The most painful moment went something like this:
Dad: Hey, the computer isn’t working, can you take a look at it? Computer: Full of porn popups because he was googling ‘brittany spears nude’
Trying to teach my dad to double click.
Click twice really fast kept translating to two slow clicks. Took 2 hours of showing him how to do it.
Sometimes I worry they are being purposely dense because they want to spend more time with us.
Ouch. That hit me hard bro. I was the computer geek for my fam and felt this way as well. This was commadore 64 years. Now I wish my son would call me.
same for touch screen tapping. They just hammer their finger and keep it there for 5 seconds, then wonder why it didn’t work
I do this when the shitty touch screens for Kiosks don’t work. It is a compromise between my inner caveman who just wants to destroy it and the part of me which thinks that’s a waste of effort.
My 4 year old similarly struggled. I finally taught her to click the icon then hit enter which she’s stuck with
Helping my octogenarian mom with her iPhone is the most painful experience. She often calls me about something that has “popped up” in some app that she’s using. I tell her to just close it and she says “how?” I then say something like “just click the OK button … or the Done or Close buttons, that will be some unknown color … or click the X in the upper right or maybe the upper left corner … or click “Done” or “Close” in the toolbar, on the left or right sides … or maybe the thing has slid up from the bottom and you need to swipe down to get rid of it … or maybe you need to click the Home tab on the app’s bottom bar.”
I’ve actually been an iOS mobile developer for 15 years now. Anybody who thinks there’s any sort of consistent, intuitive design principles behind Apple products is insane.
Android is on board with that crap too. Software Buttons that don’t always pop and gestures are trash.
But at least Android still has the option to enable the old button bar at the bottom of the screen, it has a back button that pretty much closes everything that opens up.
Pixel changes the navigation mode to gesture only by default. You can go and turn that back to three button mode and it is pretty successful, If you know it’s there.
I find Samsung’s one UI implementation to be dodgy when apps go full screen sometimes it doesn’t like to stay on, sometimes when apps come out of autohide there’s a race condition and the app will appear over the bar rendering it unselectable. That bugs been there for years. It’s also irritating that the button positions on vanilla and one UI are backward of each other.
The gestures in Android do the same thing as the button bar, so even when I use gestures I always have a dedicated back gesture.
At least it’s the same type of phone you use. My mom has a cheap android phone, with all sorts of crap and limitations from the provider. I guess it’s cheap, but sometimes it’s just not worth it. Anyhow, I haven’t used an Android phone in at least ten years, have no idea about all the crap on hers, and she doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe what she sees or does, but I’m supposed to help over the phone?
It’s much easier if she has an Android phone, you can just use TeamViewer to see and control her phone remotely https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.host.market
I feel this lol
I do have some personal experience to ‘prove’ the contrary, since I gave my grandmother an iPhone, it become much easier to deal with. That might be bias though, as that is my primary device as well, so I might just be more used to it compared to troubleshooting Android devices.
My grandmother has always had iPhones and I’ve always been on the android side of the fence. She’s been struggling with spam texts and unfortunately I’m not seeing an obvious way to stop them. Meanwhile my pixel automagically tosses basically all spam texts usually before I even see them. Honestly the spam is becoming a problem because she’s getting so many texts from organizations begging for donations and she doesn’t actually know how much she actually has set up to donate every month or to whom
I’ve been wondering about that. It would certainly be easier if my mom had the same type of phone I do, and I can find all the accessibility options, but it’s just too expensive for something she uses only as a telephone
My mother once threatened to evict me (was still living with them) because I asked her to back up her important files for me to carry them over to the new office computer I had set up for her.
She flat out refused to even attempt it or answer any of my investigative questions. This woman had been using windows computers for work for over 20 years at this point, but the thought of opening an explorer window apparently terrified her so much we got into an actual shouting match over it.
God bless you
I’m real proud of my mom actually. She couldn’t even navigate the desktop when she started, but she has turned into a real techie. I used to have to do everything for her, but these days if she has a problem she looks up solutions online and is usually able to sort things out herself. She’s 79. The only “old person” thing she still does is store files on her desktop and also keep a billion tabs open on her web browser lol.
My dad’s the world champion with his tab usage.
At one point they booked a holiday in Spain, that was about 6 years ago and the damn tab is still open. 6 years.
What a legend!
All the old person BS is just that. Anyone who chooses to stop learning has actively made a choice, being old doesn’t just turn your brain to mush.
For what it’s worth, I’m a mid 20s software developer and I store lots of files on my desktop. Ive heard the main argument against it, but imo the convenience is just worth it.
