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The digital world and OAPs ..

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As an OAP I am beginning to find the reliance on digitisation and computers intolerable. I can manage when things are going right, but more and more they are not and I am stuck in a loop of incomprehensible jargon and indecipherable instructions which never quite match the problems I'm having.

 

Is it just me?

 

I want to talk to a human voice and explain the difficulties I'm having, but no, that's not possible it seems, and when it is, it's often to someone with a thick accent, and being a bit deaf, usually impossible to understand.

 

Last time I had problems, all I got was they would send me another password by email - the trouble was because my password wasn't working I couldn't get emails... They simply had no way of getting round that it seems, so I had all the rigmarole of setting up with another provider - and that's thrown up all sorts of issues. And so it goes on...

 

I dread to think how it's going to progress as the current batch of OAPs get older with faltering memories, and start to forget things like pin numbers and passwords. It's a time bomb already starting to happen.

 

Computers are a blessing and a curse, but now it seems they are the only choice available as everything goes online. Ok if you're in an office with a IT support team, or even someone at the next desk who can tell you what to do when computer says no, but when you're home alone with no one to call on, it's a whole different and mega frustrating nightmare.

 

Rant over. I need to make a nice cup of tea (possibly with a gin in it,) and calm down...

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As an OAP I am beginning to find the reliance on digitisation and computers intolerable. I can manage when things are going right, but more and more they are not and I am stuck in a loop of incomprehensible jargon and indecipherable instructions which never quite match the problems I'm having.

 

Is it just me?

 

I want to talk to a human voice and explain the difficulties I'm having, but no, that's not possible it seems, and when it is, it's often to someone with a thick accent, and being a bit deaf, usually impossible to understand.

 

Last time I had problems, all I got was they would send me another password by email - the trouble was because my password wasn't working I couldn't get emails... They simply had no way of getting round that it seems, so I had all the rigmarole of setting up with another provider - and that's thrown up all sorts of issues. And so it goes on...

 

I dread to think how it's going to progress as the current batch of OAPs get older with faltering memories, and start to forget things like pin numbers and passwords. It's a time bomb already starting to happen.

 

Computers are a blessing and a curse, but now it seems they are the only choice available as everything goes online. Ok if you're in an office with a IT support team, or even someone at the next desk who can tell you what to do when computer says no, but when you're home alone with no one to call on, it's a whole different and mega frustrating nightmare.

 

Rant over. I need to make a nice cup of tea (possibly with a gin in it,) and calm down...

 

That's me all over Anna, suppose its just progress..

 

---------- Post added 09-09-2018 at 15:20 ----------

 

Anna nip over to I"m bored section and read post 824 on Whats knocked your duck of today, you"ll see what I mean.

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That's me all over Anna, suppose its just progress..

 

---------- Post added 09-09-2018 at 15:20 ----------

 

Anna nip over to I"m bored section and read post 824 on Whats knocked your duck of today, you"ll see what I mean.

Haha Padders, yep that's me all over :hihi:

 

Like the guy on 'I Daniel Blake' who's told to 'just use the mouse' so he starts to run the mouse up the TV screen...

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Anna B - I too am an OAP and agree with what you say. In the past I was quite tech savvy but now I really can’t be doing with it. I can cope with W10 but really just want a simple, basic operating system and would happily go back to ‘98/XP.

 

Like you, I hate it when companies go out of their way to stop you talking to a human being. My bank has done this and I am tempted to leave it but don’t want the bother. I am trying to do less on the computer but as you say, you can’t get away from it. We are utterly dependent on computers and it feels rather dangerous, especially with all these big hacks and malware that is going on.

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Anna B - I too am an OAP and agree with what you say. In the past I was quite tech savvy but now I really can’t be doing with it. I can cope with W10 but really just want a simple, basic operating system and would happily go back to ‘98/XP.

 

Like you, I hate it when companies go out of their way to stop you talking to a human being. My bank has done this and I am tempted to leave it but don’t want the bother. I am trying to do less on the computer but as you say, you can’t get away from it. We are utterly dependent on computers and it feels rather dangerous, especially with all these big hacks and malware that is going on.

