Older people and internet

ronbyrne2005

Was listeing to rte radio news there at lunchtime, the DSPCA had a fire at their animal shelter in Rathfarnam and some auld fella who sounded around 50 was making an appeal for donations. He called out the phone number and then the internet "details", he said the web address was www.info@dspca.ie :pac:
A few minutes after interview the presenter had to point out the details made not have correct.
Do the older people you know still not know how to give out a tinternet address?

m83

Going by your thorough experimental findings: no.

Terry

My 42 year old cousin was amazed when I told her that I can scan photographs onto a computer and then e-mail them.

MagicMarker

My ma hasn't a clue, but she's gradually getting better. She's addicted to youtube and IMDB.

javaboy

Technically www.info@dspca.ie could be a perfectly legitimate albeit confusing email address.

Kintarō Hattori

My 41 year old brother has had his computer about 6 years and still doesn't understand the concept of windows, he simply can't copy and paste, doesn't know how to burn a cd/dvd...... the list goes on.

Latchy

All those letters delivered by the young postman to the wrong address are probably the fault of older people to .

I have a 40 something brother to who thinks a mouse is a little animal that invades your space or lives in a corn field

seamus

I find the "www.@" problem tends to come from people outside of Dublin, largely those who may not have had much use of the internet in the last ten years.

As hard as it is for cosmopolitan Dubs to understand, much of Ireland is still parochial little towns who are quite insular and have had in the majority very poor internet speeds up until 1 or two years ago. They've had little need for a computer other than maybe to do some accounts and print off a letter. Certainly they've had no use for t'interweb.

I can also distinctly remember some form of education campaign a few years back which said that "All internet addresses start with www.", which while being completely untrue also failed to distinguish between "internet address" and "email address". You'll still hear people saying this "All addresses start with www.", and I've had a couple of people look at me astonished as I type in the address without it. Firefox's smart address bar completely confounds them.

The Master

I work with a 60 year old guy who got his first work PC last year.

He's convinced that the internet exists only on one computer at a time.

If he sees me on Google He'll rush over and unplugs his machine so it dosent interfere with my use:P

ScumLord

I've set up computers for people and had to explain the internet isn't something inside their computer

My dad thinks that the computer can't function unless it is connected to the internet and boards.ie

biko

...series of tubes...

MagicMarker

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=iRmxXp62O8g&feature=related

bullpost

Oddly enough I think this also applies to the under fives.

Took me ages to teach my 4 year old niece to use Firefox's smart address bar properly .

But then again she is from outside Dublin so that might explain it.

Sam Vimes

my dad is very very slowly learning how to use computers. nowadays i won't do anything for him, i'll just give him some basic instructions and make him to do it so he'll remember.

he very slowly learned how to move files from the downloads folder to the music folder. but if you ask him to move something from the downloads folder to the videos folder his head explodes because the names are different.

i tell him to click something and he asks "right-click?". i ask "did i say right-click?". this is repeated roughly 20 times each time i'm showing him how to do something. some would tell me to just say left click but after repeating it roughly 3000 times you think he'd get the idea

he tried to send an email to an address that started with http://

i wrote down step by step instructions on exactly how to burn a cd, every single thing to click. then i updated nero so instead of saying nero 7 it said nero 8, every other step was exactly the same. he just gave up at that point and said he couldn't do it

he wanted to email a picture he'd got from the net but said he couldn't because he didn't have a scanner. he wanted to print it out and scan it back in so he could send it

he has an uncanny ability to read down a list and skip over the option he wants. eg he wants to delete a file so i'll tell him to right-click on it and explain to me what each of the options does and then ask him if that's what he wants to do. but he'll get as far as the delete option AND JUST SKIP PAST IT AND EXPLAIN WHAT RENAME DOES?!?!?!??!?. i let him finish and then ask him why he just skipped a random option option and he has no idea the infuriating thing is that he will always explain in detail what every option does except the ***ing one he wants. he will never skip over an incorrect option. he also misses ok buttons and will just click on random points on the screen rather than the massive ok button on the screen in front of him. 99% of the time when he asks what to do next i just say "read what's on the screen in front of you and do what it's telling you"


and breathe

Quazzie

seamus wrote: »

I find the "www.@" problem tends to come from people outside of Dublin, largely those who may not have had much use of the internet in the last ten years.

