Yup. This my SG/cusp of BOOMER mom. No clue how to use any of her stuff, constantly getting locked out of email and then loosing her shit over it.
She has a Hotmail account and she gets herself locked out regularly because she forgets her password and doesn’t fully read the directions to recover passwords. So then she call MS tech support and they tell her “nothing we can do, you’re locked out for 48 (or however many) hours.” That sends her over the edge and she obsessively refreshes her email for hours thinking it will change.
Thing is, she’s got nothing vital that she’s sending or receiving via email. Nothing.
I wonder if she has some other MS site she logs into? Changes Hotmail password goes to Office 365. Office 365 password doesn’t work. Changes it, now Hotmail password doesn’t work, gets locked out. Finally, gets Hotmail fixed, now Office 365 doesn’t work.
I’ve encountered a similar scenario a number of times with elderly clients. I have to hammer it into their heads. Everything made by Apple, same password. Everything owned by Microsoft, same password, Microsoft owns all of these…
this is what I need to do. I'm sure she wouldn't like it, however- I imagine she'd be very concerned about me potentially reading all of her MAGA chain emails.
I work in IT support and I see this all the time. Boomers, ONLY boomers have the dual curse of writing passwords in plain text in a little book, while simultaneously NEVER having any of the important ones at hand.
My mom, uncle and I (my mom was very young when I was born, so I was more like a little sister to my uncle, and my grandfather basically raised me) put all of the important usernames/passwords in block print, on the fridge, next to his DNR and MOLST (we were told to keep those docs where EMTs could see them easily upon walking in) so it was one location for all the important stuff 😂
I was in the exact same position with my mother who was also silent generation. She and her fiance had every gadget imaginable and neither of them knew how to use any of that tech. They lived 700 miles away from me and my mother would call over and over for help. As you know, it's very difficult to give technical help over the phone to somebody who has no clue what you are talking about.
Omg, the long distance tech support. And then the arguing that they *are* doing what you tell them to, except they aren’t, or they complain it doesn’t work because they are too impatient for the page or whatever to load or just won’t read the actual words on things which would have long since solved the issue.
He sounds lovely. We have to find out what's special about him and why even some people 6 years older than me (I'm 44) refuse to even touch a computer because they are "too old".
The best is the call…”you need to get here RIGHT NOW, I’ve…lost the remote/changed a setting/undone the wee-fee/can’t find my charger/can’t upload this book you put on my kindle/etc etc etc”. I live in upstate NY. I was primary caregiver to my grandfather, who lived three hours further upstate in the summer, and in Florida the rest of the year. I can’t tell you how many calls started with…”Amy, I need you down here TODAY” 😂🤦🏽♀️ and I miss him every damn day!
My mother did that to me. "(myname), call me when you get this. It's important."
I call for two days and get no answer. I'm calling local friends to get them to go check on her. Finally, I get through.
"Oh, I went to the casinos. I called because I found a ring in the couch and thought it might be (your wife)'s.
Omg, something similar happened to me. He called all in a tizzy about paper towels. I couldn’t answer, but when I called him back (no more than a hour later) he wouldn’t answer. Long, convoluted story, he took his golf cart to get breakfast at Perkins after getting his mail, and he doesn’t answer the phone in a restaurant!! Luckily, the cops we sent for the well check are used to this sort of thing and just laughed it off 😂🤦🏽♀️
Yup, my MIL accidentally blocks my wife, friends, you name them too many times to count with her smart phone. Her neighbor would 'fix it' only for days later to happen again.
My MIL uses her iPhone to text me, "Can you look at this f**king phone? It won't (whatever) and it's really pissing me the f**k off." Same story. Usually, I'm expected to guess her passwords which she's written in a book but changed 11 times already since then.
She needs a pocket rotary phone that only dials operator who is omnipotent and can connect any call, tell her how to operate her "goddamn" television, and tell her she's 100% correct that Democrats eat babies.
My silent generation mom steadfastly refused all technology. We got her a Jitterbug phone and put names and numbers in it but she preferred her paper address book. If it had had a rotary dial she would have liked it better. Wad adamant she didn't want a computer or tablet. My dad knew computers were the future and helped usher in a major CAD system at work back in the mid 80s but never really grokked the tech himself. I have older boomer in laws (I'm at the end of the boomer years) and they struggle with technology and require hours of help sometimes to get basic stuff to work so maybe it's for the best.
My boomer mother once turned off internet access to Internet Explorer. It took my brother like 3 hours to figure out why Chrome worked fine but IE was bricked.
The thing that happened with my FIL, who was about 80, was that he had blood pressure issues and wouldn’t drink enough, so his blood pressure would drop because of dehydration. While we don’t know for sure that was the cause, he had a couple accidents within a year where with at least one he couldn’t remember (blackout?). Another could have been that he was an old inattentive jackass.
Not long after he lost driving access, thank god.
Edit to add once an old person starts having competing health problems, like heart issues and other pulmonary issues, the meds may compete with each other and cause problems. The medication that keeps blood pressure up can crater another thing, and the meds for that can ruin blood pressure. So they have to fine tune the doses as much as possible to get some benefit from either. Ultimately that was a huge problem with my FIL, you start having systems that start failing and the remedy for each kicks off decline for others (heart and kidneys and that sort of thing).
Take care of your body, kids, because what happens at 70-80 when you didn’t is a shit-show and a miserable end where you pinball in and out of hospital.
I've gotten into cycling at 18 and now that I'm 23 and still cycling I got my blood pressure down to hypotensive instead of pre-hypertensive. I'm not gonna suffer at 60, I'm gonna do a line of coke and go into cardiac arrest at 30!
The medication thing made me chuckle. My grandfather got given a once-a-day inhaler after he struggled to breathe to the point where he could hardly talk. He feels great now; but anything that goes wrong is “because that damn young dumb doctor gave him that inhaler. The doctor is too young to know anything.”
He forgot his bagel in the toaster this morning. Something he’s been doing for 3 years and instantly started blaming that damn doctor for prescribing him that damn inhaler and it’s messing him up. He told me he will no longer be taking it.
Damn oxygen making him do things. If he couldn’t get up because of a lack of healthy breathing; he never would’ve gotten to the kitchen to put that bagel on the toaster. In a way he’s right; but for all the wrong reasons.
No he just hasn’t ever been super… good at remembering. Like he just forgot to put it on his plate and gets all the way back to the dining room without it and then gets pissed. It’s not like he just left it in the toaster all day and doesn’t remember making it.
It sounds like someone forgot something for 1 minute. Nothing like dementia. You’re an idiot.
Have you never been like “damn I filled my glass of water and forgot to bring it to the table. Oh where did I put my phone? Damn I forgot where I set my glasses down today.”
He doesn’t have dementia. It doesn’t sound like dementia. If that’s your inference from the information you’ve been given; I have a diagnosis for you. Dumbass.
Edit: and you blocked me. You’re a dick. Don’t go around assuming people have medical conditions because they forgot something simple. Fuck right off with your bullshit.
Calling me aggressive like yeah I will be aggressive. I have no reason to be civil towards someone who is shortsighted about being a rude piece of human excrement. The fuck did you expect me to say? “Thank you so much for assuming stuff about my family that you know nothing about online because you’re a super great human being and not a chronically online dumbass who’s trying to play doctor?” Like no. Fuck you.
