Complete refusal to use technology

[Senttotestus]

My mum is 79 & a completely technophobic
In her mid 50s she resigned from her job as a Drs receptionist because they introduced computers. She worked for a few more years on a helpline then retired at 60
She has never sent a text message or WhatsApp
She has never sent an email
She cannot google anything
She has never purchased or booked anything online

A man from a tech charity for the elderly spent 2 sessions with her with no improvement

Over covid I told her she must learn to FaceTime & she has £1k worth of iPad for this purpose, she can also log onto her Halifax app to look at her balance - she cannot make any payments.

i do all her online banking, food shopping &
booking of appointments, she eagerly gives out my email address as if I am her PA

She has just rung to see where her Waitrose delivery is & she was unable to open the Waitrose app on her iPad - ITS 3 CLICKS - she presses everything with such force that most times the IPad thinks she is trying to move the apps around

I am accepting of this most days but today it just feels wilful that she has rejected all technology for over 20 years and thinks it’s acceptable to shrug and get me to do everything , laughing at any suggestion that she should be able to do some of these very basic things.

Rant over - deep breaths!! Anyone else in a similar position?

Absolutely the sane position. My mum pokes at the iPhone with her nail, claim it doesn’t work and once threw it on the ground. She’s 80. I have had to accept she’s beyond learning anything new now.

My DM, 79:

• Non smartphone, always off
• Refuses to pay bills by direct debit, bar energy bills when I spent about 2 years persuading
• I order food online, only since became less able to do all on the bus herself
• Can Google, do crosswords on tablet, and once in extremis, suddenly able to use video calling despite previous refusal
• Mostly I nod and smile when she complains about her local bank closing and not having a card to withdraw money from her savings account

Oh my. We must have the same mum. That television thing happened only last week.

MIL was like this. Used it as a form of control IMO.

Indeed - it has often crossed my mind that anxiety is a big problem there. But it's her normal so it's hard to convince her that it's not 'normal'.

She's also very proud of never needing to take medication for anything for her entire life, and is convinced that medication she does take (only the odd paracetamol for ninety years) sends her straight to sleep. She's been prescribed a medication for a condition that developed recently, but (1) won't accept she has this condition, and (2) managed to negotiate a lower dosage with her GP, because of denial and also because she believes this medication works differently for her than for anyone else taking it. We were not happy that the GP was OK with the lowered dosage in the face of DM's strenuous campaign, but it was her professional decision. I can't see her ever accepting that she'd find MH meds a plus.

There's a whole generation of middle aged people right now rejecting any idea of AI who will be similarly left behind in 20-30 years.

There are plenty of people on here who will say they wouldn't. It's like some sort of weird flex.

Going to go a bit against the grain here, although slightly different as DM is 92 and MIL is 90. My mother doesn't have a computer/use mobile phone etc. When she gets scam calls it is easy for her to tell them they're lying (although they sometimes refuse to believe she doesn't have the internet and argue!!); as a result we do not have to worry about her . My MIL has computer/phone/tablet and believes she knows what she is doing; 100 times worse! She orders crap from China that we can't return, get scammed into buying crypto, the other week fell for the "mum my phone's not working, send £2000 pounds now!!" and did, so bank had to refund and community police visited to have a chat. If you think she'd be incompetent with it, then it is easier to do things for her. We have taken on more and more, but she still finds new things to mess up. 🙈

My parents are the same

Dad bought an iPad and my DS and DD have spent time teaching him- he can’t be bothered and leaves me to manage everything.

His is a form of control, for other people they may be nervous about something new.

Tbh I believe in evolve or die 🤷‍♀️ (sorry to sound harsh- issues are with my parents).

They are now reliant on others to manage bills, bank, buy stuff 😳

I don't think it's always as simple as saying they won't try. My dm doesn't understand tech at all. She's tried but it's like a foreign language to her. She's mid 80s and until recently had an old 2g Nokia 4210. When we had to buy her a new phone some years ago she tried so hard, but her fear of the technology meant she just couldn't do it. She was so upset, saying she must be stupid. After we finally got her a 4g version she burst in to tears of relief. My 90 year old dad does have a smart phone and will look some stuff up. Even so, he needs help to clean up the phone and apps periodically. Neither of them trust themselves to do internet banking or pay for stuff online. They've heard so many stories of scams and people losing their life savings they daren't risk it.

