When teaching an 82 year-old woman how to use her first smartphone, remember......

The BBQ Pit
1

… to think about what she might need. If you’re offering expert guidance in setting things up, don’t DO by way of teaching.

Show, then sit as she repeats a few times by way of teaching.

Exploit ever single option in the iOS that accommodates people who have poor eyesight, poor hearing, etc.

Mom got an iPhone a few weeks ago. I finally was in town and sat with her. She showed me what she could do and expressed frustration at what she couldn’t repeat.

None of the 3 “experts” tended the basics. Font size. Bold or plain. Brightness adjustments. Audio adjustments. How to use Safari, how to save a page. What a Bookmark is. Etc.

It’s just a personal reminder- personal cause it’s Mom- that knowing something doesn’t mean you can TEACH it. It just means you know it.

Sending her to the Apple™ ® Store again would not have worked. She tried to work with people at the Genius Bar a few times - they had zero patience. The classes? Useless. They assume a level of sophistication that borders on the Deeply Arrogant.

Mom: " How do I find a Contact of mine so I can call them up? "

Genius: " Did you know that Steve Jobs walked around the Apple ™® campus in Cupertino, California for several weeks with the first prototype of the first iPhone? He alone had one. He kept it in his pocket along with his keys and wad of hundreds.

After a few weeks he threw it on the table during a meeting with the first generation of Apple Geniuses, which back then weren’t called Geniuses but instead were called Macintoshians. He pointed out to them the fact that the entire face was scratched over by the other items in his pocket. He informed them that they had to come up with a surface that would never look like that. *******

‘Sapphire Glass doesn’t exist’, they whined. ( It was actually a 1974 Chatéau Neuf du Pape, not a whine. )

’ Well. I think some people better invent it then, hadn’t they? ’ replied The Supreme Leader. Isn’t that just so fucking cool?? Oh. Sorry. I said fucking to you. "

Mom: " I’m sorry. I just wanted to call my Son. Have a nice day. "

So. If you’re going to introduce people of any age but especially those of a generation not raised on computers, best to do it in palatable byte-sized pieces.

I’m grateful that people wanted to help out. I am. But it wasn’t much help, and last week she said she just wanted to return it and be done with it. She very much wanted a Smartphone. Was clear about it. The learning curve has to be respected.

I wish more people for whom that curve never existed because they got their first Macintosh when they were a zygote could remember that. Wearing a jet black t-shirt with a logo on it does not equal genius. It equals employment.
***** This happened**

2

I think lesson 1 should be “Take that crappy Apple product back and get a cheaper, easier smartphone”

3

This OP reads like a fine art film, in which there is a beginning, middle, and end, but not in that order.

4

I have found that introducing them to Siri makes things a lot easier.

“Siri, please call Mary at Home” is a lot easier than telling them to go to their contacts, choose Mary, then click the Home entry to dial it.

5

I’ll take that compliment !!

Buñuel or Brakhage??

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

6

I find Siri and Google voice command makes it harder. Better to keep showing her how to get to contacts with the touch screen. After many years using keys to access everything it took a ‘minute’ to get used to the screen. So time helps.

7

My father is very smart but even he is nervous around the computer, which surprises and kind of throws me off. I’ve fed him very small pieces of Excel at a time, like having him type in his balances and apply interest rates with a formula and not handwritten on a piece of paper. Then the next week, sloooowly show him how you can pull the formula down to repeat it, or copy and paste. Sloooowly.

8

Mom embraces Siri, actually. Her gal-pal, who isn’t teaching her very well, showed her how to talk to Siri. Except that Mom cannot find the button ( is there one?? ) that engages the Mic so she can talk to her phone easily and say, " Siri? Should I buy butternut squash today? "

( It’s an iPhone 6 )

Excel. Oh yes. My ex-sister in law comes over when Mom needs help tracking her Excel stuff. She cannot wrap her head around it. Must admit- I can do VERY basic spread sheet stuff. Coding? Adding? Sums? Combining? “Pivoting” ? Please. That’s math.

I don’t Math.

manson1972, I think at this point she wants to get her head around this. She does. I know her well enough ( and love her enough !) NOT to push. She’s driving this. And she clearly doesn’t want to return to her DumbPhone™.

9

Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything.

10

Not unfair in the least. I’m in agreement.

11

My mom is 88. And has health issues. Broke her hip on top of it. And they screwed it up.

I take mom to all doctors appointments because they think that she is a feeble minded old person. Not true at all. I take a pad of paper and write things down and ask questions. They REALLY pay attention now. Even asking my mom (when talking on the phone) how I’m doing. Doc either had a crush on me or was a bit worried about a lawsuit.

Sad really.

But I digress, I’ve trained a LOT of people in GIS (Geographic Info Systems), and sometimes a little history, or really just what the heck this is goes a long way. Sometimes, though, I do agree with the OP, this is what you want and how to do it. No need to know how it actually happens.