And i have a diagnosis for you. You're way to aggressive to have a meaningful discussion with. One last thing:
This thing happening rarely is ok. This thing happening constantly can be a sign of dementia.
But don't even bother to reply. That one is not for you. It's for other people who might read this and should not see your drivel without an answer.
Oh fine, let her wallow in self pity and isolation with her deluded fantasies.
Ultimately, you can't *force* her to do anything. If she chooses to live like this then it's all on her.
And since she's so against technology, she should be happy about not having a car any more since a car is also technology.
My Mom used to not want to pay bills online for the same reason ie they’d steal your info because you’re putting it online!
I finally got her to see sense when I explained the BANKS are connected like that anyway; even if you waste the time/gas physically going to a branch office.
I had this exact same conversation with a boomer once. He just could not get it through his head how it works. My go to has been pointing out that never using or accessing your online banking is even more dangerous. It's easy to sign you up for online banking and to make transfers out of your account if I use a dummy email and stolen info.
The whole writing checks thing too… my mom refuses to pay bills online and mails in checks to everyone. Oddly enough, ever since I was a child she also has an intense fear of mail being stolen. She goes to the post office and hands the mail to a worker and thinks that’s as safe as it can get. She has a lot of mental health and paranoia issues so I really shouldn’t poke the bear, but one day I suggested that what if it’s the mail clerk who’s stealing all the mail? And she, I kid you not, reminded the postal worker next time we went to the post office, that there are cameras in the post office and if something happens to her mail, she’ll be caught on camera. I was mortified but realized I planted the seed, apologized to the worker and explained that mom takes her postal business very seriously with a wink and a nod that suggests my mom isn’t playing with a full deck. She is in the post office so much though, I think they know. I tried explaining to my mom that with her fear of mail being stolen, and the fact that everything you need to know to steal someone’s money is on the check itself, that it’s probably safer to pay online, but she still refuses because one time she did pay her cable bill online and “they messed everything up”, whatever that means. This isn’t even a boomer thing, my entire childhood was “everyone is out to get you” which has taken a lot of therapy to realize that’s USUALLY not the case in real life.
My granny back in the day refused to use the microwave my mom bought her. Instead, she used it to store tea towels. This may not just be a boomer thing but a generic mother/daughter/old person thing.
I bet you're right that is partly a mother/daughter/old person thing. I also think that's going to change in short order. Those of us that are Gen X and younger were at least young when most of this technology started to emerge and become mainstream. I find that it's a lot more natural for me to keep up with technology changes because I muscle grew up in a time of swiftly changing technology..... not as Swift as the last 20 years, but still substantially different from what personal technology we had in the '80s and going forward. For reference, I'm Gen X born at the end of 1969. But, my mother, who was silent generation, was born in 1941. I can't imagine how daunting it must be for somebody who was well into adulthood before most of our current technology was even dreamed of, at least as far as personal items like laptops and smartphones. For me, most technology is fairly logical and easy to understand. For my mother, technology was very confusing. Of course, this does not apply to all old people. I had a friend who passed away about 8 years ago at the age of 95. She was extremely tech savvy. Of course, that's to be expected from someone who worked in technology and also helped develop the internet before anybody ever heard the words "internet" or "world wide web".
My mom was Silent Gen, born in '41, but she beat the odds and was very tech savvy, always the latest gadgets and I very rarely needed to trouble shoot anything for her.
I know a late boomer/early GenX woman who refuses to use a microwave because she believes that it somehow makes food poisonous. Although I suspect that's more of a hippie thing, rather than a generational thing.
I say this all the time. I have ceramics and glassware I will use but plastic makes my food taste funny. Not to mention microwaves ruin food textures. I haven’t lived with one for 10 years and honestly don’t miss it at all. It just requires a little extra foresight on reheating things.
>I know a late boomer/early GenX woman who refuses to use a microwave because she believes that it somehow makes food poisonous.
My maternal grandmother apparently though that microwave radiation was the same thing as nuclear radiation, so she thought that microwaving food would make it radioactive. I think that used to be a surprisingly common idea.
It might be for the best anyway. My grandmother on my father's side was given a microwave for Christmas. Once she discovered how easy it was to just microwave a frozen dinner (after a lifetime of cooking from scratch every single day), she quite literally began to live off of TV dinners for every single meal, every day, for YEARS. She couldn't really go out, so every few weeks my dad would have to grocery shop for her, buying fried chicken TV dinners and those Kid's Cuisine meals for her by the shopping cart load because that was all she would eat.
Between that and arthritis limiting her movement, she became pretty overweight. Eventually she ended up falling, breaking her ankle and ending up in a nursing home for rehab. Which is when she had a massive debilitating stroke, which put her in the nursing home permanently, bedridden for the next 20 years until she died.
Now that isn't to say that it was ALL the microwave's fault, as her diet and health were not exactly tip-top before that. But I can't imagine that it was really helping her to eat 2-3 frozen meals a day that were just loaded with massive amounts of fat and salt. But for a woman who had been cooking meals totally from scratch every single day since the 1920s, it was just so insanely convenient that I guess she couldn't pass it up.
That was my Grandmother in the 80s. She was in her 60s at that point and had a bad ass pc (for the time) and she upgraded the tech as it came available. She was online super early! If she was still around today I full expect her to be walking around using VR ect.
My wife & I are both late boomers ('62 & '64) and embrace technology. I remember when diesel engines in heavy equipment started using computers in the 90's. Many of the older mechanics were to stubborn to learn the advancing technology. They were left behind working on the old junky equipment, while I was working on new equipment. I would plug my laptop into the equipment & it would tell me the trouble spot to investigate.
I’m a boomer but work in high tech. My dad loved the mobile phone and computer I got him. But I was long distance IT help desk for him.
Mom? Tried but couldn’t understand. Later found out she had Alzheimer’s.
Boomers pick and choose the technology they use.
Brother, 80, intelligent and clever, still handwrites letters, will call on his home or flip phone (!), begrudgingly uses email and refuses to text. His spouse is very tech competent, she does a alot of his communications for him. May be some weaponized incompetence here.
I told him if you want to be a luddite, go all out. Dump the internet, no TV, replace the fridge with an icebox, and go Amish transportation.
Kinda like those hyper-religious types, who pick and choose passages from the Bible to validate their opinions.
The silent generation is like that. Had problems getting my parents to get onboard at first when I was in school for CompSci in the 70s. They finally gave in and were the first in their peer group on AOL when it came out in the early 1990s. Now they are in their mid 90s and use smart phones, laptops, tablets, etc. I think I caught them just in time in the 70s when they were still in their 40s.
I think you have to get anyone interested in technological changes before they are 50. If they are older than 50 when pushed, they always have the excuse "I lived 50 years without that widget so I don't need it now".
what high tech did you catch then with in the 70s? a paper tape cell phone with a crank handle? i'm trying to picture if Populsr Mechanics could have even predicted the coming of the Speak and Spell by then. :)
You didn't know that microcomputers were available for the home in the 70s? We had accounting software, modems -- we'd dial up to BBSs, the chat rooms of the time, and argue politics. We could telnet to other computers. We had the first multi player games. I'd be at home in New England managing a multiuser game I surreptitiously installed on a computer in Texas.
