Old people and technology

[jaybird2001wi]

This thread is not a so-called "bashing" of old people, but rather an absurd look at how old people perceive even the most primitive technology that evolved into what it is today, such as computers, etc.

Does anyone have any hilarious experiences with relatives old or naive enough not to understand technology most of us use on a daily basis?

 

1. About 12 years ago when my parents got their first computer and I was using it during a holiday get together, my Grandpa watched me type a simple word document and he asked me if I "could erase with it if I make a mistake."

2. My dad continues to tell people at work that I have a "website" but it is actually just my actual hotmail e-mail account.

3. A relative of mine turns his cell phone off when re-charging because he thinks you can't accept or call people when your phone is charging.

4. When I worked in a retail store in high school and as a sales associate I would sometimes have to work at the electronics counter. A father came in and asked me if we had the new Atari in that his son wanted for a birthday gift. I wanted to explain to him that it is not 1985, but it would have been rude. Then he finally found out the name and said, "He wants an e-box for his birthday." Someone think his son wanted an XBox?

5. I still have to explain to my parents what MySpace is all about.

6. Most recently a family friend came to me freaked out and showed me a pen that can be unscrewed to show a USB Flash Drive she received as a gift from work. She seemed scared that it was her work's attempt to spy on her. Then I tried explaining what a flash drive is an where it can be plugged into a computer and how it works. I basically explained it like this: "Picture those old floppy disks that stored information, only this can store more data." They accepted this explanation.

 

Anyone have hilarious or absurd stories?

[DuWayne Steurer]

Anybody who's not exposed to a technology or terminology won't know how to use it, not just old people.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

I got a guy in the office that thinks that his new mouse is the reason his num lock key stopped working.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I had a lady at my workplace tell me that she was trying to use microsoft word on her home computer, and it was saying "your 90 day trial version has expired", and she thought it was a problem with her internet.

[Diskono]

5. I still have to explain to my parents what MySpace is all about.

That isn't so bad. I haven't figured it out either.

[nate82]

A friend of mine sent me these in an e-mail awhile back.

• Customer: "I can't get online."
• Tech Support: "Can you be more specific?"
• Customer: "It says, 'Bad username/password'."
• Tech Support: "What is your username?"
• Customer: "Are you sure that the Internet isn't closed for the night?"

• Woman 1: "What is that little trash can on the screen?"
• Woman 2: "My son says that is call the 'recycle bin'. He tells me when I don't want a Word document anymore and I delete it, it really goes in there."
• Woman 1: "Why in the recycle thingy? Can't you just erase it?"
• Woman 2: "Oh no, Word wouldn't work for very long if I did that, I would run out of blank pages."
• Woman 1: "Why?"
• Woman 2: "Because it cleans the words off the pages, then sends the blank sheets back to Word so they can be used again. That's why it's called the recycle bin."

Those are my favorites. He got them from this site.

[Invader3K]

About ten years ago I had an older co-worker (guy was probably in his early 40s) ask me "What's your codename?" when he heard me talking about computers. I realized later he was asking for my e-mail address.

 

Also, when my family first got the internet in early '96, a friend of mine asked me "How many channels do you get on it?" When I told him that there were probably thousands of websites out there, he refused to believe me.

[PeaveyFury]

Go to Woodman's on some weekend and watch people try and figure out the self-checkout lanes. Wow.

[1992casey]

I'm not sure how old is old, but I've been much more frustrated by those that most would consider young.

 

A few weeks ago, I stopped at a Milwaukee area Radio Shack to pick up a crossover cable. In the effort to find one, two confused employees in their 20s tried to tell me that all Ethernet cables are the same. No, they're not. I found the right cable, showed the employees the various packages, and explained to them when they're supposed to sell a crossover cable and when they should be selling a patch cable. They're totally not interchangeable.

 

That Radio Shack experience was an exception; they're usually pretty good. Best Buy employees, usually in their 20s and 30s, are another story.

