Is newer technology making it more difficult for Seniors?

Got mom the jitter bug phone bc it is advertised as being so easy for them to use.but once dementia takes hold forget about it. Mom calls HER # and leaves messages for me on her voice mail and gets upset that I don't call back. I programmed all the numbers and she still can't figure out how to call. The land line isn't faring much better these days either.

looloo, so glad to know there are other parents out there that don't have caller ID... plus my parent's answering machine broke about 4 years ago.... three years ago I was delighted to find at Target a nice answering machine but Dad didn't want to pay the price, as reasonable as it was, he said he will fix the old answering machine.... we are still waiting for that to happen....

In the mean time, whenever someone calls my parents house and there is no answer after 10 rings the caller gives up.... so Dad will call me asking if I was calling because he couldn't get to the phone in time. No, Dad, it wasn't me..... you really need to get caller ID.... but Dad said he doesn't want to pay the monthly fee.... [sigh].... and forget getting him a cellphone, he would misplace it 20 times a day like he does with his cane :)

When my Dad got his newest computer [he saves all his old computers and printers] he was surprised there was no instruction book.... so for the past three years he's been bugging me to help him find an instruction book at the major book retailers or to drop him off at the library to look for a book. Told Dad I doubt he would find a book, he needs to do like I do, hit a key and see what happens and learn from that. No, he wants a book. Told him to research it on the Internet, but if he did find what he wanted in a form of an instruction book, it would take him a week to print out 10 pages because he's still on dial-up in a huge metro area... he doesn't want to pay the cost of upgrading his internet speed..... oooooook.

Linda22-...you are so right...there is not a site left that does not want you to register to get your info... I guess it helps them figure out their advertising aims..
and so they can get their ads into your inbox.... Sometimes I wish I could go back to our family house, where 3 generations lived in a 3 story building... and we 2 radios, one telefon... a piano , a guitar, and books .... and mandatory Peace on Sundays ..... no stores open anywhere on Sundays!

My mother is almost 84, and would ocassionally email and order things online. If the page design changed though, she'd be completely confused, or if she typed something wrong on the keyboard and got an error message, she acted like the computer was going to blow up. Her lack of effort at trying to learn a little more was frustrating, but now, I'm relieved that she has nothing to do with the computer. I'm sure she would have given all her identity and banking info out.
She's never been interested in Skype, has no idea how to use her ancient cell phone, doesn't use voice mail but does have an answering machine (but I'm not sure if she checks messages anymore). She and my father never got call waiting either! Which would drive me crazy...
Last summer, her t.v. provider changed, and she got a new remote, and that required me taking another vacation day from work to drive down and help her. It wasn't long before she hit a wrong button and 'lost' the use of her t.v. in her den, and for several weeks (until my next visit, when I reset the t.v.), she stayed in her bedroom, with a t.v. tray, so she could watch the t.v. that still responded to her remote.
I deal with technology every day, like I think we all do, and get around fine, but don't understand the how's or why's of why things work. My husband jokes that if he's no longer around, and I have any trouble with our equipment, I should probably just move! I think he's right! :)

A friend of my mom's had this desk type phone with pictures of family members next to the appropriate speed dial button. She had very poor vision and this was so easy to use.

I'm just jumping in quickly with this: at my aunt's care home, the computer in the residents' lounge has a special desktop programme installed. When you switch on, you see the screen marked diagonally into four sections, red, blue, green and yellow, for email, internet, documents and… well there you go, I can't remember what the fourth was but I think it might have been Skype. - All clearly marked and an absolute doddle to use.

I was blown away - it was perfect for seniors. I tried to get it for mother but it's not Apple friendly. I'll look up the name of it and pass it on.

Dhibe, I'm still using XP Pro even though it's not supported, but I am very careful what sites I vist and obviously don't visit any that aren't Norton identified as safe. I do plan to update but just don't feel like computer shopping now. I'd rather work in my garden.

Planned obsolescence wasn't perfected by Microsoft - I think we can credit the automakers for that. GE I was told at one time also didn't provide extended support for older appliances.

Soon the Woodward Cruise will be occurring and there will be old cars from the 20's cruising up and down one of the main highways here. It amazes me that somehow these old gems can be kept running but mechanics are reluctant to spend the time on a 20 year old car - "time to get another car" is the advice. Gotta keep buying those new cars, especially so GM can fiddle with the ignition switches, make mistakes, and still profit for years from the sale of cars with defective systems.

Gates was I think a marketing genius; he knew how to add more bells and whistles as well as release WIN versions that hadn't been completely debugged. And look where he is now - retired and very wealthy.

I'll leave it to VStefans to explain a batch file; it's been years since I've dealt with that tehnology and my memory is fuzzy.