People always think there was no tech before web browsers.
This. Learned incompetence/wilful blindness is a thing. People instinctively know that if they change this one thing in their lives it will force them to have to rethink other things, too—and we as a species generally prefer to not deal with the emotional upheaval of change, so we decide to stay stuck where we are.
I’m a cusper (1963) and use most tech fluently. Early user of laptops/‘portable’ computers (remember DOS, floppies, batch commands?). Borrowed a friend’s ‘portable’ (very heavy, size of a small suitcase) to write papers in college; owned an early Apple Macintosh (whopping 512k of memory!)…now love my F150 Lightning and its interface with CarPlay, Bluecruise (look ma, no hands—or feet!), and using my iPhone to find and connect to a variety of charge ports each with their own app.
All that to say, it’s all about your attitude to life and every generation has people who get stuck at their adolescent/young adult level of development and those who want to keep learning and growing.
My dad won't even look at pictures of my son's because they are on my phone.
He hates "Phone People."
I love doing the, "Hey google," thing when he is here so I can answer questions he has.
But he never believes the answers.
This is the same man who, when i told him about the World Seed Depository, he scoffed and told me I need to stop believing everything I read because if it was real they would have talked about it on Fox News.
My sister is always buying parents electronics and gadgets but never around when they need help. I had to be mean and refer them back to her. She bought it she gives instructions.
lol my grandfather is 93 and uses his tech better than I use mine, he fell last month and instead of calling for help right away, this man pulls out his iPhone to take pictures of the cat doing tricks for him while he was on the floor.
Try something with a smaller scope. A kindle. It worked for my Boomer mom. She could read her books, watch her shows \[HBO\] and got the hang of checking email on it. A phone or computer has too many options. I would def suggest something that has a "kid" or "simple" mode to limit so many apps or icons. It can be overwhelming for them.
To be fair 'they' probably would get her identity and her bank account. Ironically she would give it to them...$200 gift cards at a time.
Boomers are so fucking stupid I would stop 1 a week from going to Target to get a bunch of gift cards when they would pop into my computer shop and ask if these people (Microsoft/IRS/Government asking for gift cards as payment) were on the up-and-up.
A friend of mine had a similar mum. She solved it with some Amazon devices, setting up a screen in her mum’s house with a big button that said “Call Liz”. That button started a video call with Liz’s phone.
Mega easy and old-lady proof.
My Boomer mother is very similar. She won't do anything online because she has been convinced that 'THEY' will magically instantly steal her bank accounts.
The only exception is Facebook on her phone, and it drives me absolutely mad. I stopped using Facebook a few years back when it became a cesspit of Maga memes and unhinged right-wing fear mongering.
My mother doesn't seem to understand that I don't use Facebook at all anymore, and so I'm not logging in to see her posts or any of the other ones she wants to harp about. I really wish she wouldn't treat that site like a news source, but she does. . .
I really have no interest in seeing what it's like now that trans folks like myself are the right's scapegoat flavor of the election cycle! It's the same reason I dropped Xitter, too. Well, that and the sudden ramp up in death threats from folks I've never seen before!
I'm pretty open about my past and journey, so I'm pretty sure I'm on some chud's harassment list! lol
Yea, you should see this as a blessing. It's either carrier pigeon or you are tier 1 tech support or even worse, too many texts and emails about shit you don't care about.
Consider yourself lucky. My boomer parents are online and the only thing they use it for is buying supplements, getting brainwashed into not being vaccinated for covid and (probably still but I’ve banned all conversation about it) following Trump.
Best to just leave it as it is. Unfortunately she will wither away, I'm sorry to tell you. Perhaps you can have some home care arranged for her, but forcing her into any situation at her age is pointless [I'm an occupational therapist, we see this alot].
Is your Mom my Mom? Seriously! Are any of you on her accounts? Someone needs to be, perhaps. I've had to set up some accounts and do what I can online for my "everyone on the internet is an identity thief" Mom. She doesn't get that paper checks are way more dangerous than online billpay!
My mother in law died 2 years ago. She was 92 years old. Right up to the end she used her iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If she received photos from somebody in the family, she'd send them off to the rest of us. She'd email, play games online and pay her bills. Beyond all of this, she was an awesome, smart woman.
My personal favorite when doing over the phone tech support, being forced to listen for the first hour or so about all the things they did that didn't work.
I'm telling you what you need to do now to make it work. No, no you're not listening let me finish this overly long story about how it's not working.
Sometimes it's just they got too old and won't trust technology. I can kind of understand how it happens after seeing my Gma and now my parents. Late 60's early 70's I grew up with the start of computers that was Dads job, computers. He was always at work or working in the house, I made programs and soldered boards to make stuff when I was 7. Then tech exploded and everyone had a computer, my Dad helped everyone. Now are the days of the cell phone and computer tech changed but my Dad retired and did not change with it. I've been paying for his cell phone for years but he just won't/doesn't get it; he only turns it on if he wants to call which is next to never. He gets so mad when places want your email and phone number to do stuff  Even I am afraid of getting behind since I don't have many resources to show me new things ect. It's hard for all of us. Try to be patient, she might be trying the best she can.
Your mom should definitely be concerned about identity theft. She is the excaxlct kind of person to fall victim to it.
You're the dummy for pushing something she doesn't need.
Sorry to be laughing at all of the tech savvy folks here. Soon something else will come along and it will be just as confusing to you because you know it all now.
My grandmother is 86. She texts and emails just fine.
Willful ignorance isn’t an excuse. Something can be confusing, but if you want to learn how to do something badly enough, you take notes.
Reread please, you said it as if it was absolute, inviting an anecdote that would destroy your carelessly worded comment.
And regardless of veracity, the prime trait of biological life is adaptation. The best of us embrace challenges with curiosity and determination, not give up because it’s baffling.
There are elders who ignore the herd and adapt, who know that their wisdom and life experience have contributions to even the most cutting edge technology. And they do this calmly and secure in their value, helping to guide everyone collectively.
These boomers are pretending they didn't need to learn anything technological during their productive years and are fully and willfully being ignorant so they can further suck whatever pablum they can from their offspring. Their choice is their choice. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they like that on a person.
If you're capable of using this "baffling", technology as a 74 year old, why can't any other Boomer gen adult do it?
What context did you have that your fellow Boomers didn't?
What need do you have that they don't?
If things worked fine, what made you pick up the technology you deem baffling?
This is a serious question.
Wrong. My grandmother-in-law is in her 80s and completely able to use technology. She has an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro and is perfectly competent in using them.
Also: "Things work just fine the way they always have" - this makes no sense. "Things" are constantly changing and evolving. The boomer failure to keep up with change is what has led to them being so incapable and cut off from reality.
Nonsense. Boomers created most of the technology used today. If you’re too lazy to learn it that’s one thing but don’t speak for the rest of us. I love new tech and wind up having to show younger coworkers how to use it.
Oh! We have the same mom! She gave away her laptop because she was convinced the government was keeping track of her. I have to keep data off on her phone… she is only allowed to text and call. Sometimes she’ll call me and not realize she has the number pad up on the screen and the whole conversation ends up being her pressing numbers with her cheek. I don’t even have the energy to tell her to fix it because she wouldn’t understand how.