As hard as it is for cosmopolitan Dubs to understand, much of Ireland is still parochial little towns who are quite insular and have had in the majority very poor internet speeds up until 1 or two years ago. They've had little need for a computer other than maybe to do some accounts and print off a letter. Certainly they've had no use for t'interweb.

I can also distinctly remember some form of education campaign a few years back which said that "All internet addresses start with www.", which while being completely untrue also failed to distinguish between "internet address" and "email address". You'll still hear people saying this "All addresses start with www.", and I've had a couple of people look at me astonished as I type in the address without it. Firefox's smart address bar completely confounds them.

I find that post totally degrading, and downright racist. I am appalled that someone could day such a thing.

Worse than all of this is the fact that it is true

Latchy

I know one elderly man who bought himself a pc and the instructions book to go with it .He got that frustrated not being able to understand all the jargon and said it would be a lot easier to learn Chinese

I tried helping him along a bit here and there but his attention span wasn't the best .


Ah , the poor ol's peoplez .........

Sam Vimes

Moonbaby wrote: »

My dad thinks that the computer can't function unless it is connected to the internet and boards.ie

a computer can function without being connected to boards.ie!? :eek:

Quazzie

Its not just old people. I can't figure how to properly store music on my pc. iTunes confuses the hell outta me

Sam Vimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE

Sam Vimes

Quazzie2002 wrote: »

Its not just old people. I can't figure how to properly store music on my pc. iTunes confuses the hell outta me

i hate when people ask how to move their music "from their itunes to winamp" or similar. the music isn't in itunes ya daft bint, it's just listing files on your computer

mikom

My mother the last day discussing photos of a wedding that had been put up online.
"Yes, John put the photos on the internet, on a website called bookface"

Raze_them_all

My dad is 44/45 and the stuff he does on computers confuses me. Damn him knowing how to do crap I cant

tman

I'm constantly having to get rid of dodgy porn diallers and the like on my dad's pc...
*shudder*

Quazzie

Sam Vimes wrote: »

i hate when people ask how to move their music "from their itunes to winamp" or similar. the music isn't in itunes ya daft bint, it's just listing files on your computer

I'm not quite that bad, but I can see all my music on Window Media Player but only a fraction of them on iTunes

ejmaztec

I can't write anymore. :eek:

Turd Ferguson

I work tech support for an internet company (not naming names:D) and some of the things I have heard from the older people is quite astonishing.
Things like trying to send an e-mail to a house address and the likes. It brightens my day!!!

Sam Vimes

Quazzie2002 wrote: »

I'm not quite that bad, but I can see all my music on Window Media Player but only a fraction of them on iTunes

itunes can be fussy about formats so it might not recognise some of it but if that's not the problem click file->add folder to library and find the folders where your music is stored. et voila

Sam Vimes

Turd Ferguson wrote: »

I work tech support for an internet company (not naming names:D) and some of the things I have heard from the older people is quite astonishing.
Things like trying to send an e-mail to a house address and the likes. It brightens my day!!!

and trying to put a letter into the cd drawer and email it but that's probably an urban legend

Boskowski

Now, I'm a software engineer myself but when I got an iPod for the fiance and set it up for her on the pc I was not able to understand the programmatical concept behind iTunes. I wasn't able to work it cos I couldn't figure how it was meant to be working. I clicked at it for about 10 mins, said to myself 'what a piece of crap' and replaced it with some opensource iPod proggy.

chopperbyrne

iTunes really is unintuitive.

Can't stand it.

toiletduck

Sam Vimes wrote: »

he wanted to email a picture he'd got from the net but said he couldn't because he didn't have a scanner. he wanted to print it out and scan it back in so he could send it

That's brilliant

My Mum is completely computer illiterate. She asked me to look up some pictures from some fundraiser she was involved with the last day. I said no bother and she told me that her friend informed her that "they're avaliable on Internet Explorer, click on a blue E". Ah bless.

