[djhworld]

I'm really surprised at the replies in this thread, some are almost patronising.

Parents might be old, but they're not dumb. People underestimate older people.

Obviously there are some vulnerable adults that need a helping hand, I get that, but try just talking and teaching, it works wonders.

The key is patience really.

[dontbenebby]

>Parents might be old, but they're not dumb. People underestimate older people.

They aren't dumb, but many in that generation are willfully ignorant.

There was a great article in the NYT recently titled "Why high class people get away with incompetence":

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/social-class-conf...

If you've gone your entire life being able to bluster away criticism or force someone to do things for you ("delegate"), it can lead to a type of person who is not teachable, and when they inevitably suffer a breach will blame everyone but themselves.

[discordance]

It's not about parents being dumb. Some of these attacks are very manipulative and convincing.

[sn9]

You say that but there's mounting research that we get more susceptible to financial scams as we age, especially in retirement years when we have the most money and make the juiciest targets.

NPR ran a series last week on the topic that was fascinating and deeply concerning [0]. It's not something you should just dismiss out of hand when we're just now starting to learn why your intuition might be wrong.

[0] https://www.marketplace.org/collection/brains-losses-aging-f...

[johnchristopher]

Yeah, well. A colleague of mine is an historian, in her early 50's I think.

For three years now she has been taking notes in her small notepad of the four same shortcuts: ctrl-A, alt-tab, etc. She still doesn't get attachments and doesn't understand the differences between a zip file and a folder (I blame windows but still...).

I think she's good at her job (research and producing articles) but she isn't catching up with the tech.

The struggle is real.

[dontbenebby]

I think part of the problem is rote memorization rather than learning concepts.

(Eg: maybe if someone learns about the context of a "task switcher" and "shortcut" they could be taught how to search for 'task switcher shortcut windows'.

Instead we train users to treat keyboard shortcuts like magical incantations. I don't think that does a service to users of any age.

[johnchristopher]

She's a knowledge worker, highly paid and was in her 20's when computers became ubiquitous.

Her education, the job she's supposed to do... it's like a carpenter who don't want to learn about electric screwdrivers.

As soon as you try to get a bit more general: “Ctrl-A works in any applications or folders or anything with multiple items... it allows you to select everything at once.” She shuts down and gets back to her task of writing stuff.

The thing is: computers aren't magical enough yet for that kind of user.

[pasabagi]

>The thing is: computers aren't magical enough yet for that kind of user.

Isn't it the other way around? Ctrl+A does nothing on my machine, because I haven't set it up to do anything.

I think the problem is that most OS's were designed with programmers in mind, then have had a kind of 'user-friendly' face lift pasted over fundamentals that have remained more or less the same. I can see why non-computer people don't want to deal with that - you engage most of the time with the user-friendly mask, but it's fundamentally incoherent and inconsistent, since it's just a mask, implemented half-heartedly, by programmers who don't use it.

Ctrl+A is basically just an incantation. When people are presented by a bunch of incantations with no logical consistency, by a machine they aren't interested in, it's unsurprising they learn the bare minimum.

[johnchristopher]

> Isn't it the other way around? Ctrl+A does nothing on my machine, because I haven't set it up to do anything.

Is that trolling ?

Dude... she's not banging some Perl in emacs... She's writing words in Microsoft Word running on a Windows like a gazillion of people do in the 9-5 workforce, with the occasional excel spreadsheets and file manipulations in explorer.

Ctrl-a, ctrl-c, ctrl-v everywhere, all the time.

It has been for 30 years. The fact it has no logical consistency (although I am pretty sure ctrl-all is a good candidate) it's not an excuse to forget about it everyday. Does she forget where the brake pedal is in her car ?

I am dev. I know computers are voodoo and run on magic.

But it's not a reason to forget how to turn it on every morning.

[ahje]

It's not about age, it's about experience and trust.

My grandfather had an interest in technology, experience in how to use UI's, and used a computer on a almost-daily basis since the late 70's up until his death a few years ago. He never had any issues telling ads/fake popups from actual system messages and so forth, and he was quite comfortable using a computer on a rather advanced level.

Some younger relatives, on the other hand, have barely touched anything without a touch interface, can't really use a web browser properly, and is pretty much limited to whatever apps they can install. They solely rely on iTunes Store/Google Play to screen stuff for them and blindly trusts anything they install from a trusted source.

If I had to choose a scamming victim from those two categories I'd go with the younger, less experienced ones.

[rossdavidh]

Just because they have problems with computers and computer-mediated technology, doesn't mean they're dumb. Lots of wisdom there. But, unfortunately, most electronic means of communication are very poorly matched to how older people have interacted with others all their life. You can believe they are very smart, and also believe they need to interact with electronics/computers/internet resources in a different way than works for the sort of people who comment in HN.

Of course, it varies depending on the person. Most often, the most reliable way of determining if an older person is comfortable with computers is to ask them. Those that find it difficult to make good decisions about passwords/phishing emails/security updates/etc., are more than willing to admit that they aren't great with computers.

[lucb1e]

Not dumb? I couldn't explain simple games like flood and untangle[0] to my grandma. She can drive a car, do online banking (learned 10 years ago), memorize facts, but any new logic seems to be beyond her or at least extremely slow. I don't know how I'll ever explain the concept of fake download links which are not memorization but I guess something like pattern recognition.

[0] https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/

[system2]

For the most elderly, tech is dark magic. They simply don't want to understand and reject the idea of using it. If they are forced to use it to survive in this modern world, they really need to have the protection of our generation. It is sad but true. We all have parents, we all want them to understand but they simply don't want to.

[LifeLiverTransp]

Libertarian core value meltdown detected. Reality intrusion isolated, injecting idealism to stabilize ideology in 3-2-1