Well if things did go seriously wrong with computers, it is our generation with our education in mental arithmetic and problem-solving skills that would lead the way out of the mess. LOL.

CS Forrester wrote a short story long before computers, its called The Machine Stops and is about a future where the whole World is run by a machine and then it stops working and everybody is walking around in circles, trains stop running etc. etc. Makes one wonder eh? The whole World is running on a bloody machine right now and it's only going to get more so as we move on.

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......

Is it just me?

.....

No :)

 

I'm actually OK with IT compared to a lot of people, but, sadly, much of modern software and systems are badly designed.

 

For example, one thing I'd appreciate as an autistic person, is a degree of stability: it's very stressful, once used to a system, when pointless changes are made to it- such as a logical and well understood menu system being replaced by a mobile- device-influenced collection of microscopic little icons.

 

Obviously security updates are an ongoing necessity, but this pre-occupation with altering the menus is really disorientating for many people.

 

Also the increase in things being forced on the user- Windows 10 being an example, with it being purposely designed to make it very difficult for the user to control updates. I have a laptop that cannot take one of the big updates and I've had to literally hack my own laptop to block Windows 10's constant attempts to install it.

 

It's a real shame, because well designed IT really could make life a lot easier, and, instead, it makes some things easier, whilst simultaneously making others very (unnecessarily) stressful.

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Well if things did go seriously wrong with computers, it is our generation with our education in mental arithmetic and problem-solving skills that would lead the way out of the mess. LOL.

 

If computers really went belly up, with respect, "your" generation would be able to do diddly squat with your mental arithmetic and problem solving.

 

Lets not pretend that this is some new concept and there is some generation of society in the dark about this brave new world. Its nonsense.

 

Computers have been touching our lives and moreover controlling them far far longer than just the default assumption of 90s and 00s generation of yoof.

 

Whether you like to admit it, all those allegedly superior educated OAPs are already part of that world too.

 

It was a computer that cracked the codes in WWII. It was a computer that kept the calls between the US and UK encrypted and secure from Natzi listening posts.

 

It was computers that have run our telephone system for over half a century. Direct dialing has been in existance since 1958 when most of our "OAPs" were still children.

 

It was computers who controlled our power, water and utilities since post war. Self driving computer controlled train operations were running as early as the 1960s.

 

It was computers that were running our offices, calculating our wages, totalling up our bank transactions, sorting and collating data, sending and recieving messages, engineering our infrastructure, testing our science, keeping hospitals functioning and keeping planes in the sky.

 

Just because they were not the familiar visual of a monitor and mouse does not make such equipment less of a "computer" nor less of an influence on "your" generation's life than our modern day PCs and smartphones have on our generation.

 

Even if we take what is the default perception of the "digital age" that is not a new thing either.

 

Home computers have now been mainstream for over 35 years, mobile phones for nearly 30 years. Even Google is now 20 years old with the first apple Iphone now 11 years old.

 

That's half a lifetime for some of our OAP generation and a significant number of them will have highly likely used or owned some part of that digital technology for the latter years of their working lives let alone still use such technology post retirement.

 

Whether its a good or bad thing that such power is in the hands of the machines is a debate for another time. But, lets be very clear here. If the red button was hit, old or young generations would ALL be just as stuffed. No amount of perceived superiority in maths and problem solving will change that.

Edited by ECCOnoob

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Enjoyed reading all of ECCOnoobs post, it was definitely educational. It’s made me think.

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If computers really went belly up, with respect, "your" generation would be able to do diddly squat with your mental arithmetic and problem solving.

 

Lets not pretend that this is some new concept and there is some generation of society in the dark about this brave new world. Its nonsense.

 

Computers have been touching our lives and moreover controlling them far far longer than just the default assumption of 90s and 00s generation of yoof.

 

Whether you like to admit it, all those allegedly superior educated OAPs are already part of that world too.