Heinrich

Sam Vimes wrote: »

my dad is very very slowly learning how to use computers. nowadays i won't do anything for him, i'll just give him some basic instructions and make him to do it so he'll remember.

he very slowly learned how to move files from the downloads folder to the music folder. but if you ask him to move something from the downloads folder to the videos folder his head explodes because the names are different.

i tell him to click something and he asks "right-click?". i ask "did i say right-click?". this is repeated roughly 20 times each time i'm showing him how to do something. some would tell me to just say left click but after repeating it roughly 3000 times you think he'd get the idea

he tried to send an email to an address that started with http://

i wrote down step by step instructions on exactly how to burn a cd, every single thing to click. then i updated nero so instead of saying nero 7 it said nero 8, every other step was exactly the same. he just gave up at that point and said he couldn't do it

he wanted to email a picture he'd got from the net but said he couldn't because he didn't have a scanner. he wanted to print it out and scan it back in so he could send it

he has an uncanny ability to read down a list and skip over the option he wants. eg he wants to delete a file so i'll tell him to right-click on it and explain to me what each of the options does and then ask him if that's what he wants to do. but he'll get as far as the delete option AND JUST SKIP PAST IT AND EXPLAIN WHAT RENAME DOES?!?!?!??!?. i let him finish and then ask him why he just skipped a random option option and he has no idea the infuriating thing is that he will always explain in detail what every option does except the ***ing one he wants. he will never skip over an incorrect option. he also misses ok buttons and will just click on random points on the screen rather than the massive ok button on the screen in front of him. 99% of the time when he asks what to do next i just say "read what's on the screen in front of you and do what it's telling you"


and breathe

Maybe... maybe you are not very good at explaining. Thankfully I do not need a ranting son to explain how to scan a downloaded photo from the web to send as an email.

It would probably help if you stopped talking down to him. He is obviously smart enough to earn a decent living and to bring you up in comfort.

Heinrich

Sam Vimes wrote: »

i hate when people ask how to move their music "from their itunes to winamp" or similar. the music isn't in itunes ya daft bint, it's just listing files on your computer

Fancy that! My iTunes lists files on my server. What am I doing wrong?

Latchy

What younger people must remember is the computers as we know them in the home have only being with us 15 /20 odd years .So obiously the generation of young people that came with them will by more PC savy than your avearge older person ,if only because they were not around or available in their school days .

Sam Vimes

Heinrich wrote: »

Maybe... maybe you are not very good at explaining. Thankfully I do not need a ranting son to explain how to scan a downloaded photo from the web to send as an email.

It would probably help if you stopped talking down to him. He is obviously smart enough to earn a decent living and to bring you up in comfort.

Oh ffs, i explain to him exactly what to do and he can't remember 15 minutes later or panics if the slightest thing is changed (eg it says nero 8 instead of 7). The fact that he has the ability to get paid for a job doesn't mean i can't frustrated at explaining the same basic things dozens of times. He gets pissed off when i make him do something five times to be sure he understands it but then can't understand why i get pissed off explaining something i already explained the day before, including the things that i made him do over and over just so he wouldn't keep asking me

tman

Heinrich wrote: »

Fancy that! My iTunes lists files on my server. What am I doing wrong?

Being smarmy?

Heinrich

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Oh ffs, i explain to him exactly what to do and he can't remember 15 minutes later or panics if the slightest thing is changed (eg it says nero 8 instead of 7). The fact that he has the ability to get paid for a job doesn't mean i can't frustrated at explaining the same basic things dozens of times. He gets pissed off when i make him do something five times to be sure he understands it but then can't understand why i get pissed off explaining something i already explained the day before

You could leave, get yourself some accommodation and leave him to his devices. From you manner to a complete stranger, me, I would say that you are the one pissing off your dad.

With the passage of time you might some day learn patience and perseverence.

Heinrich

tman wrote: »

Being smarmy?

Comes with old age I suppose.

FebruaryFuhrer

I recently let someone into the secret that their pc is able to play cds.

brosps

Heinrich wrote: »

You could leave, get yourself some accommodation and leave him to his devices. From you manner to a complete stranger, me, I would say that you are the one pissing off your dad.

