AIBU to expect the majority of adults to use technology?

[gdaysport]

The majority of UK households will have had the internet in some form for the last 20 years. We have had smartphones which have been common for at least 15 years.

AIBU to expect most adults to be able to use the internet etc to navigate the world by now?

For example, living in zone 4 London with frequent bus services, at least a few times a week there will be a bewildered adult asking the bus driver where they need to get off, if the bus (with the massive sign on front saying 'Woolwich' goes to Woolwich, or the train station. You can use google maps, TFL app, bus apps, all which tell you which way to go.

Bus drivers of course, rarely give a shiny shit and I normally step in to help and tell people where they need to go, but I just don't understand the frequency in which I need to do this?

I even extend this criticism to my own parents who have such poor technological literacy they panic at the very idea of checking what time a train leaves.

At a recent hospital stay, two women on the ward in their mid 50s with me, both of their families encouraged them to borrow and use ipads so they could watch their soaps etc to pass the time but they batted them away saying they cant use them. They would have been in their 30s when ipads were introduced. So instead they would just sit bored staring at a wall rather than be shown how to use the app.

Technology is only going to become more ingrained in our lives, should we not be encouraging people to become sufficient in using it, rather than being cut off from the world? Stranded at bus stops as they dont know where to go, not knowing how to book a GP appointment online which is quicker etc.

Preparing to be flamed!

My new dishwasher appears to be WiFi enabled.

I am baffled as to why I would want to operate my dishwasher from my phone???

Is this so you can control it when you are not at home?

Wild! Not sure I would be that bothered to learn how to use that one myself!

YABU, there are many reasons why some people may not be able to use or access technology. I understand this even though I was an early user of a lot of tech. Late 40's and used PC's at high school, had Internet at university (when most only had limited access to dial up).

Those older then me will have mostly only come across it with work. I'm also fedup with the assumption that everyone has a smart phone (your overestimating how popular they are my first one I only got 13 years ago). I have a colleague who can't use them due to sensory issues.

Some people don't find it easy to pick this stuff up either. Most who use these technologies have no actual idea how they work or what to do if things go wrong. 🤔 which is OK most of the time, but I always say technology is great when it works.

I can't think of one single good reason to do that? I mean, you'd have to leave it switched on at the mains, surely, and you can't load it remotely?

(I would definitely go for remote loading though, if that were an option!!)

I've worked around technology for nearly 30 years so thank god I'm reasonably clued up (50s). My mother is atrocious (late 80s) Hates anything digital except the Sky box, refuses to use a smartphone or a tablet and relies on my sister who is very tolerant at helping...

My in laws (early 80s) are pretty sharp. So, I think it really varies.

This is such a good point, and one I'd not considered in depth before. But yes if you were a SAHM during the rise of technology it must be a really challenging and scary world at times trying to get up to speed - not least because it would also further preclude you getting back in the workplace after your kids are adults.

Really intereting/insightful comment @cheapskatemum (and well done for taking action to learn, as God knows that is not always easy either!).

at least a few times a week there will be a bewildered adult asking the bus driver where they need to get off, if the bus (with the massive sign on front saying 'Woolwich' goes to Woolwich, or the train station.

The amazing thing about technology, OP, is that you can use it to type a sentence in which an opening bracket is paired with a closing bracket, thus allowing it to be correct and make sense.

I am very good with tech but find buses very confusing (even where to get on in London is confusing), and would certainly be checking they go where I think they do.

I also find Google Maps for walking even more confusing than regular maps and often set off in the wrong direction- though I get there in the end!

Good with tech, sense of direction - pretty poor. I have to go somewhere ten times in short order to remember my way around and also have to be driving or otherwise self-directing and therefore paying attention.

The weird things is ten minute after I arrive anywhere new to me I get asked for directions, and I am so bad at giving directions even when it's somewhere I know well. But clearly, I look like I know where I'm going.

The problem is. some tech just gets in the way of life.

I wanted to park at a station car park the other week. The only way to pay was to download an app and then do who knows what with it. No ability to pay with cash or even credit card.