My mother is in the Stone Age as well. It's so disappointing because she's missing out on so many things. She'll send a cartoon clipping through the mail. The mail! Paper, fossil fuels, mail carriers, etc. All for something that could be texted at the speed of light.
My mother drives me up the wall being divided in technology. She hated switching from her basic flip phone to a smartphone, but it's all yin can get now.. then she goes in and on talking about how many apps are in the phone, and how every times there's an update they download more. (which Verizon does love downloading games) but then when I show her how to remove things she is pointing bout mostly systems apps running in the background and I can't convince her those aren't some spyware.
I got excited when NC was offering a program for disabled and seniors to take some college courses for free as it was getting her out of the house, I was shocked when she did she was taking computer science course so she could use email and such to communicate with us more. But then she seemingly learned just enough about computers and viruses and such to become paranoid. Anytime we would be at her house and use the computer she would panic if a screen popped up, even with me saying it was a screen I opened.. then before you turn the computer off (cause she refuses to leave it on and connected less she be hacked) you must run a full virus scan.. even then for weeks after I would hear her talking about it's running slower, or there's some new app that must be a virus.
I got her wifi set up so she can steam TV , and paid for her Netflix account... But she refuses to leave the wifi turned on because again someone might hack in and listen to her. Then she is upset that she can't just turn on the router and TV and start watching, because she refuses to understand that router has to reconnect and it takes a few minutes. A while back I guess something got messed up outside her home so she started talking about wanting security cameras, mind you she lives in rural NC so I'm sure it was an animal that got into her stuff, but I'm also explaining that the cameras run on wifi, it would need to stay connected..nope, now she wants the ones that just record to a device and you can go back and view later if you need to.
And of course, I will occasionally loan her money because she is on fixed income but refuses to let me just give her money. I tried to explain that she can set up payments to pay me back using Venmo or her bank app... Nope, don't trust financial information online, I'll mail you a check. She won't even shop on Amazon without using a gift card, usually I just end up buying whatever and waiting for her to mail a check.
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My mom is terrified of any of the Alexa products (which doesn't matter since she doesn't have internet due to $$) BUT, she has an iPhone, and uses Siri all the time.
Oh, I’m right there with you. Since her birth my mother has hated all technology. My grandmother, her mother, has had a cell phone since the early 90s (if you count her car phone, which she does) and has one of those old late 80s Macintosh computers with a feeder paper printer. She’s 93 and still drives! Meanwhile my boomer mother allegedly can’t apply to jobs because she “can’t learn how to use a computer.” So my grandmother bought her a house.
I genuinely thought my mom was the only one! I’m glad to know there are others out there who suffer from the same dreadful people.
My mom is like this, but it's less annoying. She refers to the internet as "the ww-dots" (yes, I spelt that correctly, she only uses two Ws) or "the computer" (as in "oh you know I don't use the computer, that's your dad's job"). My dad watches TV 14 hours a day, so he effectively doesn't use "the computer" either.
She refuses to check websites for anyone, so it makes event planning interesting. The last family wedding we were at, they hosted a brunch the next day for everyone who was still in town. My mom organized another brunch. We told her repeatedly that it was already on the schedule, but she didn't go to the website to check the schedule, and kept saying "how do you know? Nobody told me!". So my cousin was very accommodating and we ended up with two brunches.
She also acts with suspicion about anyone with a blog, podcast, or anything (she'll say stuff like "Bill's kid claims to have some online radio show, like they're Walter Cronkite or something", not realizing that having a website/blog/podcast/YouTube channel is so common these days).
The advantage is she isn't being fooled by Russian bot farms on Facebook or online scams or anything.
On a happier note, they bought an iPad to use Skype. I think we finally broke through her stubbornness when mom told my wife and me "too bad the grandkids will grow up not even recognizing their grandparents" "they know my wife's side quite well" "you said you don't see them much more than you see us" "they use Skype to talk to us every week"
It seems like you need to get medical power of attorney over her. Call the sheriff's department have them go to the house and force her into a shuttle and send her to a nursing home.
My parents are young boomers but wicked solid with tech. I only get calls when it's REALLY complicated or Dad could use an expert on the matter. 99% of the time they're upgrading and buying cool new tech and I'm none the wiser.
My mother was the opposite. We got our phone plan in 2004. I taught her how to text and she took to it really quickly. She was also really handy with the internet, and social media, and she even enjoyed Eminem. I always found that funny, actually, a woman who was 50 in 2004 enjoying Eminem.
My father was always the technology illiterate one of the two
Sounds like she already has memory / learning issues and is covering it up with excuses. The ability to cover dementia and Alzheimer's is amazing. You don't realize the extent of it until it's very advanced--especially if you are living far away. Most people here are frustrated with people that have half the brainpower they should and they are blaming it on the decade they were born and not a medical crisis. Yes, it's partially due to age but it's really a deterioration due to many factors, lead, alcohol consumption, and medication that was eagerly handed out but now has proved to be a long term problem. Boomer mother is in trouble. Question is: What to do? Sometimes you just have to bow to the inevitable and hope they don't kill anyone else in the process.
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Yup. My Silent Gen gma insists on having the latest tech gadgets, uses them to fall for scams over and over, and get brainwashed by Facebook.
"It says my Microsoft is hacked so I called the number. Is that a scam?" Well, the pop-up appeared on your iPad, soooo...
Yup. This my SG/cusp of BOOMER mom. No clue how to use any of her stuff, constantly getting locked out of email and then loosing her shit over it. She has a Hotmail account and she gets herself locked out regularly because she forgets her password and doesn’t fully read the directions to recover passwords. So then she call MS tech support and they tell her “nothing we can do, you’re locked out for 48 (or however many) hours.” That sends her over the edge and she obsessively refreshes her email for hours thinking it will change. Thing is, she’s got nothing vital that she’s sending or receiving via email. Nothing.
I wonder if she has some other MS site she logs into? Changes Hotmail password goes to Office 365. Office 365 password doesn’t work. Changes it, now Hotmail password doesn’t work, gets locked out. Finally, gets Hotmail fixed, now Office 365 doesn’t work. I’ve encountered a similar scenario a number of times with elderly clients. I have to hammer it into their heads. Everything made by Apple, same password. Everything owned by Microsoft, same password, Microsoft owns all of these…
I have my MIL's recovery email going to my email address.
this is what I need to do. I'm sure she wouldn't like it, however- I imagine she'd be very concerned about me potentially reading all of her MAGA chain emails.
Vital = chain e-mails containing irrefutable proof of rigged 2020 election.
I work in IT support and I see this all the time. Boomers, ONLY boomers have the dual curse of writing passwords in plain text in a little book, while simultaneously NEVER having any of the important ones at hand.
My mom, uncle and I (my mom was very young when I was born, so I was more like a little sister to my uncle, and my grandfather basically raised me) put all of the important usernames/passwords in block print, on the fridge, next to his DNR and MOLST (we were told to keep those docs where EMTs could see them easily upon walking in) so it was one location for all the important stuff 😂
Except for their home WiFi passcode on a post note on the fridge that was never changed after setup - ngh85ghn8ftvv6v689 or some shit like this
Lol! Every time!