They are very independent in most ways, which it seems many people's parents aren't. They ask for very little help and hate to rely on anyone for anything, but they never came across anything with computers in their work. They had very traditional interests where there was no need for email contacts etc, and all family were local, so there was no incentive to access social media. It isn't unreasonable if they struggle given their lifestyle over the years, and I doubt they had a crystal ball 20 years ago that led them to believe it would be important to get tech savvy in order to function in today's world.
In any case, they were rather busy supporting aged parents who didn't understand cashpoints, couldn't remember how to use a card to collect their pension from the post office, and had complex health issues. They had no energy or mental capacity for anything else.

Mixed feelings about all this. I’m really happy with my iPad , have all my accounts on line but still use a cheque to pay milkman and gardener,and cash for kids who come to wash the car and window cleaner. Amazon at my door whenever I can’t be bothered to go out,Waitrose and Ocado shop alternately for boring stuff. WhatsApp daily to family abroad. I’m a hair’s breadth off 80. I did notice Sweden needed to use cash one day last week. A dear friend resigned from her job as a medical receptionist because it became too technical. She refused the internet. I occasionally wondered if it was a way in which she could put two fingers up at the world. She had a child born disabled who eventually died and her husband could not cope leaving her with two other children. She was an excellent driver and all round highly educated and competent woman in other respects. Definitely suggest getting young person not related to the mothers to show how to go online.

My mum is late eighties and manages to use IT effectively.
Where the difficulties come is when there are long time gaps between doing things, so it's like starting from scratch every time there's something new to learn.
Start with a mobile - sit next to her and make her practice sending texts and making calls, in front of you. Get family to text/WhatsApp her at least daily so that she gets used to receiving and answering. Write down the instructions, if necessary with screenshots, so that she has something to refer to when you're not there.
Then show her the settings and get her to try out different functions.
Show her how to google. Get her to do it in front of you. Show her the nice stuff she can do- see photos of grandchildren, look up U3A classes etc.

I’m a bit in the fence here… yes, there’s no excuse for older people - especially younger older people, to be rejecting technology.

But… my aunt, for example, is 96. She was an early adopter of all things technological and loved online shopping/banking/SM. However, she is now suffering from poor eyesight and is a bit shaky. So she’s out. It’s a bit thought-provoking… how are we all going to operate when we’re too decrepit to see the damn phone?!

Re the television… that’s me! Dh is a major tech nerd. He’s always messing about with the sitting-room tech. It’s like the flippin’ Odeon. Sometimes I sit down to watch something and every remote control has changed or has been “reconfigured” 😡

Is it a 'rejection' of technology though or cognitive or excecutive functiong that simply cant manage it?
Why do we accept (quite rightly we do) that there are some young people who cant do certain things, they're always going to need support to do x, y z

Those older people who never needed to know whether they could encounter computers or digital skills or understand those things, wouldnt have been viewed as needing support or help, its only when those things have come along

I cant use a phone that well, I dont have the eyesight and now have very poor fine motor control. Impossible to navigate on it, I cant be relied on to click or point to the right thing. I dont know how much pressure my digits are giving at any one time. Over time its getting worse, Im only in my 50s!

I think people fail to see just how exclusive the digital world and online world is, not just physically in terms of holding and physically managing a device but remembering and understanding the methods and order and sequences and passwords etc etc. Lots of people are being slowly eased out of access and inclusion and the narrative is 'learn or die'. Nice.

My parents are 95 and 90, and while they need some help occasionally and won’t use the online bank, they do their Sainsbury’s shopping online, manage phone contracts, and email, WhatsApp etc. Mum had even mastered emojis. It’s possible to learn if she wants to. Sounds as though she doesn’t.

My mum is funny. We got a VCR about 35 years ago. She would have been early fifties. Never learnt to use it. I remember ringing her to ask her to video something that night: simply put a blank tape in and press record. She went to try then came back to the phone to ask “Which was do I put the tape in?”

I bought her a basic mobile when she was 60. Could barely use that. The one time I had train trouble and it was useful for her to have she needed to ask for help from someone to answer it. (Push a button - definitely not a touch-screen.)