A GUI is Graphical User Interface which I believe can be legitimately be credited to Steve Jobs who pioneered its use in Apple. DOS is Disk Operating System - your XP and WIN 7 are operating systems as well, but a lot easier (yes, really they are) to use than DOS.

When I first learned how to use computers back in the 90's, many law firms only had DOS based computers. No cutesy little icons, no easy to read instructions. If your computer has ever booted to a checkdisk (chkdsk) mode to scan your hard drives of potential errors, you'll see a monotonous blue screen. That's what we dealt with when DOS was standard. Or maybe the screen was black? I remember typing instructions on a black screen. Very hard on the eyes, but DOS was in fact fun to use.

If you didn't have GUIs on your computer, you'd have to type in commands instead of just clicking on a fancy icon or completely written out name of program. Can you imagine typing something like winxp.exe every time you wanted to open Windows?

It isn't just seniors who might be struggling, and actually I think that even though a lot of the individual control has been superceded, the GUI has made computing possible for a lot more people. There's just a lot of garbage that's not needed - junk that comes preloaded on a system which has time consuming to remove.

I have a collection of several Smart Computing special interest manuals that provide detailed and understandable instructions on using various operating systems as well as applications. I haven't seen these on the market for years, but I used to get them from Borders which had the best selection of them. There might still be some available from Smart Computing.

Hope this helps.

I find manufacturers becoming too reliant on people going to the Internet for info, as vstefans mentioned. I was baking a cake mix and looked for the high altitude conversion on the box. None. They referred me to their website, which told me I had register on their site for the info. ???

11:06 AM 7/1/2014...Yep, Yep, look down to my level, it's that little difference... My son gave me Windows 7 last year, since Win XP is no longer supported by MS. He"s a professional tech whiz.. What makes me crazy about that program is that it has a mind of it's own at times, makes me feel like it's the boss, not I...
If I try the instructional Help program I get a college course again from WIN, instead of just click here +here + here.... I have to google the terms used to understand the sentence... the time I waste to correct it's automated actions...!!! shriek !!!... by the time I will have learned this program - it'll be out of date again....do I wish I had XP back,,, ? yesyesyes,,, but of course many of the so-called "improvements" are coming down the pike mainly to " improve " company profits ... ! Results: Seniors are left in the dust ... we can't all be PC +Tech- whizzes, + we are often looked at as stupid !... O.k., vstefans, now I got to google... what's a "batchfile"? and what's a GUI? ....... shriek... aaah, maybe tomorrow........ Could MS not compromise and have the instructional college course for the geeks online, +have a simple, click here, +here +here... instructional section online for someone who is not stupid, but knows a lot more about nursing + sewing, etc. than PCs...!!!???... or maybe it's in there somewhere, + I just have not found it...! In the early 90s I had 2 computing courses while in NSG-school, all else is self-learned since... so, no Seniors are not stupid ! but with decreasing memory - it's harder to memorize new stuff !

My folks are both 82. They are pretty with it. They can operate a cell phone, finally run their dvd player and record tv too. But when they changed satellite companies, the tech said on his way out the door ....." To get your rebate, just go on line to get it." My mom called me to do this for her. The first thing I did is contact the company and complain about this. Not every on in the free world has a computer. Especially my folks. We did get her rebate, (over the phone) and they are happy again. Just because someone, even seniors, aren't computer literate, the world will still turn.

And what about the times where the software doesn't underline in red a misspelling.... I am a terrible speller [inherited that from my Dad] and I know when I typed something wrong and the software asked if I "want to add to dictionary?".... no, I don't want to add to the dictionary, I want a list of closely resembled words so I can find the word I want.... [sigh].

My Mom had beautiful handwriting and use to write letters to all her relatives. I did the same thing. Back when I was married in the 1970's-1990's, I use to write once a week to my parents. If they didn't get a letter, they would call to make sure everything was alright.... yes, Mom, everything is ok, otherwise we would have called you. This was back when long distance calls meant something bad had happened.

Mom then learned to use e-mail but any time there was a new and improved changed to the e-mail system, or Dad bought a new computer, it was too complex for her to learn. Then Dad had the task of writing and sending e-mails, but all he felt like writing was about the weather and some flood 500 miles from the house.... oh well.

OMG, Ipad and I phone autocorrect is so AWFUL, sometimes its almost as hilarious adn the gobledegook I have written when I try to use my Android phone without reading glasses. I could live with 8.3 filenames and alt key macros and my WP6.2 spellchecker I would just run when I was done typing....I've coped with every version of Windows since 3.1 and XP was the "best" of that mess, and now it's gone. It is self-confessed planned obsolescence by Microsoft, otherwise they could not make enough money to keep either their Redmond campus OR their bloated OS afloat. Wait a minute, I think we've hijacked a thread - shame on us...
hey, anyone wanna start a listserv...no really, I'm going to hush up and go to bed now.