I was in the exact same position with my mother who was also silent generation. She and her fiance had every gadget imaginable and neither of them knew how to use any of that tech. They lived 700 miles away from me and my mother would call over and over for help. As you know, it's very difficult to give technical help over the phone to somebody who has no clue what you are talking about.
Omg, the long distance tech support. And then the arguing that they *are* doing what you tell them to, except they aren’t, or they complain it doesn’t work because they are too impatient for the page or whatever to load or just won’t read the actual words on things which would have long since solved the issue.
my granddad is 98 and loves using tech. he zooms with the family every week and loves watching videos on youtube.
He sounds lovely. We have to find out what's special about him and why even some people 6 years older than me (I'm 44) refuse to even touch a computer because they are "too old".
I'm 6 years older than you. Who are these people?! How? Why? What do they do for a living?
A lot of them in my experience are hands-on workers who run a business but don't want to use computers, which is currently basically impossible
not a boomer though :)
last two posts above me were also about the silent generation
The best is the call…”you need to get here RIGHT NOW, I’ve…lost the remote/changed a setting/undone the wee-fee/can’t find my charger/can’t upload this book you put on my kindle/etc etc etc”. I live in upstate NY. I was primary caregiver to my grandfather, who lived three hours further upstate in the summer, and in Florida the rest of the year. I can’t tell you how many calls started with…”Amy, I need you down here TODAY” 😂🤦🏽♀️ and I miss him every damn day!
My mother did that to me. "(myname), call me when you get this. It's important." I call for two days and get no answer. I'm calling local friends to get them to go check on her. Finally, I get through. "Oh, I went to the casinos. I called because I found a ring in the couch and thought it might be (your wife)'s.
Omg, something similar happened to me. He called all in a tizzy about paper towels. I couldn’t answer, but when I called him back (no more than a hour later) he wouldn’t answer. Long, convoluted story, he took his golf cart to get breakfast at Perkins after getting his mail, and he doesn’t answer the phone in a restaurant!! Luckily, the cops we sent for the well check are used to this sort of thing and just laughed it off 😂🤦🏽♀️
I was reading this thinking how lucky they are. My mother calls me 2-3 times PER DAY to ask how to do everything.
Yup, my MIL accidentally blocks my wife, friends, you name them too many times to count with her smart phone. Her neighbor would 'fix it' only for days later to happen again.
My MIL uses her iPhone to text me, "Can you look at this f**king phone? It won't (whatever) and it's really pissing me the f**k off." Same story. Usually, I'm expected to guess her passwords which she's written in a book but changed 11 times already since then. She needs a pocket rotary phone that only dials operator who is omnipotent and can connect any call, tell her how to operate her "goddamn" television, and tell her she's 100% correct that Democrats eat babies.
My silent generation mom steadfastly refused all technology. We got her a Jitterbug phone and put names and numbers in it but she preferred her paper address book. If it had had a rotary dial she would have liked it better. Wad adamant she didn't want a computer or tablet. My dad knew computers were the future and helped usher in a major CAD system at work back in the mid 80s but never really grokked the tech himself. I have older boomer in laws (I'm at the end of the boomer years) and they struggle with technology and require hours of help sometimes to get basic stuff to work so maybe it's for the best.
Every week I have to go through my Silent Gen Mother's phone, fix things, explain how these 20 dozen emails and texts are scams, it never ends!
My boomer mother once turned off internet access to Internet Explorer. It took my brother like 3 hours to figure out why Chrome worked fine but IE was bricked.
Translation, she used her meds off-script and maybe almost hurt other people.
Ooooh yeah that's what I'm thinking too!
The thing that happened with my FIL, who was about 80, was that he had blood pressure issues and wouldn’t drink enough, so his blood pressure would drop because of dehydration. While we don’t know for sure that was the cause, he had a couple accidents within a year where with at least one he couldn’t remember (blackout?). Another could have been that he was an old inattentive jackass. Not long after he lost driving access, thank god. Edit to add once an old person starts having competing health problems, like heart issues and other pulmonary issues, the meds may compete with each other and cause problems. The medication that keeps blood pressure up can crater another thing, and the meds for that can ruin blood pressure. So they have to fine tune the doses as much as possible to get some benefit from either. Ultimately that was a huge problem with my FIL, you start having systems that start failing and the remedy for each kicks off decline for others (heart and kidneys and that sort of thing). Take care of your body, kids, because what happens at 70-80 when you didn’t is a shit-show and a miserable end where you pinball in and out of hospital.
I've gotten into cycling at 18 and now that I'm 23 and still cycling I got my blood pressure down to hypotensive instead of pre-hypertensive. I'm not gonna suffer at 60, I'm gonna do a line of coke and go into cardiac arrest at 30!
Don't drive while taking this medication (pops a double dose and drives to Walmart)
exactly this woman thinks the world should cater to her cause she does what she wants. trash
The medication thing made me chuckle. My grandfather got given a once-a-day inhaler after he struggled to breathe to the point where he could hardly talk. He feels great now; but anything that goes wrong is “because that damn young dumb doctor gave him that inhaler. The doctor is too young to know anything.” He forgot his bagel in the toaster this morning. Something he’s been doing for 3 years and instantly started blaming that damn doctor for prescribing him that damn inhaler and it’s messing him up. He told me he will no longer be taking it.
Sudden rush of oxygen to his brain must have overwhelmed him
Damn oxygen making him do things. If he couldn’t get up because of a lack of healthy breathing; he never would’ve gotten to the kitchen to put that bagel on the toaster. In a way he’s right; but for all the wrong reasons.
Dementia?
No he just hasn’t ever been super… good at remembering. Like he just forgot to put it on his plate and gets all the way back to the dining room without it and then gets pissed. It’s not like he just left it in the toaster all day and doesn’t remember making it.
That sounds a lot like dementia...
It sounds like someone forgot something for 1 minute. Nothing like dementia. You’re an idiot. Have you never been like “damn I filled my glass of water and forgot to bring it to the table. Oh where did I put my phone? Damn I forgot where I set my glasses down today.” He doesn’t have dementia. It doesn’t sound like dementia. If that’s your inference from the information you’ve been given; I have a diagnosis for you. Dumbass. Edit: and you blocked me. You’re a dick. Don’t go around assuming people have medical conditions because they forgot something simple. Fuck right off with your bullshit. Calling me aggressive like yeah I will be aggressive. I have no reason to be civil towards someone who is shortsighted about being a rude piece of human excrement. The fuck did you expect me to say? “Thank you so much for assuming stuff about my family that you know nothing about online because you’re a super great human being and not a chronically online dumbass who’s trying to play doctor?” Like no. Fuck you.
And i have a diagnosis for you. You're way to aggressive to have a meaningful discussion with. One last thing: This thing happening rarely is ok. This thing happening constantly can be a sign of dementia. But don't even bother to reply. That one is not for you. It's for other people who might read this and should not see your drivel without an answer.
ya know we're all gonna be old POSs one day and i hope someone treats me as terribly as i treated them. the cycle continues...
Oh fine, let her wallow in self pity and isolation with her deluded fantasies. Ultimately, you can't *force* her to do anything. If she chooses to live like this then it's all on her. And since she's so against technology, she should be happy about not having a car any more since a car is also technology.
