Older folks who don't understand computers

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You know, the kind of people that insist on carefully reading every single message or warning before even daring to contemplate clicking the mouse, who act like you are crazy if you browse web pages too fast or just click icons willy-nilly, who react with amazement when you perform the simplest of tasks. What hope is there for these poor bastards?

― Darcus How? (nordicskilla), Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm feeling more and more like one of'em with every passing year, alas...

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Dud: The few folks that keep sending you "funny" chain emails or good luck sayings from the Dalai Lama - the EXACT same threads you saw in 1997, but are new to them.

I just got ANOTHER "Bill Gates will give you $3000 if you just sign up for this email test..." Bastards.

― andy, Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Definite dud. These are the same folks that can't remember how to get into their email acct, even though they JUST set the fucker up the day before. Write that password down, damn you---before I rubber stamp it on your forehead.

(This hasn't happened to me, oh no....)

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic: people who send you hoax virus warnings which say stuff like "Officially the worst virus ever according to CNN". It's fair enough to be caught out first time, I reckon, cos they must assume the chum who sent it to them actually wrote it. But when you explain the hoax and how it works, they nod for a bit before pointing out the deadly flaw in your argument: "But how can it be a hoax if it was on CNN?"

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh classic. It makes my extensive knowledge of Word on my resume slightly more impressive to some people, thus making it look like I have skills.

― NA (Nick A.), Thursday, 15 January 2004 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

You must delete jbdmfngrgrgr.exe otherwise your modem will rape you.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 16 January 2004 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Dud: The few folks that keep sending you "funny" chain emails or good luck sayings from the Dalai Lama - the EXACT same threads you saw in 1997, but are new to them

Andy, I kiss you.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 16 January 2004 00:15 (twenty-two years ago)

"...and now you can minimize the window."
"OH NO HOW DO I DO THAT?? ...I can't find the little arrow anymore! Look, you'd better do this, I'm sorry, I'm too old to understand any of this technology stuff."
"Here, why don't you try playing solitaire for a while, just so you can practice controlling the mouse."
"But I don't know how! I only know how to play solitaire with CARDS!"

dud.

― Poppy (poppy), Friday, 16 January 2004 00:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Dud! My mother calls me in a panic all the time "OH NO I WAS TRYING TO REINSTALL MY DIALUP AND NOW I CANT GET NETBANKING HELP WHAT DO I DO"

Three hours later I get another call or email saying "never mind I fixed it" so at least she's learning, I guess.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 16 January 2004 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

This is where I'm glad my parents don't have a computer and don't care.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 January 2004 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Remember a large number of joke chain emails started their lives as joke chain faxes.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 16 January 2004 02:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Older people (i.e. people who are elderly) who don't really give a damn if they understand computers are smart. You see, there's very little advantage to their learning new technologies at this stage in their lives. They're certainly not going to get rewarded for it at their place of employment, because they're already retired. They won't live long enough to where keeping up with technological advances will be vital. They're usually very content with only understanding as much as they did when they were last employed or when their youngest children were about ready to leave the nest. Why worry about something that won't really give you an advantage anywhere?

This does not apply to people who are elderly who've been involved with technological/computing-related things for ages and ages, though. If that was their livelihood, then they probably don't need anyone to tell them that they should keep up with what's happening in the world of computing.

― As Sweet As Melody (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 16 January 2004 05:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, as a counterargument:

http://www.ateaseweb.com/news/index.php

One piece of music that won't be hitting the marketplace is the live soundtrack Radiohead provided in October for the world premiere of Merce Cunningham's "Split Sides" at the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Academy of Music. The piece is not scheduled to be performed again in 2004.

"It's just for the dancing and that's it," Greenwood says of the music. "It was important to us and we took it seriously. It was a privilege. What a man! [Cunningham] is inspiring. We went to his apartment in New York and he was demonstrating how he used a laptop to do the choreography, and he's in his 80s. He sat there using a [Macintosh] G4. Just to have not given up and keep changing is inspiring."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 January 2004 05:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Merce Cunningham obv sees computers and keeping up with technology as part of his livelihood, then. Granted, it is in a manner I didn't really consider in that first post of mine (i.e. creatively), but still, his efforts are not going without reward.

The situation is different for an Average Senior Citizen, though. If someone who's 75 or so doesn't see the purpose of keeping up with the world of technology and computing, I don't see any reason for pushing them into that world or chastising them.

― As Sweet As Melody (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 16 January 2004 08:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Try to show my parents how to use a PC is maddening. My mother has picked it up reasonably well (She had to I don't tend to talk to my family via the phone anymore) However my father acts like the mouse is about to turn round and bite his hand any second. Asmittedly it was amusing to begin with, now it's just painful to watch.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Friday, 16 January 2004 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic and Dud at the same time: Parents on IM.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 16 January 2004 09:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic and Dud at the same time: Parents on IM.

Whoa.

― gazuga (gazuga), Friday, 16 January 2004 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

my parents have no interest in buying a computer. I've tried to point out the advantages, but they are having none of it. they are quite content not to own a computer and not to understand how they work or what they do. I told my mother that i would be happy to teach her how to use a computer if she bought one and she replied "Yes, that's what I'm afraid of!"

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 16 January 2004 10:06 (twenty-two years ago)

people more surprising than Dee thinks shocker

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 16 January 2004 10:11 (twenty-two years ago)

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Older folks who don't understand computers - classic or dud?