Autocorrect is a wonderful tool but you are correct not very intuitive. But make sure you have your reading glasses on. I have really sent some doozies! Same issue with tablets, so some of my posts here I can't even figure out. Most recently I was typing something about my dog, and it ended up dofg, or some such. And another cg read it, then went to the GOAT thread to try to figure out what the heck dofg was!

I don't mind the GUI; in fact I liked the move to graphics, especially the screensavers which help alleviate eye strain. I downloaded one from Swarovski and it is stunningly beautiful.

What I resent is the all encompassing operating software that takes almost all control away from the user. I feel as if I'm battling with the operating system. But I don't really have the desire to spend time studying it to figure out how to trick it.

DOS was difficult for word processing though; the ability to name files without length constraint was a giant step forward.

I understand from SmartPhone users that the autocorrect function is a real nuisance. It's not intuitive and makes "corrections" that make no sense.

Nope, just those good old one command per line .bat files in DOS...they are called shell scripts in Linux or UNIX and yeah, they did amazing things with DOS, both text and graphics, till the GUI took over. But I guess normal people would never have gotten into it if it had stayed all geeky for people like us :-)

Vstefans, are you speaking of writing code when you refer to writing batch files?

I sure do miss DOS - had a lot of fun with that.

Thank God for good reading glasses. I only need 20 to 2.5 but thank God they make them up to 10x now. I am a technology lover, but I do get really, really mad when some "upgrade" (aka gratuitous change) means I can't do stuff the nice, efficient way I used to. Happens all the time too. Yes, I really would rather write my own batch files, type in a command, and hit Enter. :-)

Dhibe, I also asked my cell provider to block texting capacity after I received one from an unknown person. They agreed without challenge, although from the tone of voice I suspect they couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want texting capability.

Consumer Cellular has cheap plans if you're an AARP member.

And well said about the choice of being with people vs. reading a manual - especially one that's written by someone who's not a native speaker! I used to buy and assemble furniture kits and could always tell when the instructions weren't prepared by a native English speaker or writer.

Hahaha... I love it... that should keep work form getting boring... and add that bit of humor we all need to stay sane... especially considering the sad stories one encounters on AC. Yet is there not a ring of irony.... with all the advances in technology that are supposed to help us - it is sad that we loose many established forms of communications, that served us well and with much less expense...and should still stay available to the elder generation... I'd rather spend time with people, than spend it with the college course of a manual to learn another new gadget.... I wish you well !

DHilBE, I use to joke that if our car GPS was missing that means "I've been kidnapped"....

One day the doctor across the hall from my office dropped by.... here was my boss at his desk and me at mine both having local map books opened looking for a certain street... my boss was using a magnifying glass. The doctor just stopped and looked and said "why don't you just Google the address".... I told him it's quicker this way, otherwise by the time I turn on the computer wait for the computer to wake up and go to the browser then type in what I want, I have already found the street I was looking for :)

My boss [who is in his late 70's] and I always have a race as to who will find a telephone number first... he will use his SmartPhone, and I will use an old fashioned telephone book... I usually win.

OK... now I have to google ... what's VIMOE .... aaah , maybe tomorrow... You must be a young chap.... and all this new technology gets my goat as well...as Freqflyer stated above....
My father was a cartographer in WW II - and loved maps, as do I , trouble is how do you learn to work maps on a cellphone... aaah, maybe tomorrow... In the meantime I travel with the huge Walmart Rand McNally Road Atlas all over the country and Canada... get to all the places I need with it o.k. ! On my last trip to Lexington, KY I tried to buy an updated map of Lexington in 3 different stores, only to be told " we are out and we can't get them anymore " - is that not a shame !!!

There are many uses for smart phone technology in emergencies. OK, I am a geographer and absolutely enthralled with maps. Each smart phone out there is capable of providing data that will help first responders. There is a very good video on VIMEO, of the impact in Haiti after the earthquake. It is a time lapse showing all the data that was provided through a resource called Open Street Map.

If you want to see this video, google:

OpenStreetMap - Project Haiti

It is absolutely amazing to see the public response to requests for data to assist responders.

My parents have a nice collection of VHS tapes of wonderful movies such as "The King & I", "South Pacific", and other very entertaining old time movies.... how my parents loved watching those movies. But that was back when one just popped the VHS tape into the machine and it would appear on the TV screen. Today one has to jump through too many hoops to watch a movie on a DVD [they don't have cable], so my parents don't do that anymore.... neither do I.... just too complicated..... [sigh].

ooooh, jeeze... Thank you for saying that, thought I was the only cell-challenged dummy around... I got so irritated at having to pay for incoming text-advertising, I called my phone Co., told them "Cut off texting" - "I don't need it" - they said "Costs $4.-- per month to NOT have it".... I said " you mean if I go to Sears and don't buy anything, they can charge me a fee for not shopping.??".." I'll find another Cellphone Co.".... that made them drop the fee real fast... Besides the texting has it's own language and abbreviations... + as you know "Abbreviations are getting my GOAT..." !!!... and my Memory !