12

  1. Settings > Siri > Toggle on Listen for Siri and/or Press Home for Siri

  2. No. No day is a good day for butternut squash.

13

Look, I agree. I like my butternut squash fried in bacon grease. But Mom, she adores the stuff.

Thanks for the tip- I’ll try to get that going long-distance.

By way of playing, she opened up her browser, touched the microphone icon in the keyboard and said, " Translate ‘Unambiguous’ into French. "

:smiley:

It did as asked. She was enthralled.

14

I believe that People - regardless of Age - should understand how things work, not just rote-learning step 1, step 2, step 3 to get result A. So while I don’t tell anecdotes, I try to explain the principle and the steps. Because otherwise, People can easily Forget step 3, and not get result A.

However, what frustrates me is: a lot of Computer stuff is following steps, because Computers (Smartphones, VCRs…) are dumb machines. When I do a process daily, I remember it. When I do a process monthly, I write down all steps and look them up. So why can’t older People be bothered to write down and look up and call me every time again and again for the same Problem? (Older People write down the steps, but don’t look at it again; younger People don’t write down anything in the first place. (When I give them written-down instructions, they don’t read them).

A bigger bug: older Person tells me what they want the Computer/ Program to do - usually read their mind. I tell them “I’m not a programmer, I’m not an admin, not a power-user. I will have to search, but maybe the program doesn’t offer this function” Person doesn’t believe me and wants me to Change the Options offered by Commercial program.

15

There isn’t a button specifically for the mic. I’m not familiar with iStuff but in general either just saying “Siri” will wake her up or your Mom will need to use the general wake-up button and then call for Siri.

constanze, it’s not a matter of age. I’ve wanted to have my Queen of the World Scepter engraved with RTFM since I had that boss whose subordinates eventually knew by heart the Boss’ Manual’s page for each of the tasks Bossboy had to do once a month. Dude was 2 months younger than me.

My mother writes down my instructions. She even does so in beautiful handwriting, her penmanship not having been destroyed by years of typing. And yet, 90% of her computer problems are down to “did not read the popup” and “cannot be arsed look for her notes”. The other 10% is “godamnit kids, I told you: do NOT install stuff in your grandma’s tablet!”

16

Yes, when I explained to my mother how to use the VCR to watch old VHS cassettes, and asked her to please write it down so she would understand it. She wrote several pages - but never looked at them again. (She didn’t explain what exactly the Problem was, either).

Lots of older People seem to have the “this stuff is hard, I don’t want to bother learning it, so I ‘delegate’ it to my Kids/ grandkids” attitude.

Oh yes. “I got a notice on my Computer yesterday.”
“what did it say?”
“I don’t remember. Can you do what’s necessary?”

Aargh.
Along with “There was a Problem with program X.”
“What Problem?”
“I don’t remember. Can you fix it?”

Even if they don’t know how to make a screenshot, write Details on paper!

17

Sooooooo…an Apple Genius Bar person was clueless and arrogant!!! Wha? No way!

Likely they were playing a game with mumsy -

"Oh crap, it’s an old! I don’t want to help an old. I’ll just spew a bunch of garbage and she’ll go away.

<garbage about Steve Jobs…>

Success!"

18

Regardless of Age and Level of Computer literacy, that is shitty Service. As interesting as that anecdote is in the right context, it is completly wrong in that context.

For that matter, part of being a good (or bad) teacher/ Service worker is the ability to listen / ask back to figure out the Problem or correct question from People with not enough Computer literacy to say it in the correct Terms.

19

If I wasn’t so sure that my mother doesn’t speak German and yours doesn’t speak Spanish, I’d be convinced you’re my long-lost sister :slight_smile:

20

I’ve shown up at an Apple Store “class” thinking I’ll get help with a specific problem. Only to quickly realize that, like Cartoonigranny, I was part of a group lecture of thirty customers. Not the place for one-on-one troubleshooting. But the Genius taking up people’s time with a Steve Jobs story is delightfully douchey.

Instead, my mom (90+) now goes to the Genius Bar, and I swear they have special employees that speak Fluent Granny (shout out to “that sweet Jimmy at the Bar, he explains everything so well, did you know he has five toddlers?”)

I’d love to find an article on what happens inside seniors’ brains when they deal with technology. I’ve taught intro computer classes for decades, and I do cringe when I see grey hair walk into the classroom. Brilliant retired professors will freeze up when they face a computer, or a Smartphone. I think they’ve got “I’ll never understand this, so why even try?” ingrained.

What finally worked with my mom is to refuse to help her unless she writes down the steps very simply and boldly on the left of a page, then I’ll add an explanation of why on the right side. And I make a copy of it, so I can walk her through it remotely. Because she’ll forget the most basic things… “I know I’ve copied the typing on a web page before…”