My parents: “You’re a nerd, can you help with our computer?”
I reluctantly overlook how insulting they always are and help
Many months later
My parents: “Our computer isn’t working right lately. It’s probably your fault from the last time you were messing with it.”
It’s probably your fault from the last time you were messing with it.
“Ok, you better ask someone else then. Clearly I’ll only make it worse.”
You’ll never prove them wrong by falling for the manipulation tactic.
People who are bad at understanding tech and logic coincidentally tend to be very competent at these kinds of tactics.
You should answer:
And it is your fault being assholes. Live with the consequences.
Then cut contact as much as possible
Is the Lemmy version of “lawyer up, hit the gym” basically just “cut contact with family at the slightest insult”?
hit up, lawyer the gym
Hit the wife, divorce the lawyer, talk to the gym?
I hope so. Many of our parents need to learn that “family” isn’t about blood, it’s about who I allow to be in my life. I don’t give a fuck if you’re related to me, treat me with respect and I’ll reciprocate.
You realize that “lawyer up, hit the gym” was a silly overgeneralization that eventually turned into a meme, right?
Yes
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Dad calls me randomly one evening. He can’t find the youtube app on his smart TV. I try to help him navigate it but over the phone communication isn’t really working especially since things I assume anyone would know (like the home button on the remote) don’t translate well to him. He gets pissed and tells me “why do you even work as a programmer what did you even learn in university?”. Apparently I missed my Samsung smart TV UI classes.
If you can, get a photo of his remote and save it. (bonus if it’s his actual remote with the worn down buttons or whatnot)
Draw a circle around the button (arrow pointing to it optional) and text the pic back of which button to push. Repeat as needed.
If you can get him to text you a photo of the TV screen - circle and repeat.
I have an older friend with a TV/remote that is close to ours, but slightly different. Having these reference photos helps with the “language barrier” and the minor differences in layout.
Since I started making it visual and texting photos, it makes it much easier. Because even I, with my CS degree, can stare at a screen (or grocery shelf), frustrated, and not see the very obvious blinking whatsit that I’m looking for.
We used to say, " if it was a snake it would have bit me" but snakes are also well known for blending in , so it makes sense that we don’t see things until we see them, especially when we are stressed.
even I, with my CS degree, can stare at a screen (or grocery shelf), frustrated, and not see the very obvious blinking whatsit that I’m looking for.
At least it’s not just me then. I sware my girlfriend stores things in some secret pocket dimension in the fridge. I open the door I look very very closely and there is definitely no butter in there, then she goes to the fridge opens it and pulls butter out. Where did the damn butter come from?
While helping my mother troubleshoot her phone:
I can’t do anything because the keyboard keeps going away
Everything I click on tries to take me to WalMart
It keeps saying the phone is overheating but it’s not overheating, should I download this program it’s recommending?
No! I didn’t download anything! I don’t download things! Wait… Is the app store considered “downloading”?
I can keep going lol
Dad: “I don’t have my wallpaper anymore on my desktop !”
Me: “Ok, what’s in C:\User.…\Pictures” ?
Dad: "I don’t have C:, I juste have D:"
Me: “WTF ? You don’t have a C:\Windows folder ?”
Dad: “No, I just have a D:\ drive. Windows is installed on D”
How th fuck did he managed to not have a C drive ???
At least he understands that windows is installed, and on that drive.
It’s possible he did have a C drive and just wasn’t looking correctly
But it is possible to install Windows on non-c drives, It just isn’t standard. The main reason is because you want the operating system to be on a different drive to the files. I have Windows installed on C but there’s absolutely nothing else on C just Windows everything else is on the E drive, but there’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t reverse that it’s just you’d have to start off with Windows on C, then remap D to not the disk, then installed Windows on D, set D to be the boot drive, And then finally uninstall it from C.
It’s unlikely that you would do all that by accident. Especially because setting anything other than C to be the boot drive usually requires changing the BIOS. You can’t do it from within windows because then you end up with a “the call is coming from inside the house” situation.
My nerd man says it’s less of “the call is coming from inside the house” and more of a “you can’t go back in time and kill yourself” situation XD
How th fuck did he managed to not have a C drive ???
It happens. You should have just told him to go to the D: drive if its the only one
Trying to get my elderly mother to understand the difference between wifi and mobile data. Maddening.
My mom (78) got a new kindle a couple years ago, after the previous one lasting over 10 years.
