<p>I honestly don’t have the patience to sit down with instructions on how to work these things. My sons help me sometimes, with simple things.</p>
<p>And then there’s this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1153887-technology-passing-me.html?highlight=technology[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1153887-technology-passing-me.html?highlight=technology</a></p>
<p>^^Haha, and this is the opening entry on this thread only two years ago–
</p>
<p>And I believe the next entry said they did not use an ATM and the third said they didn’t use their debit card. Haha! In this day and age, two years makes such a difference. What will it be like two years from now?</p>
<p>I still say it is getting the better of me. It is getting harder and harder to keep up NO MATTER your age.</p>
<p>It’s 2 years later and I do half of the above.(post 23) I am dreading getting a new car for all of the reasons in this thread. I don’t need any appliance/electronic/car to do 10000 fancy things of which I would probably use 2. I need it to do its intended function easily and reliably. I think most of it is marketing hype and intentional planned obsolescence. There are tons of people who always have to have the newest, coolest “thing”.</p>
<p>I also agree with the above statement that anything that requires looking and touching makes for more distracted driving. Not a complete pioneer though. Love my good power tools. :)</p>
<p>The interesting thing about editors is that vi and emacs are about 30 years older than the editors I’m used to, and yet they are recognized as some of the most productive, efficient, powerful editors in history. And in this case I have trouble going from newer tools to older tools because the mouse has become a crutch for me.</p>
<p>In many ways, technology is simplifying our use of it. I think the biggest trends in technology relevant to this thread are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Feature creep. This increases complexity. Smartphones with a bazillion apps and televisions with a bunch of inputs and settings and a huge programmable remote control to manage it all are examples. Often the best tool for getting the job done is the tool that does one thing, and does it well.</p></li>
<li><p>Consolidation. This just rearranges complexity. Why have a cell phone, a portable music player, a book reader, a notebook, and a portable hotspot when you can have a single device that fulfills all those purposes? For me, that’s a godsend because I it is intensely unpleasant for me to manage more physical objects than absolutely necessary and I’m intrigued by unification systems. For others, that eliminates the tactile response of picking up an object and using it separately from others, and it requires them to learn a new system for interacting with technology.</p></li>
<li><p>Interface simplification. This decreases front-end complexity. Sometimes it increases back-end simplicity; sometimes it decreases that too. A single-purpose tool with simple construction and a simple interface doesn’t suffer from complexity in any area. Siri, on the other hand, is intended to make the iPhone easier to use by enabling it to speak the natural language of humans. But it requires artificial intelligence that takes a lot of work to develop and is error-prone.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Yes. I can’t adapt to change quickly. I still change TV channels/volume by hand. I thought I figured out the remote last year–then it broke. We got a new one.Teenage son had to set it up. Young kid played with it and it had to be re-programmed by teenage son. Then S tried to explain what to do if this ever happens again. So complicated. Never mind. I don’t NEED a remote.
We still have a lot of video tapes that we’d like to play–and a combined video/dvd player. However, only oldest son ever once got the video player hooked up right so we could see the video in color and hear the sound. Sometimes we’ve gotten black and white, sometimes just sound, no video. When son comes to visit he never seems to have time to figure out how to switch from DVD to video tape.
Couldn’t figure out how to open garage door with keypad for 4 years after we moved into house. I changed the battery, had the right code. Just couldn’t figure it out. Asked son to look at it–30 seconds later I heard the door go up/down. Yes, there were 2 little things I didn’t know that S “intuitively” figured out instantly.<br>
Don’t have a smart phone, but I was forced to learn to text last month. I’m slow, don’t like it, but admit it is convenient at times. Can’t get used to my kids’ atrocious spelling/grammar. I would send them texts with corrections of their texts. . .
I do pay most bills on line now, but don’t really like it. (After so many years of mailing checks, I don’t feel like I’ve really “paid the bills” unless I’m writing out checks and licking/stamping envelopes. Makes me feel like I’m “forgetting something” every month.)
My kids always laugh at me and say. “Old people and technology,so sad. . .” and shake their heads.
And I’m not THAT old.
My washer died this year. I HATE my new washer. It locks. Every time. (Somewhere in the inch-thick manual, there are probably some instructions for turning off the lock. ) I just want to keep throwing in extra garments, but it can’t change the water level once it is started without starting over. Why should I trust the machine to select the water level? I hate the pre-programmed settings. I liked my old dials, where I could adjust the water level and temp to something in-between the settings by HAND in the middle of the cycle. Several times. My old machine would fill and agitate, but not spin, with the lid open. The new one has to be closed and locked for it to do anything. Waste of time to select/press “add garments” button, wait for water to turn off, pause,wait for machine to unlock, pause, open lid, throw stuff in, close lid, pause, wait for lid to lock, pause, wait for water to turn back on. . .etc.<br>
I can’t figure out why the “warm” setting is always cold. And it takes forever and doesn’t really clean the clothes well because there is no agitator. Can’t get used to it. Just want my old machine back. I have a big family and have done tons of laundry over the years.
