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
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
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’
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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.
deleted by creator
I can feel my blood pressure rise as I read through this comment section.
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.
Clearing about 5 rows of taskbars from my mom’s internet Explorer years and years ago. Finding out she was paying for McAfee recently.
Could be worse, my grandma paid for Avast and she was actually using the free version unknowingly.
AVAST VIRUS DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED
That bitch will forever haunt me.
Exact same thing happened to my Grandma
Trying to get my elderly mother to understand the difference between wifi and mobile data. Maddening.
When I found out that my dad doesn’t know what the backspace key does on the PC keyboard. His whole life he’s only ever used the Del key and always positions the cursor to the left of text he wants to delete. He used to work at IBM for over 30 years and learned to program back in the day when computer code was printed on punch cards. But I’m pretty sure keyboards already had the backspace key back then.
IBM PCs definitely had backspace keys. I believe that IBM is the reason they have backspace keys. They weren’t standard features on a lot of earlier computers. IBM rather unintentionally standardized keyboard layout, because everyone wanted to build clones.
The only keyboard I have that doesn’t have a backspace is an old RadioShack computer and even then it has a weird equivalent.
My father is 85, used to be a dev. No issues, maintains his file sync between his two sites by himself via various clouds. Sticks to Windows.
Can’t get him to use proper passwords (as in random generated stuff from his password manager) though, he insists on needlessly peppering the weak-ish passwords he comes up with and storing that in his decent password manager instead. I guess you can’t win them all.
You know what, it’s better than writing all his passwords down in a little notebook in his filing cabinet
Eh, if a hacker has physical access to your file cabinet, you’ve got way bigger issues.
This is always my response. Hacking a lot of times comes down soft skills, where bad people get you to give them your sensitive information. (Your pornstar name is the street you grew up on and your first pet’s name, finding your mom’s maiden name on facebook)
If someone is in an office, having a post it or notebook is a bad idea, especially if your area can be accessed by the general public (like front desk people, or anyone who takes walk-ins)
But for a person living alone, or with people they trust, having a hard copy in a safe place is really safe. The Online Scammer isn’t going to break & enter into everyone’s homes to get their post it passwords.
(And it gives them the ability to give a trusted person access if they end up in the hospital or something, without having to share that info ‘just in case’.)
The threat is always greatest (if you don’t fall for phishing easily) from the people inside your house. The ones that could steal your jewelry, cash, pick up your mail and open accounts, or just outright sit in your chair and access your computer.
In that case, even if you have a password manager, chances are good someone with physical access to you can find or figure out that one password. And like Bytemeister says, you have way bigger problems in that case.
“But if that’s a bad idea, why would they sell password notebooks? Looks it even says ‘My Passwords’ in a cute handwriting-style font!”
Oh sure. It’s not perfect but it could be so much worse. All in all he’s doing fine.
peppering the weak-ish passwords he comes up with and storing that in his decent password manager instead.
Most of the time people do that, it’s because they worry about not having the password manager and meeting to type alphabet soup. I’ve gotten through to a few people to use 5 words with a delimiter pepper. It’s still rather strong but they feel like they could type it if they had to.
Downside, if a site isn’t hashing, they won’t allow long passwords
My mother is very smart. She knows her shit, but her shit does not include tech anything, which, unfortunately, makes her obviously afraid of it. She claims otherwise, but it’s true. If anything goes wrong once, it will forever be that way to her. She’s also incredibly stubborn.
To touch on that last point, she went through her advanced schooling in the 60s, at a time when typing was apparently taught at universities. Her professor made one comment about the women in the room going on to be secretaries, which my mom has clinged to, like so many other things, and now spitefully refuses to learn how to type properly.
I’ve shown her every single time I touch her laptop how to scroll through sites using two fingers on the touch pad. Nope, she must very slowly, squinting, find the tiny, hidden scroll bar, and, even more slowly, drag it down.
Her ability to read seems to completely disappear as soon as she turns on her computer or looks at her phone. After over a decade of holding her hand to do super basic things, the answers to which are almost always found by reading and comprehending, I made it a point to not outright tell her what to do if it’s plainly obvious anymore. She still tries to get me to do it for her by staring at the screen for a moment and then looking at me like she’s completely lost, or asking in the most annoyed way possible what to do, when the only options are click OK or… nothing.
“How do I do (x)?” Where (x) is something like opening Firefox from the desktop, going back to her browser-based email from a different tab, etc.
“You know how. You’ve done it several times before.”
“That doesn’t mean I remember how!” While actively doing the thing.
And the gestures - dismissive hand waving at the screen whenever something mildly inconvenient appears, the annoyed sighs, all of it.
I observe the exact same thing in my parents - it’s as if they somehow can’t see some things on the screen, or lose the ability to comprehend written text, when it’s unexpectedly displayed on a screen. They always fixate on some irrelevant UI element, ignoring the one that’s currently important.
Mine used to say “can you make the picture on my screen go away?”. The “picture” was always a pop up with very clearly written instructions or questions like “would you like to save before closing?”.
So they actually, provably, lost the ability to recognize writing.
