Should old people be allowed new tech?

terencejames

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I popped in to Currys today and there's two elderly people at the counter in front of me. The first one is raging because the license on some software he has purchased (Anti-Virus?) has expired and he has to pay to renew it. He was really laying into the shop assistant who was trying their best to be helpful. Anyway, the guy ended up storming out, flailing his arms about as he went. The second was an old dear with an Ipad who was struggling to get it set up, I think. To be fair, she was very nice and respectful but she's got all her passwords written down on the back of an envelope and she's loudly telling the tech support guy them all. I know new tech might be a lifeline to some older people but it bothers me that some of them have no idea what they could actually be disclosing to others.
 
I bet a lot of them don’t have a choice. I know both my council and GP won’t speak to me anymore unless it’s online. It’s these old dears who will be suffering by these stupid decisions.
 
That'll be me some day
 
What's this got to do with being old? More just not good at tech. My aunt is in her mid 70s, shops on Amazon and is a big gamer, especially Red Dead 2 and the Assassins Creed games. Nothing to do with age. Plenty of elderly tech savvy people on this very forum.
 
Should old people be allowed new tech?

Sheesh.

I’ve helped out many old folk as clueless as the ones you’ve described but, the fact is, they need and want their gadgets as much as we do. Their use cases may likely have a different focus and they may struggle but, sorry, I did LOL at your question.

Plenty who have zero problems too, my mum and mother in law are examples.
 
Surely we're getting to the point when "old" people are Tech-Savy ?

April 23rd will be the 40th anniversary of the release of the ZX Spectrum, The Atari VCS appeared in the late 70s. So a lot of teenagers playing them are now coming up to their 60th birthday
 
Agesism ahoy

I can imagine there are many elderly people struggle with new tech,my luddite parents would be lost without me

There are so many obstacles these days for people who are not tech savvy,places like PC World should have specially trained staff to assist those who find it confusing while the sales staff get on with their selling to those who know what they want

Or OP do you think they should just say 'sod off old fart'?
 
Surely we're getting to the point when "old" people are Tech-Savy ?

April 23rd will be the 40th anniversary of the release of the ZX Spectrum, The Atari VCS appeared in the late 70s. So a lot of teenagers playing them are now coming up to their 60th birthday

Many are and sorry if I sounded like I was generalising, my parents are in their mid seventies, my dad always worked in construction, my mum a housewife, neither had any interest or exposure to tech apart from finding themselves being forced to deal with it in recent years

my dad is pretty adaptable to it (I taught him during lockdown) but my mum can't handle it

Many elderly people still need assistance with it
 
Of course they should, competency is not always related to age. My 90 year old mother in law can use her iPad effectively for Instagram and ordering her groceries online.
my mother did make me laugh though when she thought that when she paused live TV it stopped for everyone
 
Some people like my older brothers (I'm 56) just give up at the first hurdle whereas others are totally clued-up about tech. Depends on whether they have given up trying to understand the changing world.
 
No they shouldn't, in fact they should have it confiscated if caught using it and it only given back at the end of the day.

Unless I'm getting them mixed up with another age group 🤯
 
Relating to my previous post. I gave one of my brothers the login details of my PLEX account so he could watch all the content I have on my hard drive. A week later he called me as he couldn't log in, so I spent around 20 minutes on the phone with him trying to get him to log in. He still couldn't get to log in so I was asking him is he trying to log in online using the PLEX online login, or had he downloaded PLEX to his brand new LG plasma (He has good wifi etc) but after 15 minutes after telling me he had the app on his TV I discovered that he was trying to use the PLEX online app, rather than the TV's app. It got so confusing that he eventually gave up as his frustration was apparent. I 'll sort it out when I eventually drive the 50 miles to see him but it was a palaver that should have been simple enough to solve.
 
Surely we're getting to the point when "old" people are Tech-Savvy ?
My dad (73) worked with with spreadsheets on an Apple ][e and eprom programming on a BBC Micro; before that programming in the Fortran language at college.
And I thought I got in at the start with ZX81/Videogenie/Acorn Atom/RML380Z programming at secondary - just before the BBC computer literacy project was announced.
 
My mother is not so tech savvy. During lockdown we tried to get her set up with a Kindle. We must have said about 20 times that she needed to enter her internet password exactly as it was written using upper and lower case. When we eventually got her to answer us on Skype we saw that she had not filled these instructions at all, her entries consisted of spaces and numbers and letters that was not even part of the password
However, in fairness she did manage the Skype link
 
I wrote my first commercially used program in 1972, the person that taught me the language was near 45. That would make them around 95 if still going. Old people haven't a clue eh.
 
My mother was a qualified computer programmer over 50 years ago. This was the sort of computer she used. Would love to see how the OP would get on with it and if he would be quite so condescending about old people and technology after.

network-1960-378x281.jpg
 
Considering a ton of people on this forum and perhaps even this thread are old gits I think it's fair to say some are fairly good with tech 😅



ducks for cover
 
My mother was a qualified computer programmer over 50 years ago. This was the sort of computer she used. Would love to see how the OP would get on with it and if he would be quite so condescending about old people and technology after.

network-1960-378x281.jpg
Were there many old people programming those back in the day?
 
What's this got to do with being old? More just not good at tech. My aunt is in her mid 70s, shops on Amazon and is a big gamer, especially Red Dead 2 and the Assassins Creed games. Nothing to do with age. Plenty of elderly tech savvy people on this very forum.
Conversely, I know people in their thirties who are fairly useless with anything tech-related.

Your aunt sounds awesome by the way!
 

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