as dumb as you think they are OP.

Haha, me too! I'm only in my early 40's, and I have already been out on two walks without my phone today. If I'm just in my town, I never bring it with me. It drives everyone else mad though, as apparently I need to be reached at all times, always.

That is very odd. Are they okay? Mobile phones came out when they were in their forties, and they’re deliberately user friendly. I wouldn’t have been as surprised if they’d been in their nineties but... sixties? I suspect there’s some feigned helplessness going on here, do they get a lot of attention for their antics? Maybe they find it funny winding you up?

I'm older, and I don't actually agree it's ageism. And I am the first one to call it out on other threads. Because it makes me furious. Some of the covid threads have been disgusting.

Posters are talking about their parents and it seems to be said with affection and bemusement.
apart from a couple of posts early on which were horrible

@Operasinger

It’s not ageism though. It’s just the truth. I’m crap with the TV & I’m in my late 30’s. They’re crap with mobiles. I don’t think it has anything to do with their age; in all other respects they’re probably more competent that me! And this is why I get so frustrated with them. What is it about bloody mobiles that they can’t get their heads around!!!

It's not an age thing, it's a people thing.
My fil and df were the same age.
Fil could never use technology.

Df is 90 now and takes his mobile everywhere. Texts football results to my db's.joins zoom calls.
Fil couldn't even put a cd into his music system!

I’m always gob smacked at how many people (women especially) who say they can’t change a car tyre. (Note, they could if they tried)

I know how to change a tyre. I cannot do it though. Every time I try, I can’t loosen the nuts. I keep tried various different options for trying it but I couldn’t do it.