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This comment gets me - the most timely, important news is on TikTok and there are still people who think this way. YouTube can be used to learn just about anything. Are you against education? Such a weird take to me.
i dont know whether this comment is serious. it cant be, right? So its a waste of time to read NYT or WP or listen to the BBC etc etc.? or go to a library, oh heaven forbid, a library with all those books? What is the world coming to!
I get tired of people saying a "fear of technology." It's not a fear when people see no use for it. I know many who are happy writing checks for their bills. I did talk one friend into online banking, and she was thrilled after she did.
I do not take my phone out of the car when I go somewhere so I won't attend anything without a paper ticket and I want a printed menu. I saw on the news that in Ohio starting October 1, they have to accept cash for tickets and concessions at high school events. What would I do with a phone at a game, dinner or concert? Take a selfie? I would never be so rude as to answer a phone when having dinner with someone.
Everything is over complicated now. Ex: You want to return a cable box. You just go to the cable store, stand in line and return it, right? Well kind of. But when you get to the store there's a sign telling you that you have to scan a QR code at the kiosk and enter your info/reason for being there. You then go into "the cue" and your name will be called when it's your turn. There is no line, just people milling about waiting for their name to be called.
Sometimes people see the sign and know what to do right away. Others walk in and look around confused, standing there for awhile trying to figure out how this place is working.
What happens if you don't have a smartphone in that scenario? I honestly do not know the answer.
My mom - 83 - is losing her ability to use a computer and iPhone to access the web as well as texting.
For years, she used hotmail/outlook for email and Facebook to connect with friends. She used the web to access banking, credit card and medical records. She shopped online. Once she got an iPhone, the land line was disconnected and she used the iPhone for phone calls, photos and texting.
Last year, she lost her license (medical issue) and will never drive again. She kept in touch with friends and family through email, FB and texting. Now, she is losing some cognitive skills and because of tremors due to Parkinson's Disease, her mousing and fingertip skills (for iPhone) is decreasing quickly. Most of the time, she has locked herself out of accounts due to incorrect passwords - her memory or her typing or both - and is terrified everytime she gets spam in email. She is nearing time to give up on technology.
But texting is now needed more than ever, for confirmation codes to access accounts, for medical appointment confirmation; and the web for social and banking needs. At some point, she will go into assisted living and that will likely be the end of the web in her life.
No point in this, but posting that for my widowed mother, having email and FB and her online newspaper subscriptions was wonderful over the past many years. It has been an important tool and social connector for her.
Not true for most assisted living or other congregate residences.
They all have wi-fi and internet access. And at AL she will probably have help with accessing her accounts.
A long-time friend who was very active using email and had a very active Amazon account for her online buying, experienced this. She was almost 90 when she died and was still emailing her friends and family. She was always excited to get new pictures of great- and grandchildren.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,775 posts, read 58,229,287 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
I can believe that statistic, because seniors include people still working and using the internet daily in their 60s, but also their parents, in their 80s-90s ...
At 71 and 70 my wife and I are using the internet every day, she retired last year and I am planning to retire in the spring. We both have iPhones and iPads, I have a work laptop, and am the administrator for several of our business systems. I was among the first where I worked in the 70s-80s to have an IBM OPC, later a Fat Mac, used a Lisa and a Compaq, in addition to an IMB 3270 mainframe terminal. ....
Now you make me long for the 'good-ole-days' where you had most of the line commands on your UX cheat sheet memorized. And they WORKED... kill-9. Poof Gone (and free) is your 'hung system'. No more dividing by zero while you were gone from work overnight.
When we had to go PC based ~1994, our workstation productivity tanked.
We did some amazing calculations and controlled our NC machines with 7k RAM. Innovative!
Many seniors still are competent. A state university just hired a long retired coworker to rewrite a RPN script that has been reporting daily medical diagnostics since 1976. Easy money for him, but only took less than an hour.
Such were the days... need a solution?
Write it, test it. Compile it.... next crisis please. Rinse and repeat.
One of my skilled trades coworkers reconfigured his exhaustive home entertainment system from PC to iOS at age 95. He could grab an image (from the 1930s) or video (including his 8mm home movies he digitized) from his old beater server in the basement and create a 7 screen panorama in his living room. He liked adding music and transition screens. He would giggle at all the stuff he could do, and often act amazed. Wow, I can do that!
He never had an ounce of computer experience at work (retired in the 70's). He just 'got-it', and was investigative, not overwhelmed.
i dont know whether this comment is serious. it cant be, right? So its a waste of time to read NYT or WP or listen to the BBC etc etc.? or go to a library, oh heaven forbid, a library with all those books? What is the world coming to!
It may be timely, but it may not be news. The race to be first now comes before being right. I would rather hear the facts a few hours later.
I always remember what Peter Jennings said on 9/11. That we may hear things today and tomorrow we will find out they weren't true. The first "news" I heard that day was about a bomb at the State Department. It wasn't true.
Everything is over complicated now. Ex: You want to return a cable box. You just go to the cable store, stand in line and return it, right? Well kind of. But when you get to the store there's a sign telling you that you have to scan a QR code at the kiosk and enter your info/reason for being there. You then go into "the cue" and your name will be called when it's your turn. There is no line, just people milling about waiting for their name to be called.
Sometimes people see the sign and know what to do right away. Others walk in and look around confused, standing there for awhile trying to figure out how this place is working.
What happens if you don't have a smartphone in that scenario? I honestly do not know the answer.
I would tell them I don't have a phone, here's your box, this is my name, and goodbye! Thery cannot refuse a return for not following their procedure.
I would tell them I don't have a phone, here's your box, this is my name, and goodbye! Thery cannot refuse a return for not following their procedure.
I guess. Hopefully, they process the return correctly and disconnect the service properly.
I've got an Amazon return that I've got to take to the UPS store. Usually Amazon sends a label for returns but apparently they're starting to do the whole electronic QR code thing, too, so I'll be finding out what that all entails.
It's going to get to the point where some people just won't bother trying to return things.
I was in Target a week or so ago and the two cashiers they had working at the returns table had left their posts. So I had no choice but to use their self checkout. How much do you want to bet that soon those self checkouts will somehow require a smartphone to use.
Who does that anyway? I never do. If I was at the doctor I know what they just said.
But like someone else said up thread I do not want an account and a login for everything I ever thought about doing in my life. A lot are going to be one off things.
I had to go to the ER a few months ago. They did a lot of tests, scans etc.
Yes the info was online and they sent me an email, but when I left, they gave me a package with all the info in it. Pics of the scans etc. All the bloodwork info. Didn't have to read it online - I had a paper copy.
LMAO, I'm a so-called member of as you call us silent luddites. I've been working or managing one of the largest corporate mainframe operations in the country from the 60s until retirement in the early 90s.
Started with the 7070 series, 1401, and 360 computers, in other words, started with punch cards and vacuum tape drives. I did hire Boomers out of college or military officers.
I still built my own PCs and recently upgraded my entertainment system for the 2.1 HDMI in/output, subwoofer, and 7 speakers. I use the phone to control everything from the lawn sprinklers to the temperature in the house and even to add water to the pool.
I love technology and have started in the field before anyone here.
oh wow - when I first took Fortran - we used punch cards to run through the what you ma call it - it has been years - lol.
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