Yet computers she could do to some extent. Even learnt how to use tablets in her late 70s. Though she slammed the phone down on me when I was unable to diagnose a problem she was having from a distance of 600 miles. Apparently I should have known the mouse was the wrong way with the buttons under the palm not fingers!

Sympathies OP, my DM is the same age and exactly the same. In her case, though, it's down to a lifelong, passionate hatred/phobia of all things technological, not just stubbornness. It took dad 20 years to persuade her to get a microwave (which she wouldn't have a clue how to use). She's never had a mobile phone, smart or otherwise, or used the Internet. If we're visiting and someone gets a phone notification, her head goes up like a startled deer and she'll say in a panicked voice, 'what's beeping, something's beeping!' She changed bank a couple of years ago out of rage, because dad wanted to open a savings account for her and they wouldn't do it without an email address. She can just about navigate the TV, but that's it.

In practical terms, it's never caused major problems because dad is very tech savvy - but if he weren't around she'd be totally screwed, and even now it would be very helpful if she had a phone. She's now developing dementia, so she definitely won't change (though I don't think she would have done anyway) - but it also means that a lot of the tech things for dementia that might really help her (like an Alexa) are completely off the table. It's very frustrating.

I have a friend who’s 66 - she refuses to learn. She’s always getting others to order stuff for her and collects from them. She won’t book any event - we all have to do it. She is full of excuses about arthritis in her hands (not as bad as mine!) says that she likes the walk to banks, shops etc but I can see that she’s scared of tech and of all the scam horror stories. I have gently explained a few things and tried to encourage her - I’ve also said that we’ll never be this young again so it’d be better to try now.
My 85 yr old neighbour on the other hand, goes to bed at 7 pm with a large glass of red and her iPad to watch soaps, make calls etc. 🤷‍♀️

Nor would I refuse. My mum was terrified of all IT but I now realise that she was starting to lose her sight and was in the early stages of dementia. It was a pain but I’m now glad that I helped her.

My parents are late 70s and have never had the Internet. They both have a simple smart phone and my dad uses the mobile data on both to go on Facebook

My mum can text me on hers and take a photo but that's it.
It makes it so difficult because I end up having to do everything for them. My dad uses online bank accounts to get a good rate but doesn't know how to use the apps so I have to do it all.
He cant ever remember passwords and doesn't write them down and then gets angry with me when he doesn't know it.
What annoys me the most is my late nan was completely deaf and ended up so isolated. If I could have text her or sent her photos , and she could have watched her favourite old programmes with subtitles but she couldnt because she couldnt use technology. We had to tape all the buttons over on the tv remote. It was stressful. They saw and dealt with all this and now they are doing it. Have never ordered anything in their lives and think people that order food online are disgraceful and wasteful. I wish people
Could see that technology opens up people's worlds!

Link to alexa so she can ask alexa

Why can’t you just accept your mum doesn’t want to get tech savvy? My mum didn’t. She wouldn’t even use the microwave that was pre installed in her kitchen. She wasn’t a fan of using the phone, either - mainly, I think, because of her hearing issues. Yes, it might be a bit frustrating for you but not everyone is able / willing to embrace technology in the way we are.

@asknotwhat
Same, with the lifelong hatred/ phobia, and even the years and years of persuasion to get a microwave (he finally went out and bought one when she was away visiting a family member).

I get your frustration. My DM is the same age - but, her iPad will have to be extracted from her - she very much loves her tech so its not all an age thing!

Has anyone talked to her about what is the barrier - you say she is pressing like apps are a button that has to be pressed. Had she had difficulties with cognitive processing her whole life. Something isn't clicking for her and it's overwhelming for her so she is shutting down. Would finding that initial barrier help do you think. I've pmd you suggestions from Ai.

This post has saddened me somewhat, and as I posted previously, you should be glad to have your parents.
I can’t believe how many of you selfishly would consider not helping. I just hope that when you are all elderly and your health, sight, mobility and cognitive abilities are reduced, and there’s an advancement in technology that your children don’t decide to stop
paying your bills, helping you out, doing your foodshop etc because you can’t keep up with how fast the world has moved.
My parents are in their 80s, not tech savvy and it’s a privilege to help them, and yes I do work full time and have my own children.