I suspect this machine was designed by a man who never does laundry.</p>
<p>Many years ago I bought my first Macbook instead of a Dell. My kids made fun of it saying I would never learn it. Well I try hard to keep up with new phones etc. I told them this was a conscious effort to keep up with technology and to form new synapses. This is my Alzheimers prevention plan.</p>
<p>At least my child has not said to us: “old people, technology, and shake his head yet.” This is likely due to the fact that while he was growing up, I was the person who helped him set up the audio/video “entertainment” system including his game system. But I noticed that after he had been in high school, he could intuitively solve problems better than me (and I stopped following what he might do around that time.)</p>
<p>just bought a new Honda Accord, and was overwhelmed with the screens and options and setups, but with my handy 17 yr old I quickly learned how to explore the XM radio stations, set keyless entry and light options etc. It’s all electronic and touch screen. honestly once you see how to do it I realized it’s fairly simple, but I find that I am easily stumped, and sometimes just say, aw forget it. This is why we have kids, no? 
teenagers can be wonderful at helping </p>
<p>I need time to adapt but I generally enjoy using the features, personally I truly find my smartphone a fabulous device for working remotely</p>
<p>The rest of my family looks up to me for technology information. I, in turn, tell them that they’re fully capable of figuring this stuff out themselves, especially our son. There are many areas where I know more than even our son, particularly about computer architecture.</p>
<p>I consider myself reasonably tech savvy. I was on the Arpanet! I was on Prodigy! But I’ve gotten really irritated recently. The most recent update on my smartphone means I can’t find anything and they deleted some things I used so now I have to go looking for substitutes again. There are so many unused apps that I can’t find the one I do use. And why didn’t they do a “Warning! Warning!” that they were going to delete by sticky notes so that I could get the info off them onto real paper? I’ve called dh when he was out of town because I couldn’t get the TV on, and then called the next day to ask how to watch a DVD instead.</p>
<p>LOL Alzheimer’s prevention problem</p>
<p>BCeagle91, have you ever had any luck in passing what you know better (e.g., computer architecture) to your offspring?</p>
<p>I tried but mostly it was a failure. (I also had a hard time in teaching him to do tax.) Then he turned around and said a lot of his friends know a lot more about computers than him. So either these kids are willing to spend time learning this by themselves, or some “mentor” (parents, relative
or close friends, could have taught them.</p>
<p>For some new applications, I really need to learn from him.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yup. Son took computer architecture in his CS program but I keep up with some of the chip design stuff that he doesn’t keep up with. I explained process stuff to my daughter when she was surprised that computer parts can get faster and use less power at the same time. I just sent her the appropriate articles.</p>
<p>If anyone’s interested, [url=<a href=“http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/06/cashout-service-for-ransomware-scammers/]here[/url”>Cashout Service for Ransomware Scammers – Krebs on Security]here[/url</a>] is an article about ransomware and the mechanisms by which the criminal gets paid for hijacking your computer, locking it, threatening you with allegations of child porn, etc. </p>
<p>I’m far more concerned about this stuff than anything government might do.</p>
<p>Example: it will become much easier in the near future to take your personal data and aggregate that with your friends’ and relatives’ data and then analyze it for vulnerabilities.</p>
<p>
This makes me fear for humanity and malice is not the scary part.</p>
<p>I just bought a car and needed a tutorial, and I didn’t buy vey much extra. Mostly the radio, the Bluetooth, and the keyless. I didn’t buy more stuff on it, because I will never use it, same for my phone. I feel hemmed in by technology. anyone can get me at any time and I dislike it. Although being on FB was great during the Bostom marathon bombings as my D was able to get through briefly on FB messaging to let us know she was ok. I it like it to extent, but really enjoy the simplicity of my lake house where ther is only tv.</p>
<p>I’m another technologically challenged person who still has a dumb phone. DH still has a dumb phone too. Doesn’t really bother us but other people act like we’re still in the Alexander Graham Bell era. DH, an engineer is really good at figuring out gadgets/electronics,etc. He just really isn’t interested in having all that “stuff”. We both really enjoy our Kindles. </p>
<p>We bought a new car last year. I’ve learned what most of the buttons do but usually have to think about it for a few seconds before I push the button. Love the satellite radio, mp3player and built in gps features.Luckily, the heated seat requires just the push of a button!</p>
<p>BTW, best thing we ever did was get rid of the cable TV when we moved back in 1995. The kids were little and we thought it was worth a try. They saw TV at friends’ houses and we had a VCR and then a DVD player for movies (and some TV shows). We got cable 10 years later. </p>
<p>People would come over and marvel at how much fun our kids had, at how many hobbies they had and how they could amuse themselves forever on their own. I’d say: cut off the TV, not for a week but for a month minimum to give them time to get used to doing things they enjoy more than TV. A week only reinforces the need for the low cost, low payback that is TV. I don’t think any of them actually did it.</p>
<p>Are you kidding? I could cry I’m so pathetic. If my husband doesn’t turn the tv channel for me on the satelite I’m stuck watching Golf whenever he’s gone. I came home from work before him and wanted to wait until he got home to figure out what to do for dinner - turned on the tv and the golf channel was on. I tried to figure out how to change the channel and gave up, turned it off, and took a nap.</p>
<p>And really - how do you read all those tiny screens? I can’t read anything anymore - an MP3 is so beyond me. I can’t read it, can’t figure it out, I don’t even bother trying - same with a smart phone. What’s smart about a 50-something woman squinting at a tiny screen for half an hour trying to figure out how to send/receive text??? Forget it…</p>
<p>Oh! And Dvorac! I’m trying to hard to learn that it makes my brain hurt! Please send tips…</p>