 

A few weeks ago, I overheard an employee in his early 20s telling customers that a Mac computer is difficult to use. It crossed my mind to jump in with a diatribe (centered on dealing with malware) that would have made him look pretty dumb, but I refrained. He was already looking pretty dumb on his own, and I think the potential buyers could see that.

 

Last week, I was looking at an external hard drive that connected via USB, Firewire, and ATA. I wanted to know what kind of cable I'd buy to connect via ATA. As he had no clue, his response was, "Why would you use anything other than USB?" I should have said, "because it offers that option and if I knew how much I might be investing in a cable, you might sell me the thing," but I was too nice.

[lukevan]

A few years back, my grandmother was excited about the new Dell computer she had purchased. When asked about it, she said "Yep, I just dialed 1-800-Gateway..."

[razzzorsharp]

I had a teacher that tried to put her old (the really old ones) into a cd drive. It didn't work for her and the students in the end didn't have "Rootbeer Tapper" at their disposal.

[Weirdos19]

My mother called me last night and said that she couldn't get the basketball game off of my TV. She was babysitting my 3 year old. I had to tell her to hit the back button to get the remote back to her CSI show.

 

Also, I have an internet, touchscreen jukebox at my bar. Need I say more?

[pitchleague]

Rather than post this huge 3-page diatribe of stories on this topic, I decided to break it into twelve parts, making them separate posts. I didn't want to do one jumbo jumbo sized post as I know that I find those annoying every now and then. Just be aware that my list started with only five items and jumped as I continued to remember more and more stories.

 

Also, I am not trying to run up my post count. Who really cares anyways?

 

edit: I also will be posting these in intermittent times so they don't all run consecutively. But they're all written at this time (unless I think of some more.)

[pitchleague]

my goodness, where do I start?

 

First of all, these stories are all about my parents and their lack of understanding. I love my folks but sometimes they can be the most dimwitted people ever when it comes to electronics and other technology. Secondly, although I know a lot about tech and can usually (but not always) fix my own problems (or at least know how to find out information about the problem), I still have never used MySpace or Facebook and probably never will. I know what they're for (I think) and I highly doubt that I need to network socially. I have a wife. I have friends. I really have no need to share stuff on my own "page" (i.e. pictures, blogs, etc.). With my job (teacher) I also don't need my students and/or their families looking me up on Facebook or something.

 

And now. . . . . . on with the stories (there's a lot. Heck, I wrote down 3 more just while writing the above paragraph!)

 

1. When my wife and I got engaged, we celebrated by going up to Vegas for a nice meal. My folks came, too, because they wanted to shop for an inexpensive computer from the Gateway store and they wanted my advice to help get them what they really would need. Of course, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING went out in and out of their ears in less than an hour because instead of buying some fairly inexpensive computer that they could use for internet, email, etc. they walked out of their with a $2800 desktop, speakers, printer, and scanner. On top it all, the desktop was loaded with WINDOWS ME! Ugh! Oh, the computer died about 4 years later, the speakers only work with a digital sound card (so they're useless on most computers), the printer still works but is really crappy, and the scanner, which was purchased so they could transfer old photos and slides was never used.

[1992casey]

On top it all, the desktop was loaded with WINDOWS ME!

 

Ugh. Windows Malignant Edition should have never been thrust upon anyone. It's a pain for even the technologically adept.

 

If someone's older and has never used a computer, the biggest favor one could do for that person is to recommend an iMac with everything wireless. Besides not needing to learn how to run several malware programs before learning anything else, the only cords one has to worry about are the ones that plug into the electrical outlets. The only concern is changing the keyboard and mouse batteries when the computer yells at you to do it. Most people can master that.

 

The big issue I've had is convincing my dad that when he lives alone in a 3,000 square foot house (not counting another couple thousand square feet in the basement), he should have a phone in every room, even if he's rarely in said room.

[endaround]

The biggest issue for me right now is getting my mother to realize that browsers have tabs and not to close the entire browser window when you get a pop up.