With the passage of time you might some day learn patience and perseverence.

Goodness. I am very glad I dont have to deal with you in real life, I genuinly think i would kill myself/you

Sam Vimes

Heinrich wrote: »

You could leave, get yourself some accommodation and leave him to his devices. From you manner to a complete stranger, me, I would say that you are the one pissing off your dad.

With the passage of time you might some day learn patience and perseverence.

Well i'm currently living and working in stockholm but he still calls me and asks me to help him with his computer. What exactly makes you think i'm pissing off my dad? I'm asked to explain the same things i have already explained dozens if not hundreds of times (and i'm not exaggerating) and and every time i tell him that i've already explained something dozens of times he calls me a liar and you think i'm the one pissing him off?

seamus

Heinrich wrote: »

You could leave, get yourself some accommodation and leave him to his devices.

You're not far wrong. I've found that simply telling them that I don't have the time right now and I'll ring them back makes them want to go off and figure it out themselves, and 9 times out of ten they do.

Most of them are simply afraid of breaking or deleting something because there was a time when you could press one wrong button on your TV remote, completely scramble a channel and have to get the neighbour's 15 year old son in to fix it for you.

Latchy

Not just the elderly who somtimes struggle with puter .

http://careerplanning.about.com/od/importantskills/a/comp_literacy.htm

Davidius

My Dad's about 57, he can use it but that's because he was a computer test engineer. :pac:

My mother has absolutely no confidence and asks for help with every damn thing. She then gets irritated because we're not going through it fast enough or not going step by step. She can use it if she really wants to but she's seems to hate computers.

Two of my older brothers are about almost 22 and 24 are they never use the address bar. They type absolutely everything into google. When I showed one of them the address bar he was astonished. Then he never used it again.

One of my sisters (19) knows everything. The other knows enough to get by.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

My mam doesn't have a clue, neither do my grand parents, my dad has the basics and can buy things online, know's how to send and recieve emails and is annoyed that his area cannot get broadband.

Most are stuck in their ways and don't need it. I still think it's funny that the older generation use mobiles.

Wagon

Turd Ferguson wrote: »

I work tech support for an internet company (not naming names:D) and some of the things I have heard from the older people is quite astonishing.
Things like trying to send an e-mail to a house address and the likes. It brightens my day!!!

I remember when this aul lad rang in to us in my old job saying that the cup holder for on his PC was broken and wouldn't come out any more when he pressed the button. I think about then i lost faith in humanity.

Sam Vimes

Also an example of an explanation of a problem he had went roughly like this:

You know the thing on the computer?
*draws imaginary rectangle as if the fact that it was rectangular will tell me everything*
It went like this
*runs his finger along the google text box. I think he might have been referring to a progress bar*
It said windows something
*draws another imaginary rectangle*
And i clicked there (doesn't point at anything. Just says "there" in the hopes that i can see the screen he's imagining and see the point he's imagining clicking on)

Me: i have no idea what you're talking about
Him:you just don't want to help me

Heinrich

seamus wrote: »

You're not far wrong. I've found that simply telling them that I don't have the time right now and I'll ring them back makes them want to go off and figure it out themselves, and 9 times out of ten they do.

Most of them are simply afraid of breaking or deleting something because there was a time when you could press one wrong button on your TV remote, completely scramble a channel and have to get the neighbour's 15 year old son in to fix it for you.

Now we are talking sense. What I find with a lot of the younger "gurus" is that they want to show their prowess and in the process frighten off those who they are trying to teach.

I have a motherboard with most of the bits hanging on the wall and when people want to learn something they can see what is in the box. It also helps if you insist on backing up stuff and how to recover from silly mistakes.

Inspire confidence.

Latchy

Wagon wrote: »

I remember when this aul lad rang in to us in my old job saying that the cup holder for on his PC was broken and wouldn't come out any more when he pressed the button. I think about then i lost faith in humanity.

You mean that isin't what it's for ? :eek::eek::eek:

ejmaztec

Sam Vimes wrote: »

and trying to put a letter into the cd drawer and email it but that's probably an urban legend

Are you referring to the push-button drinks shelf?