To find people who refuse to embrace technology irritating?

[Sophiehoney]

I don't mean people who genuinely struggle

I am irritated with people who absolutely refuse to even try.
I am sure a lot of the time they do it on purpose. They use the whole "I don't do technology" thing as a personality trait, to be quirky and "not like all you young people" when simply being a bit older is not a reason in itself, as Mumsnet proves!!

People at my work are moaning like hell because the system of filling in patients notes at the end of the shift in a book with a pen has been replaced by handheld devices (basically phones) that are more secure and can be completed on the go. They are so simple but some people are refusing to learn so others are filling their notes in for them.

A lady at the doctor's today point blank refused to even try to sign herself in on the machine. It was literally just a case of pressing a button and then filling in a form with her name and DOB using a keyboard. She declared proudly "I'm not doing this, I don't do technology, I don't even have a mobile phone!" And made he poor stressed receptionist with a line of people waiting come out and do it for her.

My mum will pop round a million times a week with "something she needs me to on her iPad" and it's usually just something trivial like reading an email and sending a one line reply that I know she is capable of. I've stated getting my 13 year old to do and she pays him £1 every time so every cloud 🤷

But these people do irritate me when they expect others to pick up their slack by refusing to try.

AIBU?

Lots of previous posters have said they could but can't be bothered.

What is needed is one app that can be used at all car parks. We dont pay for parking very often, and usually find somewhere free to park, and was reluctant to use apps, until we had no choice. It is so much easier, so I am now a fan. On a trip to Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, we were checking Parkopedia for prices and found the St John's Centre, sign up on line, with your payment card, and it us £8.00 for all day parking. You just enter and leave and the charge is taken from your card. The best system I have seen yet.

Yabu. We moving into a scary world with too much technology. I'm not pulling away from it. I see my patients struggling...I had a 102 year old in tears just trying to get through to the doctors on the phone which bought home to me how we are missing the human touch. Life seems so much less friendly and complicated now technology has taken over. I've started to use money in shops again. You be shocked how many people don't know how to give change back.

I'm glad our nice shopping centre is free to park for 5 hours, I wouldn't want to pay to go to the shops.

Hmmm. I live in a large town and we have options still

Definitely no man/woman (little or otherwise) in the train stations any more, that is all app or ticket machine
Buses accept both card or cash or you can buy tickets on an app.
Pharmacy definitely accepts paper scripts
We have a large and well respected local independent appliance shop that sells new and second hand and also does repairs. You usually phone them or pop in. We do also have a currys, argos etc
We still have parking ticket machines throughout the town but you can use an app too.

Are you in a city?

I had this in the local shop a couple of weeks ago. Paid in cash and the cashier counted out a seemingly random amount of change back. 83p short.

The till tells them what change they need to give.

@UltimateFoole Lancashire near the coast.
She uses her free bus card to travel. Stopped driving a few years ago. She gets quite far by bus or further afield uses train or coach trips. She’s gets herself across London every few months visiting a relative by bus/train. I imagine bus pass is online application now but wasn’t 20 yrs ago.
She watches tv for news/newspaper. Enjoys politics type programmes so is up to date on current affairs.
She gets bus to nearest manned station. She actually goes to big station as she prefers lady in office to man at counter at nearest station. She pays more for railcard as can only do 1yr in person not 3 online.
She’s member of swimming pool and pays annual membership in person and phones to book her sessions.
I think she asks in m & s if any offers on sparks card - they check on iPad.
She occasionally asks me to check something but it’s nothing she couldn’t live without knowing eg is an actor dead or how much did neighbours bungalow sell for.
She’s fortunately been in good health. I suspect lack of tech may be more issue if more dealings with hospital. Her Gp surgery appears to know it’s market and operate in a way that suits.
She’s very independent and observant and happy to speak to people.

Why are you happy to give the school more work though? schools have enough to do without dealing with people who refuse to co-operate and insist on living in the past.
It's 2026, your kids are going to need to learn to be technology literate just as much as they need to learn to use pen and paper. Maybe more. Or they are going to be left behind.

Appliances AO.com excellent service. Or John Lewis

People can take fabulous photos of scenery, days out and food but the standard of photos of a blemish for example emailed to the GP is shocking. Eight plus photos of the same thing are unnecessary too.

My children are very technologically literate (DH and I work in tech), they can code and use a touch screen etc. but we don't have a tablet, so they can't access the apps school want them to.