[pitchleague]

2. When my folks first got internet, it was just a standard dial-up line. For some reason, I would get telephone calls daily stating that they couldn't get onto the internet. They called a tech out and everything checked out. But as soon as he left, they couldn't get online. Finally, after a few days of this madness, I went over to investigate myself. I was stumped for the longest time until I checked out the dial up connection box. Every time they tried to dial up the internet, they typed in THEIR HOME PHONE NUMBER instead of the dial-up number from the phone company. I think the neighbors heard the "head-slap" I made on my forehead when I discovered what the problem was. DUH!!!!

[owbc]

For the longest time, my mom did not understand that you don't have to hit "enter" when you reach the end of a line in MS Word and that it automatically drops you down to the next line if you keep typing. Obviously, this caused major problems when she had to edit anything that she already typed. However, I am proud to say that she is now competent with word, email, and knows how to use a web cam. My 82 year old grandparents also have a computer now and are able to browse the internet and send emails. They initially were very afraid of it, but they were willing to learn and they figured it out after awhile like the rest of us. I think some people just don't want to take the time to learn.

[GAME05]

The father once called me insisting that if he got a wireless router, he could get an internet connection without having an actual provider. I went with the metaphor of the service provider being the radio station and the router being its FM signal. when that didn't work, I went with "Just trust me." when even that didn't work, I told him to call my brother.

 

although that story is pretty weak compared to all the ones above. my parent's computer is basically a six-year old solitaire machine. when there's a problem they just don't go on the computer for however many months until me or my brother get home and fix it.

[Crazyk1294]

I was watching the Packer game at Mom and Dad's. Mom just started texting for work, but has trouble seeing the keys and the screen on her tiny phone. The commercial for a the Blackberry Storm came on. Mother asked me, "Do I need a black-man?" A chuckle was had by all.

[Schlitz001]

I'll brag about my grandparents a little bit. They will be celebrating their 60th wedding aniversary next month and are well into their 80s, but they have always been on top of the newest technologies without any young whippersnappers telling them how to do things. They own a 42" plasma TV, which is hooked up to HD programming. They have GPS in their vehicle which they program without problems. They each have working cell phones. They get a new laptop every 3-4 years and do extensive work on it including keeping in touch with the family by e-mailing digital photos.

I've always been impressed with how these grandparents keep up with technology. It's a stark contrast with my two grandparents on the other side of my family. They live in Germany. No one on their block has internet and their telephone has to be 25 years old at least. I tried to bring up the topic of internet to this grandma and she just looked at me like I was crazy. It's a tough topic to discuss with a woman who bikes to the bakery every morning for fresh milk and bread.

[burniebrewer]

Go to Woodman's on some weekend and watch people try and figure out the self-checkout lanes. Wow.

This is easy. It's funny, I now find myself picking the stores I go to by whether they have self-checks or not as I'd rather do it myself.

 

I still have no idea about half the things my computer can do though.

[chuckiehacks]

Years ago, someone in my office kept receiving faxes that were just blank pages. We assumed that the person sending the fax was just putting the fax in upside-down when sending it. Nope. She was folding it in half before faxing it, so no one would see it laying on the fax machine on the other end.

[Menotti80]

one of the funniest short comedy skits i have ever seen was by dave mordal on last comic standing (seasons 1 and 3). he is from minnesota and apparently hosts a new show on the discovery or history channel.

 

anyways, he did a short bit on how his parents being horrible with technology is very frustrating to him.

 

if you have a free 3 or 4 minutes, so go this site, search for "dave mordal", and play the video where he's wearing a light color plaid shirt.

 

actually, i think this link should go directly to it.

 

http://video.dotcomedy.co...ve%20mordal#videoid=98708

[DuWayne Steurer]

A co-worker shared this story with me a few weeks back. She works in internet support where I work, and she had a customer call in and ask why the "credit card slot" on her computer wasn't working.

 

Turns out she was putting her credit card in the floppy drive to shop on the internet.