Tech is meant to help, to increase choice, not make life harder. I shouldn't need an app to park at a railway station.

I went elsewhere.

Oh come on, this is yet another thinly disguised "bashing" thread which conveniently ignores that not everyone has the same life experiences and advantages.

BTW, hate to burst your bubble but you can't actually book GP appointments online for a great many GPs as they don't offer it (or have withdrawn it).

So congratulate yourself on your superiority and think about what you can do to help those people rather than sneer at them.

Most of us who are in our forties were unfortunate enough to have to use the shit early systems, and computers such as bbcs and comal coding which really put us off using computers.
Add to that the fact that everything we learned at school about computers was obsolete within a few years so have had to unlearn everything we knew and relearn the new systems, it's put our small group at a disadvantage with our skills and motivation to learn as there's always something new

Our new dishwasher tells husband it has finished (I didn’t download app as I didn’t see need) he has never shown so much interest in the dishwasher!
Part of it is reassurance so even if bus says x double checking verbally as probably been caught out before.
Some is just wanting human contact.
Your hospital example - learning a new skill when ill or in pain is never going to go well.

Oh and OP I maybe prity tech savy, having used it a lot. But I'm also dyslexic, can't read the boards at the railway station as they filp over to fast and have had to ask for help when I've had no phone signal. It's frustrating when it doesn't work. I'm also fed-up of being forced to have apps 9n my phone because they don't do it any other way anymore. It's getting ridiculous making things way more complicated then they need to be.

And of course you have to have the correct parking app (I have 5 atm) and if you don't have it - hope you have a 4g signal to download, install etc.

The commonest reason for IT systems of any size failing is "people don't use them" - there is a reason why people don't use the "easier" option and usually its because it isn't easier for them or the training/support is not in place.

I've often wondered about the point of WiFi enabled washing machines and dishwashers, they don't load and unload themselves so why can't the person who loaded it switch it on?
Threads like this always make me wish I could be around in 30+ years time when the currents sneerers are on the receiving end from younger people!

People vary a lot. I'm late 40s and always listening to audiobooks, music, videos, TV and podcasts on my phone, and talked about some of this to a group of women probably ten years older than me at a yoga workshop once and they looked at me quite blankly and said they didn't know how to do any of that. My mum watches TV and reads books on her tablet, orders things online and goes on Facebook, and she's 84.

But the people you mentioned "bewildered" by the bus - how do you know they didn't fit one of the categories mentioned?

I feel at a massive advantage in my late 40s for the same reason - always new tech all my life, always things to learn so I pick it up quickly.

I often ask what stop I need to get off if I'm on an unfamiliar bus route (or I may ask the driver if they stop at XYZ before I get on) despite being able to navigate the internet.

I have usually already checked but want to double check myself?

Aw thank you @EnterFunnyNameHere
My grown up children are a good source of help when I'm navigating technology. I am doing the course as even care work, which I went into after DCs left home, involves IT knowledge. It occurs to me that those in their 70s & 80s may have had more time to spend on getting used to devices such as tablets & smart TVs than those in their late 50s & & early 60s who are still working.

YANBU but these threads never go well as MNers fall over themselves with excuses of why people may not have learnt to use tech.

The reality is they chose not to learn when they were easily capable of doing so, and now have to face the consequences of that.

I was forced into using it 20 years ago when I was 40 or I would have lost my job. Couldn't be without it now.
I can't imagine the tedium of actually going to a bank instead of using online banking. Even my 83 year old mother uses it for everything.

Yanbu

im just about 50. I remember working in a shop when I was 18 and the momentous day the manager got email on his computer. That is 32 years since the workplace changed. Someone who is 65 now would have been introduced to this new world in their 30’s, hardly too old to learn new things.

Exactly this.

In my home town, there are a lot of people with learning difficulties who are not being helped at all and cannot either afford a phone or work out how to use them, and I imagine it's the same in other places too. So, although in an ideal world, it would be great, it's never going to happen unless people are given more support.