iElder

Elder: Computer? Tablet? Or Nothing?

                One challenge I see within modern society is the increased computer usage with regards to the elderly. This is not to say that it should not happen, but if you did not understand how to use a computer, let alone the internet, how do you interact with the services you require? What are you supposed to do when you need information on the new social security plans, call social security, which you’ve done for the past 20 years, and they say “we don’t know, but you can find the information on our website…”? This is a challenge that I know my family has had with my grandparents. Years ago, in the days when a Pentium 2 was high-end and CRT TVs were how you watched TV, we bought my grandparents a computer.

                The idea was that they like going gambling a bunch, get them a computer so they can access the internet (which a few government services, insurance, and general information were increasingly moving to) and be able to play the casino games that were available (and which we bought for them). We gave them a set of instructions: “press this button, it will make noise, when you see this screen, then the computer has been started. Now press this button, located inside the large E.” (The wallpaper had a large E on it). My grandmother couldn’t understand any part of it and kept thinking it was broken. My grandfather just didn’t have the interest, there wasn’t a need to. His typewriter did the job of a printer and he visited every place he needed information on, in person. The computer sat there for years, I played the casino games when I went over their house.

                When my other grandmother started to become interested, we already were prepared for what might happen. I brought my laptop so she could try it out. She was even worse. She couldn’t even get past the login screen (we had disabled it on my grandparents computer, but my laptop had one). She was a book keeper, but did everything with pen and paper. We opted to get her “Presto”, a printer with a built in modem, specifically designed for elderly. Once a day, it would call headquarters to check for emails. If they were there, it would print them out.

                Fast forward ten years. When my grandfather goes to the bank to get his bank statement, the bank tells him “we email them to you now”. My dad prints them for him. His wife unfortunately passed, but my other grandmother is still around… with Alzheimer’s. We managed to upgrade my grandfather to an electric typewriter that had a built in strip of whiteout to fix typos when you press backspace, he has yet to run out. But now, my grandfather has watched in the short couple years how the “we don’t need this, everything is printed and available at X locations” has become “we don’t print it anymore. We went paperless and email them to you” Or “The information is online”.

                My family has played around with the idea of buying him a new computer, I’ve specifically said to get a Windows 8 computer purely because of Metro and its large type and touch screens (he would never understand a mouse). But as with many from the Depression era, when you tell them that a laptop is $400, they think it’s too expensive and want one that’s maybe $50-$100. If he wants a kids play laptop that barely does anything, we can do that. “Will Medicare pay for it?” No, no they won’t. They have their own brand, and it’s lucky it turns on and costs ten easy payments of $50. -__-

                So we’ve looked at tablets. But I’ve worried about him trying to understand apps. It’s not like they are needed, but if there are ten icons on the screen, and only one is the internet, he will probably get stuck in one and never get how to exit it. My proof is that he has a basic BREW cell phone (a flip phone for those too young to know BREW :P )… he keeps it off so the battery doesn’t die. We specifically want to keep him off Facebook and LinkedIn (he doesn’t know it exists, but if he did, then there would be a whole bunch of issues). See, years ago we had a family conflict and our “relatives” took legal action against my grandparents. My grandfather has never forgiven them and has been trying for years to get on Facebook to find them and “give them a piece of my mind”. Grandpa, that’s not the way this works.  On that note, LinkedIn has actual pictures and contact info for them, so we don’t want him on there.

                So the result is: nothing. We want to get him a computer or tablet, but we don’t know what we would do with it. Notice I said “we” and not “him”. This is because we know that he will keep it off so its battery won’t die, will struggle to get in and out of apps, and would be lucky to get to Google let alone talk online. Those fancy iPhone/iPad commercials that have some elderly individual using it? Yea, good luck. He didn’t get the concept of a “home button”. A single button. You don’t get it. HE DID NOT GET HOW TO USE A SINGLE BUTTON! Do you really expect that he will understand how to browse the internet? Do you expect a very large population of elderly individuals, with varying levels of intelligence (my grandfather “still has his marbles”), to understand them too? There are many online, but not all and with more and more information moving online, I ask:

                What do you do?