There have been a couple of posts recently about the continual changing complexity of IT and the way we use it. A subject that bores me totally. However I know the reason that my mother was able to stay in her own home was in part down to her determination to keep up. A far while back now but in her late 80s and 90s she got to grip with online food deliveries, audiobooks etc . So have been thinking about what might be the impact on my life.
So far I have managed to do what’s needed to keep connected, but in a clunky way. Our house is not smart at all and has wires trailing all over the place. But then we have zero interest in talking to Alexa, or turning the dishwasher on from the supermarket. I’m much more interested in how to curate and store our photos.
But should I be improving my knowledge/skills and if so how? The courses available seem to be showing elderly people how to use email, so very basic.
I agree entirely. Being as I never learned anything about computers or any other device when younger as they did not really exist apart from big business, my children have had to keep me abreast of all the explosions in such stuff and help me, even from the USA where my son in law “cleans” my Mac every so often for me and keeps it all upto date even though it does most of it automatically anyway. However the one big thing that scares me more than anything else in all matters of tech is pressing the wrong button or symbol and ending up in a terrible or even financial mess so there is a lot of stuff I won’t entertain at all and having to do everything online these days especially taxes is in itself quite a stressful time even though I have a very basic amount to enter and no foreign accounts or assets to disclose, I still get very afraid to press stuff to confirm. As you say, basic courses held locally for those us of any age but not IT literate are really just the baby stuff like emails and opening pages so not a lot of use really plus the language barrier in many cases for a lot of brits here.
For me, one of the key issues is how so much these days is done on smartphones - eg people paying in the supermarket, the world and his wife wanting to send a confirmatory 2-stage PIN etc.
I am not joined at the hip to my phone. PCs I know are old technology, but I am so much more comfortable sitting here at my PC keyboard typing this than trying to fiddle around with a stupid phone keyboard. You can always tell the people on here who use phones - from the number of spelling mistakes!!!
We had computing at school (back in the dark ages)and at uni we all used computers (even if in my case only for word processing) and there were already laser printers etc. What I notice now though is that the majority of my pupils (who were born into and have grown up with IT) aren’t by any means any better at using a computer than I am and in many cases they are clueless because they don’t think. And I’m really not a whizz.
The thing that makes online functioning more difficult is when design language changes and a different approach is required to perform otherwise simple tasks. It is likely that we’ll have to keep re-learning how to do things as fresh designs keep getting pushed out to attempt to look fresh and relevant.
I bought a smartphone but I absolutely refuse to connect it to the internet or use it for anything other than receiving and sending calls and SMS and for an alarm clock and camera. When the sun shines, you can’t even see it outside to use anyway. I was in the dentist the other week and all six other people waiting were attached to their phones ,me being the only one not doing so. What has happened to conversation? I also abhor. people using them at the table too and tell them off, no need for it when there is a meal to be eaten and conversation to be had.
My hope for AI is that it will bridge the knowledge (or assumed knowledge) gap. Kinda like people use Alexa et al, we’ll be able one day to say to our intelligent interface device ‘change my address on ANEF’, or ‘register my new car on ANTS’…
Yes, I know, I’m naively optimistic but I live with hope.
Hopefully, the changes are user linked. For example, the digital movement from typing to speech activation. That SHOULD make it easier for us to use the newer technologies. We know how to speak already.
My problem is, I’m not interested in all this stuff! It’s supposed to be quicker and make life easier but it ends up doing the reverse. I actually don’t want tech running my life and dictating what I do and when, I just want it to do what it’s supposed to and keep its sodding nose out the rest of the time.
and that is where the divide starts. We don’t have the choice to say no. You go with the flow or you become disconnected and lost.
I was always on the cutting edge of tech until smartphones hit the scene a few years ago. I’m NOT a telephone person, I have a fear of talking to people, smartphones have taken over the world and I am out of the loop.
Surely a smartphone is ideal then as there’s no need to speak to anyone on it. I doubt I even make one call a week but the device is phenomenally useful. It’s really a computer that can also make calls rather than a phone.
I’m absolutely with you on one aspect of what you said: talking to Alexa. But that’s purely from a privacy perspective, as Amazon, Google, etc… have been found to use recordings to train human employees. I like what I’m saying within the walls of my house to remain private unless I choose otherwise.
However, I can see benefits from having ‘smart’ or ‘connected’ devices or whatever you want to call them. For example, having a motion detector that picks up when someone gets up in the middle of the night and switches on some lights (dimly) so the person can make their way to the bathroom without needing to turn on the big light or use their phone as a torch. Or having detectors on windows that notify you by text or WhatsApp message if you’ve left the house but not closed the windows. Or having shutters that close automatically if the temperature reaches above a certain threshold and the sun is shining, in order to keep the ambient temperature low.
Well, I’ve worked in technology as a design and development engineer all my life and I feel the same. I do understand modern technology well and use it every day, but I like to keep it at arms length. I only got my first mobile phone when I retired .
I’m in agreement with everything you’ve typed. However, not talking to alexa may not be enough. All connected devices have the capability of “listening in” to everything that goes on in your house and some of them have been proven to do so. I think we lost privacy a long time ago. There are some areas, where you’d be hard pushed to navigate without being “seen”.
You are correct, of course. And like you I now have a smartphone, which I never answer, unless it’s my wife, and use for a multitude of other reasons. They are great.
It concerns me, though, how we have to give rights to many other apps on our phones in order to use those apps.
The massive data that companies hold about us (over us) is mind boggling. Certainly glad I’m a law abiding, non-controversial, leave nothing in writing, type of guy.
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