She’s not been using it now because “it’s not okay” anymore. After a lot of poking and prodding remotely (we live in different countries) to get to understand what the issue was for the kindle to “not be okay”, I managed to get her to tell me that “the screen is blank”. I said I’d check it soon after when I went to her place.
When I travelled there, not long after, I checked the kindle, turned on the screen, and it was blank. Because she’d finished a book and the last page was blank. All worked fine.
I have told her, but she refuses to use the kindle because “it’s not okay”.
In a separate conversation I offered to give my sister my really old kindle as hers is actually broken. My mom heard that and said she wanted it because hers is… Not okay.
The insistence and willful ignoring of what I said is the most infuriating part.
Sounds like you can give your mom’s “not okay” kindle to your sister and give your really old one to your mom.
But she can’t possibly endanger her child, OPs sister, by giving her tech that is “not okay”. It might explode on her or something.
Just don’t tell her that it’s her “not okay” kindle. Slap a different case on it and she’d never know.
Many of life’s problems can be solved by a web of lies.
I laughed too hard at this.
My parents each have a Kindle but they share the same account and are always reading the same book at the same time. I made the tragic mistake of trying to get them to use Airplane mode so that they don’t keep getting popup messages about the read progress on the other device. I have now heard “so should I be in Airplane mode or not in Airplane mode?” one million times.
Every time my grandma needs help with her phone I always have to go and delete like 10 apps because she just keeps installing random useless ad ridden crap. She has like 6 diferent weather apps. She keeps installing random fucking gps navigation map apps. You open them and boom immediately ads. They just don’t learn.
use parental controls and disable app installing
Why does she download so many duplicate functionality apps? Has she told you why?
I was never told “why” (My elderly relative did the same thing) but I was able to eventually figure it out. Every time a popup anywhere shows up saying “Your computer is in danger! Click here to remove the infection!” and she clicked there. Or if anything implied she needed to install this app in order to do Y, she would.
5 home launchers, 9 calendar apps, about 30 apps for screensavers (On a phone), etc etc.
I’ve noticed the tech illiterate develope tunnel vision and only see the tiniest portion of the screen at a time. They also are incredibly suseptible to the dark patterns that phones are riddled with so when the phone helpfully tries to offer a random app that paid to be promoted with a certain search term they don’t realize they’ve been had and blindly install it
Because they have different data providers. Not like you can just use one app with several different data sources.
Is this sarcasm or not? I can’t tell.
That is what she said.
I can feel my blood pressure rise as I read through this comment section.
Fortunately my dad is a retired cybersecurity architect so they live as modern-day Luddites.
I wish.
My father currently works in IT and has “smart” everything (except locks, thankfully)
He has multiple Alexa thingies (used to be Google homes), Internet thermostat, smart light switches, smart cameras/doorbells, smart plugs
Idk why he does. The only thing that really provide any value are the light switches and plugs (scheduled lighting) and maybe the doorbell thingies
Could have gone the self-hosted route, but he might just think it’s a lost cause as long as you’re carrying phone that spies on you.
Unless you are running grapheneos without the spyware apps and services :)
No smart home crap
I use Home Assistant for my smart home stuff. As soon as I have a free afternoon I’ll be setting up a VLAN to keep it off the internet.
JFC, that white text is me to a T.
And my printer is a 1998 HP 4050DTN that could probably survive the apocalypse in fair shape.
Even my planned CCTV system will be completely hardlined with shielded cables, technically airgapped, E2E encrypted between the cameras and the server, and with a mechanically-driven RJ45 connector that will allow one-way backups to BackBlaze once a week through a specially configured Bastille server.
OMG - that’s the same printer we have… it’s the only one that still works!!
Some of the plastic pieces have gotten brittle and broken - I’ve been trying to figure out how to 3-D print replacements. (they broke before 3D printing was a thing and I don’t have the broken bits anymore)
I’ve replaced the rollers once and serviced it myself over the years.
It’s valuable enough to fight over it when my Last Will and Testament is read… If there’s a fire, save the people, save the cats, save that 1998 printer - the rest can burn and be replaced.
Same here. The only part that doesn’t fit me is the Bluetooth - there are much better protocols for that.
I love how it’s the people who know the most about how modern tech works that want nothing to do with 90% of it.
Not a specific incident so much as a running theme in logical inconsistency… What on God’s green Earth possessed these people to think that I, the “nerd” of the family, having gone completely digital except where legally necessary since about the late 90s, would have the faintest idea how to fix a fucking printer?
Oh hey I’ve got this. I have to deal with printers for my hobby. This is the only tool you’ll ever need.
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