For us, it's choice, rather than a financial issue, but their school has a higher than average free school meals score indicating lots of children living in households with less money - what are they supposed to do? A tablet isn't essential.

And managing app access, setting the home work,smashing the subscriptions etc is not an insignificant job - the time to find and print a worksheet isn't dissimilar (I know because prior to a career change, DH was a teacher and in charge of digital uptake).

This is true about change.
I went to a pop-up soft play thing about a year ago. It was £3 for my daughter to go in. I gave the lady two £2 coins.
She stared at it in the palm of her hand for a few seconds and then said "you gave me £4?" so I said "yes.... do you have £1?" and she said "OH!" and scrambled around in a drawer for a £1 coin. She handed it to me, shaking her head at herself and said "I forgot change was a thing for a minute there" 😂

My FIL!

He refuses to have a phone because he "doesn't need one" but always has 375 jobs for his family members to do for him on theirs.

Genuinely wouldn't mind if he couldn't do it. He just likes to be able to tell people he doesn't have a phone and see their incredulous expression. He gets a sort of satisfaction out of being different.

I work in Finance IT, so definitely not a luddite, but I think some people over-emphasise the benefits of tech without looking at some of the risks of overreliance.
There are genuine risks if people who lack capacity have to access financial and medical services on-line rather than by talking to a person who will spot quickly that they need extra help and guide them through it.
It has become very difficult to prove one's own identity to manage online accounts without access to a specified email account, but if you later lose access to that account for any reason you're screwed. AI chat-bots are still not at the point where they can handle unusual problems accurately.
Also data-protection risk of having many providers insisting you provide name, address, date of birth, and all sorts of other valuable personal data before they'll provide even the most basic services.
If you have an old-ish smartphone you may find it impossible to even load some of the apps to access services you need; people might see updating their smartphone to something that handles IOs-whatever as a luxury but it's actually now a necessary expense - further isolating the poorest and most vulnerable.

This is exactly the sort of people I started this thread about

What is needed is one app that can be used at all car parks

What about people who don't have a smartphone?

Yes! My brother for example, he’s 46 and texts me to google something! He used to play video games when we were kids and was good at it and he does have a smartphone but he’s seemingly just ‘decided’ that he doesn’t understand technology.
Then there’s my mum… Now, she is 81 BUT, her career was in online banking for NatWest back in the 90s & early 2000s when it first started! She’s always been brilliant with it and for many years, knew more than me about some things. She’s had iPads for over 10 years, uses WhatsApp and texting etc. Yet now she’s decided that anything beyond that is “messing about” 🤬

Ah yes the contrary Mary. Or ‘Martin’ if male, I suppose. My brother LOVES to be contrary.

I have heard of something much worse than parking apps. There is apparently at least one public toilet in the UK which requires you to use an app to access the toilet, I expect it's to take money before you can go in.
Imagine being desperate for a pee and having to find a signal to download the app and then pay! Because all of those things are really hard when your bladder is screaming at you.

Def NBU my Dp is exactly like this, drives me up the wall. I also have a friend like this who seems proud that she can't do it and won't even try 🙄

Oh God it drives me mad! "I don't do e-mails, can you do it for me?" Eurgh

Had a good one today with a client who refused to e-sign a document via my online portal, saying she "doesn't have the internet", yet she's all over our local Facebook group. Either she's so thick she doesn't understand that IS the internet, or she is just being awkward. Anyway, it takes me more time to print out the documents, post them, and scan them when she signs in ink, so that's extra time on the clock that she'll get billed for!

I'm mid 60s and love technology. This dates back to my first transistor with a little earbud to listen to Radio Luxembourg in bed. Then a present of a Sony Walkman, later followed by a Discman and eventually a series of iPods. Now all my music is in my phone and is streamed wirelessly to my AI assisted hearing aids.

The only side of tech I haven't come round to is Alexa and other voice activated household aids. For anyone able bodied I can't see that saying 'Alexa , turn on the lights' is any easier than flicking a switch. DH and I bought a couple when they were new out but they were more trouble than they were worth and weren't used after the first few weeks.

🙈

For older people it’s hard because life admin used to be so much easier! Buying a house recently, I was asked to pay £20 so I could open a portal myself where I had all the stress of uploading documents etc… 20 years ago I just took my documents to conveyancing office and someone photocopied them. I know which I prefer especially when being asked to do this multiple times.