 

It was a computer that cracked the codes in WWII. It was a computer that kept the calls between the US and UK encrypted and secure from Natzi listening posts.

 

It was computers that have run our telephone system for over half a century. Direct dialing has been in existance since 1958 when most of our "OAPs" were still children.

 

It was computers who controlled our power, water and utilities since post war. Self driving computer controlled train operations were running as early as the 1960s.

 

It was computers that were running our offices, calculating our wages, totalling up our bank transactions, sorting and collating data, sending and recieving messages, engineering our infrastructure, testing our science, keeping hospitals functioning and keeping planes in the sky.

 

Just because they were not the familiar visual of a monitor and mouse does not make such equipment less of a "computer" nor less of an influence on "your" generation's life than our modern day PCs and smartphones have on our generation.

 

Even if we take what is the default perception of the "digital age" that is not a new thing either.

 

Home computers have now been mainstream for over 35 years, mobile phones for nearly 30 years. Even Google is now 20 years old with the first apple Iphone now 11 years old.

 

That's half a lifetime for some of our OAP generation and a significant number of them will have highly likely used or owned some part of that digital technology for the latter years of their working lives let alone still use such technology post retirement.

 

Whether its a good or bad thing that such power is in the hands of the machines is a debate for another time. But, lets be very clear here. If the red button was hit, old or young generations would ALL be just as stuffed. No amount of perceived superiority in maths and problem solving will change that.

Well, my first paragraph was a bit of tongue in cheek fun, I guess I should have made the LOL a bit bigger. The second one was to start a conspiracy theory. :help: Btw the phones might have been controlled by computers in 1958,but 3 years later John Glenn would not blast off to be the first American to orbit the Earth until Katherine Johnson manually checked the figures spit out by the then-new IBM computer, and she did find a mistake.

Btw never had a home phone until the late 70s, for what that's worth.

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Anna, if you have any specific queries, you could always ask on here. Plenty of tech savvy users on this forum who'd be happy to offer advice.

 

Also, I'm wondering if you may benefit from using a password manager; it's a small investment (money, though some are free; and also time to learn it) but well worth while.

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It’s not that old people don’t like computers and don’t recognise the usefulness of them. One of the problems is that as we get older, we do not usually like change. Onewheeldave has alluded to this in his post. Security updates aside, the big system updates that come along are often unwanted and not needed. Windows 10 has been reliable for me but I still don’t feel as comfortable with it as XP and 7. I use it as a normal computer and don’t go anywhere near the Store.The two sides juxtaposed just muddles things up. Just think they need to bring out a simple OS like XP was. TBH I use my iPad more than the computer these days.

Edited by Jomie

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No :)

 

I'm actually OK with IT compared to a lot of people, but, sadly, much of modern software and systems are badly designed.

 

For example, one thing I'd appreciate as an autistic person, is a degree of stability: it's very stressful, once used to a system, when pointless changes are made to it- such as a logical and well understood menu system being replaced by a mobile- device-influenced collection of microscopic little icons.

 

Obviously security updates are an ongoing necessity, but this pre-occupation with altering the menus is really disorientating for many people.

 

Also the increase in things being forced on the user- Windows 10 being an example, with it being purposely designed to make it very difficult for the user to control updates. I have a laptop that cannot take one of the big updates and I've had to literally hack my own laptop to block Windows 10's constant attempts to install it.

 

It's a real shame, because well designed IT really could make life a lot easier, and, instead, it makes some things easier, whilst simultaneously making others very (unnecessarily) stressful.

Every time there is an update on my wife's phone I get blamed (but a stronger word) because as you say the way of doing something has changed.

So it is a good idea to get yourself a grandchild and ignore the pitying expression on their face as in 2 keystrokes the problem is solved.

This morning I took a form into a reception area.

"Put it in the letter box over there" The young lad said

I tried to open the lid pulled at the front nothing!!!

Is it locked ? No said the young lad lifting a flap on the front. There.

Exit Davyboy looking totally thick:blush::blush::blush::blush:

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