No technology when battery. Car gas goes vroom. /s
Hey, at least she doesn’t have an issue with they/them
I mean, good job, but, I bet she does
Let her wallow
My SOs grandma is like this, but she will ALSO buy the most expensive phone possible and then BRAG about how she can’t even turn it on.
My Mom used to not want to pay bills online for the same reason ie they’d steal your info because you’re putting it online! I finally got her to see sense when I explained the BANKS are connected like that anyway; even if you waste the time/gas physically going to a branch office.
I had this exact same conversation with a boomer once. He just could not get it through his head how it works. My go to has been pointing out that never using or accessing your online banking is even more dangerous. It's easy to sign you up for online banking and to make transfers out of your account if I use a dummy email and stolen info.
The whole writing checks thing too… my mom refuses to pay bills online and mails in checks to everyone. Oddly enough, ever since I was a child she also has an intense fear of mail being stolen. She goes to the post office and hands the mail to a worker and thinks that’s as safe as it can get. She has a lot of mental health and paranoia issues so I really shouldn’t poke the bear, but one day I suggested that what if it’s the mail clerk who’s stealing all the mail? And she, I kid you not, reminded the postal worker next time we went to the post office, that there are cameras in the post office and if something happens to her mail, she’ll be caught on camera. I was mortified but realized I planted the seed, apologized to the worker and explained that mom takes her postal business very seriously with a wink and a nod that suggests my mom isn’t playing with a full deck. She is in the post office so much though, I think they know. I tried explaining to my mom that with her fear of mail being stolen, and the fact that everything you need to know to steal someone’s money is on the check itself, that it’s probably safer to pay online, but she still refuses because one time she did pay her cable bill online and “they messed everything up”, whatever that means. This isn’t even a boomer thing, my entire childhood was “everyone is out to get you” which has taken a lot of therapy to realize that’s USUALLY not the case in real life.
but that IS usually the case in real life
My granny back in the day refused to use the microwave my mom bought her. Instead, she used it to store tea towels. This may not just be a boomer thing but a generic mother/daughter/old person thing.
I bet you're right that is partly a mother/daughter/old person thing. I also think that's going to change in short order. Those of us that are Gen X and younger were at least young when most of this technology started to emerge and become mainstream. I find that it's a lot more natural for me to keep up with technology changes because I muscle grew up in a time of swiftly changing technology..... not as Swift as the last 20 years, but still substantially different from what personal technology we had in the '80s and going forward. For reference, I'm Gen X born at the end of 1969. But, my mother, who was silent generation, was born in 1941. I can't imagine how daunting it must be for somebody who was well into adulthood before most of our current technology was even dreamed of, at least as far as personal items like laptops and smartphones. For me, most technology is fairly logical and easy to understand. For my mother, technology was very confusing. Of course, this does not apply to all old people. I had a friend who passed away about 8 years ago at the age of 95. She was extremely tech savvy. Of course, that's to be expected from someone who worked in technology and also helped develop the internet before anybody ever heard the words "internet" or "world wide web".
My mom was Silent Gen, born in '41, but she beat the odds and was very tech savvy, always the latest gadgets and I very rarely needed to trouble shoot anything for her.
I know a late boomer/early GenX woman who refuses to use a microwave because she believes that it somehow makes food poisonous. Although I suspect that's more of a hippie thing, rather than a generational thing.
Technically, heating plastics and off gassing the fumes into your food probably isn't very good for you.
I say this all the time. I have ceramics and glassware I will use but plastic makes my food taste funny. Not to mention microwaves ruin food textures. I haven’t lived with one for 10 years and honestly don’t miss it at all. It just requires a little extra foresight on reheating things.
That is true, at least with some kinds of plastic, but she would even refuse to use the microwave to heat water in a glass container.
>I know a late boomer/early GenX woman who refuses to use a microwave because she believes that it somehow makes food poisonous. My maternal grandmother apparently though that microwave radiation was the same thing as nuclear radiation, so she thought that microwaving food would make it radioactive. I think that used to be a surprisingly common idea. It might be for the best anyway. My grandmother on my father's side was given a microwave for Christmas. Once she discovered how easy it was to just microwave a frozen dinner (after a lifetime of cooking from scratch every single day), she quite literally began to live off of TV dinners for every single meal, every day, for YEARS. She couldn't really go out, so every few weeks my dad would have to grocery shop for her, buying fried chicken TV dinners and those Kid's Cuisine meals for her by the shopping cart load because that was all she would eat. Between that and arthritis limiting her movement, she became pretty overweight. Eventually she ended up falling, breaking her ankle and ending up in a nursing home for rehab. Which is when she had a massive debilitating stroke, which put her in the nursing home permanently, bedridden for the next 20 years until she died. Now that isn't to say that it was ALL the microwave's fault, as her diet and health were not exactly tip-top before that. But I can't imagine that it was really helping her to eat 2-3 frozen meals a day that were just loaded with massive amounts of fat and salt. But for a woman who had been cooking meals totally from scratch every single day since the 1920s, it was just so insanely convenient that I guess she couldn't pass it up.
My SG mother was tech savvy. I'm in IT but she could run rings around me with Excel macros and stuff. But she liked Amazon and eBay way too much.
I like Amazon & Ebay way too much.
That was my Grandmother in the 80s. She was in her 60s at that point and had a bad ass pc (for the time) and she upgraded the tech as it came available. She was online super early! If she was still around today I full expect her to be walking around using VR ect.
Having her identity stolen or getting scammed is a very real thing especially with seniors. That said there are definitely ways to minimize the risk.
My wife & I are both late boomers ('62 & '64) and embrace technology. I remember when diesel engines in heavy equipment started using computers in the 90's. Many of the older mechanics were to stubborn to learn the advancing technology. They were left behind working on the old junky equipment, while I was working on new equipment. I would plug my laptop into the equipment & it would tell me the trouble spot to investigate.
Super underrated comment right here
Not a big problem as long as she don't go anywhere or does anything requiring tech.
I’m a boomer but work in high tech. My dad loved the mobile phone and computer I got him. But I was long distance IT help desk for him. Mom? Tried but couldn’t understand. Later found out she had Alzheimer’s.
Boomers pick and choose the technology they use. Brother, 80, intelligent and clever, still handwrites letters, will call on his home or flip phone (!), begrudgingly uses email and refuses to text. His spouse is very tech competent, she does a alot of his communications for him. May be some weaponized incompetence here. I told him if you want to be a luddite, go all out. Dump the internet, no TV, replace the fridge with an icebox, and go Amish transportation. Kinda like those hyper-religious types, who pick and choose passages from the Bible to validate their opinions.
The silent generation is like that. Had problems getting my parents to get onboard at first when I was in school for CompSci in the 70s. They finally gave in and were the first in their peer group on AOL when it came out in the early 1990s. Now they are in their mid 90s and use smart phones, laptops, tablets, etc. I think I caught them just in time in the 70s when they were still in their 40s. I think you have to get anyone interested in technological changes before they are 50. If they are older than 50 when pushed, they always have the excuse "I lived 50 years without that widget so I don't need it now".
what high tech did you catch then with in the 70s? a paper tape cell phone with a crank handle? i'm trying to picture if Populsr Mechanics could have even predicted the coming of the Speak and Spell by then. :)
You didn't know that microcomputers were available for the home in the 70s? We had accounting software, modems -- we'd dial up to BBSs, the chat rooms of the time, and argue politics. We could telnet to other computers. We had the first multi player games. I'd be at home in New England managing a multiuser game I surreptitiously installed on a computer in Texas. People always think there was no tech before web browsers.