If smart technology could produce something that weeds for me and cuts down junk trees, I just might consider becoming modern. Oh, and it would also have to change the oil in the car, fix the plumbing and electrical, shovel the snow in winter, mow the lawn in summer, and it would even be helpful if it had home cooked meals ready for me when I come home from a caregiving day.

I guess what I need is a hard working device, not one that's really smart.

Yes i want to get the new cable that rewinds, records makes tea!!! but no way would mum be able to figure this out already she is starting to have problems with just the old remote i have everything written down on paper if im not here but shes not taking it in and i notice tv is off when i come home as she cant figure it out?
I am not too high tech myself i have an old cd player with headphones have no idea about ipods and an crap mobile phone thats only because ive no money to get all this new stuff. My sister (b*tch) was astonished i didnt have ipod? oh youre soooooooooooooooooo not with it. Yep shes the one with thousands in the bank!!

GardenArtist, great post.... I agree 100%. I have found the computer to be a time saver as it's like having a library at my fingertips. No more running over to the library building to find something.... but it's hard to sort through what is truly real and what is nonsense on the internet.

The computer social side and websites like Aging Care has become the back fence when women use to talk to other women across the fence... but now that fence stretches worldwide.

E-mail has been great... I use to like the idea of sending a letter at midnight, but now I don't do that because too many cellphones get emails and ring the recipient. My Dad use to teach DOS language code after he retired but now that code technology has gotten away from him... how he enjoyed looking things up on the computer.... he tries now but his dial-up is like molasses when it comes to speed. He rarely does e-mail anymore.

I know I spend waaaaaay too much time on the computer.... but it's become my TV substitute because there aren't enough really good fun shows.... how I miss Carol Burnett.

On those very rare occasions of eating out, I see families with the children glued to their SmartPhones. Even 3 years old with some type of electronic devices. Hope those children get a chance to play in the dirt like I did, I had a great childhood where one had to use their imagination :)

I need to admit that I completely forgot about an important use of smart technology. While watching the evening news on the escalating ISIS situation in Iraq, I was reminded how much photos and videos contributed to the success of the Arab Spring. Now that's a really good use of the technology, to help people overthrow dictators and move forward. How much would the world really have known about what took place over there, given the dictators' restriction of press, had not the rebels been able to share via their smart devices?

Crow doesn't taste very good.

GA, The new technologies are wonderful, make life so convenient, don't need to go out for much of anything any more. Even groceries by computer. But in the process of adopting these technologies, our young people, are using electronic methods to communicate nearly everything. Their skills in personal interactions are lacking. And many parents hold some responsibility for that.

I remember holiday gatherings (there used to be some relatively pleasant ones), where when sisters hosted, their sons would disappear to the basement at one of their houses, or the family room at narc sisters house to play computer games on the tv that others would watch the football games, or just plain talk. But the noise of the kids while playing made any type of conversation nearly impossible.

It is almost as if we need another classification for seniors, those of us that are young or motivated enough to learn new technologies. In fact, my Mom was very computer proficient, spreadsheets, even had a website for her business. Then it got to the point she could not remember how to turn the computer on.

I don't think it is necessarily making life more difficult for seniors as they can opt out of what the new technology offers except in a few cases. They can still go to the bank and withdraw $$$ in person. They can pay for purchases by cash or cheque, use the house phone etc. However, using the new technology is tempting due to its convenience. Mother got a cell phone and then forgot how to use it. She never had voice mail on her house phone, but she did get a computer and used it for years. More recently she has forgotten her PIN number several times so doesn't use her ATM card any more as far as I know. In fact, for family, it was a good "heads up" that things were going sideways. On the other hand, it may make frivolous purchases easier to indulge in, and give more opportunities for fraud. Any change brings some difficulties with it. I am a senior and embrace a lot of new technology - iPhone, computer, ipad, a variety of email accounts for different purposes, online banking etc. On the whole, I find these things helpful. I am sympathetic about the confusion re the array of options in a rental car dashboard. That's what the user manual is for - and I have used it to help sig other figure some things out. He on the other hand does not trust online banking, uses his cell phone and computer for work mainly, but is slowly expanding. His parents are solid non techies - no cell phone, no voice mail, no computer... You can live without them.

I wish that appliances came with simpler displays too, Too many options on many of them.