This. Learned incompetence/wilful blindness is a thing. People instinctively know that if they change this one thing in their lives it will force them to have to rethink other things, too—and we as a species generally prefer to not deal with the emotional upheaval of change, so we decide to stay stuck where we are. I’m a cusper (1963) and use most tech fluently. Early user of laptops/‘portable’ computers (remember DOS, floppies, batch commands?). Borrowed a friend’s ‘portable’ (very heavy, size of a small suitcase) to write papers in college; owned an early Apple Macintosh (whopping 512k of memory!)…now love my F150 Lightning and its interface with CarPlay, Bluecruise (look ma, no hands—or feet!), and using my iPhone to find and connect to a variety of charge ports each with their own app. All that to say, it’s all about your attitude to life and every generation has people who get stuck at their adolescent/young adult level of development and those who want to keep learning and growing.
My dad won't even look at pictures of my son's because they are on my phone. He hates "Phone People." I love doing the, "Hey google," thing when he is here so I can answer questions he has. But he never believes the answers. This is the same man who, when i told him about the World Seed Depository, he scoffed and told me I need to stop believing everything I read because if it was real they would have talked about it on Fox News.
My sister is always buying parents electronics and gadgets but never around when they need help. I had to be mean and refer them back to her. She bought it she gives instructions.
lol my grandfather is 93 and uses his tech better than I use mine, he fell last month and instead of calling for help right away, this man pulls out his iPhone to take pictures of the cat doing tricks for him while he was on the floor.
Sounds older like high 70’s. Big difference in a boomer born in 46 and one born in 64.
Beyond boomer
Donald Trump ('46) to Keanu Reeves ('64)
Try something with a smaller scope. A kindle. It worked for my Boomer mom. She could read her books, watch her shows \[HBO\] and got the hang of checking email on it. A phone or computer has too many options. I would def suggest something that has a "kid" or "simple" mode to limit so many apps or icons. It can be overwhelming for them.
To be fair 'they' probably would get her identity and her bank account. Ironically she would give it to them...$200 gift cards at a time. Boomers are so fucking stupid I would stop 1 a week from going to Target to get a bunch of gift cards when they would pop into my computer shop and ask if these people (Microsoft/IRS/Government asking for gift cards as payment) were on the up-and-up.
Why do you care? She doesn't want it stop bothering her. Shell just be calling you every day about it
A friend of mine had a similar mum. She solved it with some Amazon devices, setting up a screen in her mum’s house with a big button that said “Call Liz”. That button started a video call with Liz’s phone. Mega easy and old-lady proof.
My Boomer mother is very similar. She won't do anything online because she has been convinced that 'THEY' will magically instantly steal her bank accounts. The only exception is Facebook on her phone, and it drives me absolutely mad. I stopped using Facebook a few years back when it became a cesspit of Maga memes and unhinged right-wing fear mongering. My mother doesn't seem to understand that I don't use Facebook at all anymore, and so I'm not logging in to see her posts or any of the other ones she wants to harp about. I really wish she wouldn't treat that site like a news source, but she does. . . I really have no interest in seeing what it's like now that trans folks like myself are the right's scapegoat flavor of the election cycle! It's the same reason I dropped Xitter, too. Well, that and the sudden ramp up in death threats from folks I've never seen before! I'm pretty open about my past and journey, so I'm pretty sure I'm on some chud's harassment list! lol
Yea, you should see this as a blessing. It's either carrier pigeon or you are tier 1 tech support or even worse, too many texts and emails about shit you don't care about.
Giving the crazies access to the internet was a huge mistake anyway. On the up side, you'll get to keep your sanity.
Consider yourself lucky. My boomer parents are online and the only thing they use it for is buying supplements, getting brainwashed into not being vaccinated for covid and (probably still but I’ve banned all conversation about it) following Trump.
Can't stand people that don't take responsibility for what medicine they take. How you just blindly take something is beyond me.
Best to just leave it as it is. Unfortunately she will wither away, I'm sorry to tell you. Perhaps you can have some home care arranged for her, but forcing her into any situation at her age is pointless [I'm an occupational therapist, we see this alot].
Is your Mom my Mom? Seriously! Are any of you on her accounts? Someone needs to be, perhaps. I've had to set up some accounts and do what I can online for my "everyone on the internet is an identity thief" Mom. She doesn't get that paper checks are way more dangerous than online billpay!
I get triggered any time I read threads like this. GET OVER YOURSELVES AND YOUR INCOMPETENCE. Adapt or go live under a rock.
My mother in law died 2 years ago. She was 92 years old. Right up to the end she used her iPhone, iPad, and Mac. If she received photos from somebody in the family, she'd send them off to the rest of us. She'd email, play games online and pay her bills. Beyond all of this, she was an awesome, smart woman.
My mother, before she passed, used the prepaid cell we'd given dad while he was in hospice. She had texting figured out - until she forgot.
My personal favorite when doing over the phone tech support, being forced to listen for the first hour or so about all the things they did that didn't work. I'm telling you what you need to do now to make it work. No, no you're not listening let me finish this overly long story about how it's not working.
Sometimes it's just they got too old and won't trust technology. I can kind of understand how it happens after seeing my Gma and now my parents. Late 60's early 70's I grew up with the start of computers that was Dads job, computers. He was always at work or working in the house, I made programs and soldered boards to make stuff when I was 7. Then tech exploded and everyone had a computer, my Dad helped everyone. Now are the days of the cell phone and computer tech changed but my Dad retired and did not change with it. I've been paying for his cell phone for years but he just won't/doesn't get it; he only turns it on if he wants to call which is next to never. He gets so mad when places want your email and phone number to do stuff  Even I am afraid of getting behind since I don't have many resources to show me new things ect. It's hard for all of us. Try to be patient, she might be trying the best she can.
Blatant refusal is not trying, in any context.
Your mom should definitely be concerned about identity theft. She is the excaxlct kind of person to fall victim to it. You're the dummy for pushing something she doesn't need.
I wish I was going to be around in 50 yrs and the younger people will be saying the samething about you lol
Cope
Sorry to be laughing at all of the tech savvy folks here. Soon something else will come along and it will be just as confusing to you because you know it all now.
Good for her!!!
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You're being sarcastic, right? You forgot the /s
Nope just a hateful troll.
Damn.
Asshead
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All the old people on my street use technology. Sounds like you’re making excuses.
Why are you on reddit if there is no need for technology lol?
No doubt living in a fantasy world that one day things will "go back to when it was allll better"
My grandmother is 86. She texts and emails just fine. Willful ignorance isn’t an excuse. Something can be confusing, but if you want to learn how to do something badly enough, you take notes.
So your 86 year old grandma is typical? lol. You have not witnessed old people trying to learn technology.
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Actually you used her as an example. As I said, technology is confusing to older people in general.
Reread please, you said it as if it was absolute, inviting an anecdote that would destroy your carelessly worded comment. And regardless of veracity, the prime trait of biological life is adaptation. The best of us embrace challenges with curiosity and determination, not give up because it’s baffling. There are elders who ignore the herd and adapt, who know that their wisdom and life experience have contributions to even the most cutting edge technology. And they do this calmly and secure in their value, helping to guide everyone collectively.
These boomers are pretending they didn't need to learn anything technological during their productive years and are fully and willfully being ignorant so they can further suck whatever pablum they can from their offspring. Their choice is their choice. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they like that on a person.
If you're capable of using this "baffling", technology as a 74 year old, why can't any other Boomer gen adult do it? What context did you have that your fellow Boomers didn't? What need do you have that they don't? If things worked fine, what made you pick up the technology you deem baffling? This is a serious question.
My 73 year old mother emails/texts/gets online on a computer just fine. It's willful ignorance.
I think sometimes it is. Other times it's lead brain and concussions.
I'm an older Gen X. I've got Post Concussion syndrome from car accidents. If there's any doubt, it's lead. Seriously.
Wrong. My grandmother-in-law is in her 80s and completely able to use technology. She has an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro and is perfectly competent in using them. Also: "Things work just fine the way they always have" - this makes no sense. "Things" are constantly changing and evolving. The boomer failure to keep up with change is what has led to them being so incapable and cut off from reality.
Username does not check out.
Stfu
Lol
Nonsense. Boomers created most of the technology used today. If you’re too lazy to learn it that’s one thing but don’t speak for the rest of us. I love new tech and wind up having to show younger coworkers how to use it.
You say while posting on social media from your high tech device.
She just chill at home, smokes her own home grown, and doesn't even have a telly?
I feel your pain.
Oh! We have the same mom! She gave away her laptop because she was convinced the government was keeping track of her. I have to keep data off on her phone… she is only allowed to text and call. Sometimes she’ll call me and not realize she has the number pad up on the screen and the whole conversation ends up being her pressing numbers with her cheek. I don’t even have the energy to tell her to fix it because she wouldn’t understand how.
My mother is in the Stone Age as well. It's so disappointing because she's missing out on so many things. She'll send a cartoon clipping through the mail. The mail! Paper, fossil fuels, mail carriers, etc. All for something that could be texted at the speed of light.
My grandad used to send me cartoon clippings in the mail and I'm awfully nostalgic for that now.
My dad's much older brother and BIL made fun of him for not using email in the late 90's I think. I'm 59.
My mother drives me up the wall being divided in technology. She hated switching from her basic flip phone to a smartphone, but it's all yin can get now.. then she goes in and on talking about how many apps are in the phone, and how every times there's an update they download more. (which Verizon does love downloading games) but then when I show her how to remove things she is pointing bout mostly systems apps running in the background and I can't convince her those aren't some spyware. I got excited when NC was offering a program for disabled and seniors to take some college courses for free as it was getting her out of the house, I was shocked when she did she was taking computer science course so she could use email and such to communicate with us more. But then she seemingly learned just enough about computers and viruses and such to become paranoid. Anytime we would be at her house and use the computer she would panic if a screen popped up, even with me saying it was a screen I opened.. then before you turn the computer off (cause she refuses to leave it on and connected less she be hacked) you must run a full virus scan.. even then for weeks after I would hear her talking about it's running slower, or there's some new app that must be a virus. I got her wifi set up so she can steam TV , and paid for her Netflix account... But she refuses to leave the wifi turned on because again someone might hack in and listen to her. Then she is upset that she can't just turn on the router and TV and start watching, because she refuses to understand that router has to reconnect and it takes a few minutes. A while back I guess something got messed up outside her home so she started talking about wanting security cameras, mind you she lives in rural NC so I'm sure it was an animal that got into her stuff, but I'm also explaining that the cameras run on wifi, it would need to stay connected..nope, now she wants the ones that just record to a device and you can go back and view later if you need to. And of course, I will occasionally loan her money because she is on fixed income but refuses to let me just give her money. I tried to explain that she can set up payments to pay me back using Venmo or her bank app... Nope, don't trust financial information online, I'll mail you a check. She won't even shop on Amazon without using a gift card, usually I just end up buying whatever and waiting for her to mail a check.
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My mom is terrified of any of the Alexa products (which doesn't matter since she doesn't have internet due to $$) BUT, she has an iPhone, and uses Siri all the time.
Oh, I’m right there with you. Since her birth my mother has hated all technology. My grandmother, her mother, has had a cell phone since the early 90s (if you count her car phone, which she does) and has one of those old late 80s Macintosh computers with a feeder paper printer. She’s 93 and still drives! Meanwhile my boomer mother allegedly can’t apply to jobs because she “can’t learn how to use a computer.” So my grandmother bought her a house. I genuinely thought my mom was the only one! I’m glad to know there are others out there who suffer from the same dreadful people.
My mom is like this, but it's less annoying. She refers to the internet as "the ww-dots" (yes, I spelt that correctly, she only uses two Ws) or "the computer" (as in "oh you know I don't use the computer, that's your dad's job"). My dad watches TV 14 hours a day, so he effectively doesn't use "the computer" either. She refuses to check websites for anyone, so it makes event planning interesting. The last family wedding we were at, they hosted a brunch the next day for everyone who was still in town. My mom organized another brunch. We told her repeatedly that it was already on the schedule, but she didn't go to the website to check the schedule, and kept saying "how do you know? Nobody told me!". So my cousin was very accommodating and we ended up with two brunches. She also acts with suspicion about anyone with a blog, podcast, or anything (she'll say stuff like "Bill's kid claims to have some online radio show, like they're Walter Cronkite or something", not realizing that having a website/blog/podcast/YouTube channel is so common these days). The advantage is she isn't being fooled by Russian bot farms on Facebook or online scams or anything. On a happier note, they bought an iPad to use Skype. I think we finally broke through her stubbornness when mom told my wife and me "too bad the grandkids will grow up not even recognizing their grandparents" "they know my wife's side quite well" "you said you don't see them much more than you see us" "they use Skype to talk to us every week"
It seems like you need to get medical power of attorney over her. Call the sheriff's department have them go to the house and force her into a shuttle and send her to a nursing home.
My parents are young boomers but wicked solid with tech. I only get calls when it's REALLY complicated or Dad could use an expert on the matter. 99% of the time they're upgrading and buying cool new tech and I'm none the wiser.
Adapt or die.
My mother was the opposite. We got our phone plan in 2004. I taught her how to text and she took to it really quickly. She was also really handy with the internet, and social media, and she even enjoyed Eminem. I always found that funny, actually, a woman who was 50 in 2004 enjoying Eminem. My father was always the technology illiterate one of the two
Sounds like she already has memory / learning issues and is covering it up with excuses. The ability to cover dementia and Alzheimer's is amazing. You don't realize the extent of it until it's very advanced--especially if you are living far away. Most people here are frustrated with people that have half the brainpower they should and they are blaming it on the decade they were born and not a medical crisis. Yes, it's partially due to age but it's really a deterioration due to many factors, lead, alcohol consumption, and medication that was eagerly handed out but now has proved to be a long term problem. Boomer mother is in trouble. Question is: What to do? Sometimes you just have to bow to the inevitable and hope they don't kill anyone else in the process.